For more than a century, high school athletics have been a treasured Texas institution – molding lives, bonding communities, paving college and professional sports careers.

But in recent years, high school teams throughout the state have been diluted, divided, undermined and even superseded by an encroaching phenomenon.

Club sports.

Increasingly, kids and parents believe that non-school club organizations, also known as elite or select, are the best route to a college scholarship. Often, they are correct.

As a result, many if not most of Texas' 700,000 public high school athletes also play club sports. School officials estimate that tens of thousands of others, particularly elite soccer players and Olympic-sport athletes such as swimmers and gymnasts, bypass school sports altogether.

"Schools are fighting not against club teams; they're fighting against the greater society," contends Bill Farney, director of the University Interscholastic League, which governs sports and other extracurricular activities for Texas' 1,300 public high schools.

"They are fighting a tough battle of philosophy of the parents and the emphasis on the individual, rather than the emphasis on the values that school teams have purported all along to try to be building."

High school and club coaches say the tug of war often leaves kids caught in the middle.

Football is the only Texas high school sport that remains largely unaffected. High school basketball coaches are among the most exasperated, which is ironic because they crusaded during the early 1980s for relaxed rules for non-school sport participation.

At the time, Texas had perhaps the most stringent regulations in the country. But those rules gradually were lifted starting in 1984. Most remaining restrictions were eliminated in June 1995, when Texas legislators passed Senate Bill 1, leading UIL athletic director Charles Breithaupt to remark:

"The bottom line is that Texas has gone from being one of the most restrictive in terms of non-school participation to one of the most lenient."

Twelve years later, the landscape is dramatically different.

High school coaches are the first to agree that, athletically, Texas kids have noticeably improved – thanks largely to their ability to train year-round under specialized coaching and their parents' willingness to pay for it.

More Texas kids are earning scholarships, particularly in basketball, because they are allowed to travel and compete against top-flight athletes around the country – notably at tournaments and camps that primarily are staged for college recruiters.

"For Texas basketball, I think it raised the level of play a great deal," says Tony Johnson, who in 1996 founded the Dallas Mustangs, a non-school basketball organization that has grown to nine teams, fifth-grade level to high school. "A lot of the kids I deal with would never leave the city unless they got on one of these teams.

"I think summer basketball is better than playing high school basketball because you're playing against some of the best talent in the country. In high school, you won't even play against the best players in the state, unless you make it to the state tournament."

But along with the increased visibility and opportunities, Farney says Senate Bill 1 has produced negatives.

A Texas high school coach and administrator of 13 years, he took over as UIL athletic director in 1977 and as director in 1995. Today, because of club sports, he sees Texas schools confronting issues that he couldn't have fathomed 30 years ago:

• Basketball players being recruited by colleges not through their high school coach, but through their AAU coach.

• Baseball and softball players competing in 60 to 80 summer and fall non-school games, in addition to their 30-plus-game high school seasons.

• Girls playing high school basketball while simultaneously competing in club volleyball. In a typical week, they might have basketball games on Tuesday and Friday and volleyball matches on Saturday and Sunday while juggling practices in between.

"Physiologically, how many games can a kid play, and how much wear and tear does it have on their body?" asks Breithaupt, a former Texas high school basketball coach who succeeded Farney as UIL athletic director in 1995.

"It also leaves little time for social aspects and study. So it has some negative impact in the educational components of the student."

Farney says the UIL is getting a growing number of complaints from high school trainers who are treating injuries that they suspect are incurred in club sports. He notes that many club teams don't have trainers or require physicals.

Even so, Farney acknowledges that most high school coaches prefer their athletes compete in select sports. This seems to be especially true in baseball, where many parents say they feel pressure to pay thousands of dollars annually for select-league play and individual lessons.

The pressure, they say, is not so much from wanting their son to get a college scholarship but because they view it as a prerequisite for earning a spot on the high school varsity team – even though UIL rules prohibit coaches from requiring or even implying that.

Among team sports, the most one-sided tug of war is between club and high school soccer. One reason is that select soccer leagues were well-established before the UIL sanctioned the sport in 1983.

For the most part, elite soccer players with college scholarship aspirations are tugged toward club.

"Especially when they get to their junior and senior year," says McKinney Boyd girls coach Jimmie Lankford. "The club is primarily where they're going to be seen by the colleges.

"The perception is that if you want to go to college, you play club. School is something you do for fun."

Lankford understands both sides of the equation. He coaches two teams for the Dallas Texans, one of the country's most acclaimed select soccer organizations.

Lankford says he believes the gap between club and school is closing because, in recent years, more select coaches are getting certified as teachers and doubling as high school coaches.

Still, after coaching McKinney North to the 2006 Class 4A state title, Lankford wasn't surprised when one of his top players, Korey Taylor, decided to play only club soccer during her senior year. She had committed to Rice during her injury-filled junior season and didn't want to risk her scholarship.

MELANIE BURFORD / DMN

Kerri Hanks, who led the nation in goals and assists last season at Notre Dame, made the difficult decision to quit Allen's soccer team after her sophomore year.

Coppell's Logan May was The News' newcomer of the year in 2005 and all-area first team in 2006. But she elected not to play for Coppell as a junior last season after committing to SMU.

Former Allen High School soccer star Kerri Hanks understands how difficult that decision can be for a teenager. She quit Allen's team after her sophomore year.

"I actually lost a lot of friends because some people thought I was too cocky and I didn't care about high school," she says. "And that wasn't the case. I just wanted to better myself."

During her sophomore season, she missed numerous practices and games (including a playoff loss) while training with the U.S. under-19 national team.

Today, it is difficult to argue her decisions. As a Notre Dame sophomore last season, she led the nation in goals and assists, guided the Irish to the national title game and received the Hermann Trophy as the national player of the year. She is the first sophomore, male or female, to win the award.

"I'm definitely very happy where I've gone," she says. "If I hadn't stopped playing high school, I might have gotten burned out. And, if I hadn't gotten a scholarship, I probably would be at a community college like Collin County because my parents can't afford it.

"I knew what goals I wanted to reach, so I had to focus on what I knew could get me there."

Mike Kunstadt has played an influential role in Texas' dramatic basketball growth during the last two decades.

In 1984, as Irving High's basketball coach and president-elect of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, Kunstadt made a presentation to the UIL's athletic council.

After years of pleading, he and other basketball coaches hoped the time finally had come for Texas to join other states in allowing high school kids to participate in summer leagues and camps.

"Back then, people would say, 'Texas has some really athletic kids, but they don't know how to play basketball,' " Kunstadt recalls.

TOM FOX / DMN

College coaches and scouts occupy baseline seats at North Texas as they watch players in the Great American Shootout, a summer basketball tournament.

In the summer of 1984, the UIL started allowing high school varsity basketball players to participate in up to 20 non-school games per year. No more than three players per school were allowed to play on the same summer team.

In 1985, 49 Texas basketball players got NCAA Division I scholarships. The number jumped to 56 the following year and surpassed 80 in 1987.

When Senate Bill 1 went into law 12 years ago, it gave Texas kids the ability to play unlimited non-school games, with an unlimited number of high school teammates. Officials years ago lost count of how many Texans annually receive basketball scholarships, though most estimates are north of 200.

"The exposure part of it was critical," says Tom Inman, who coached the Plano High School boys to the 2006 Class 5A state title. "But I'm not so sure things haven't gone a little bit too far."

The UIL's Breithaupt, too, wonders if the relaxed rules are a case of "be careful what you ask for." He coached boys basketball in Texas during the 1970s and '80s and joined the UIL staff after guiding Hardin-Jefferson to the 1991 3A state title.

"We pushed for camps and leagues because we thought it would be best for our kids, and it was," he says. But he also remembers the cautionary words of an Illinois high school coach who spoke at the TABC convention in the mid-'80s.

"He said, 'You guys will rue the day that you asked for leagues. Camps are one thing because there's teaching involved. But when kids start playing in leagues you have no control over, you'll have a hard time getting them back into the concept of team because it's all about them getting a scholarship.' "

Texas basketball's present is on grand display this week in Denton, Carrollton and Argyle.

The Reebok Great American Shootout, in its 19th year, has grown to more than 300 teams from 14 states. The event's organizer is Kunstadt, who left coaching in 1988 to start a high school scouting service, Texas Hoops.

Such events provide high-caliber competition and allow players to showcase their talent to college recruiters who flock in from around the country for what amounts to one-stop shopping. College coaches spend much of July's summer evaluation period herding to similar events around the country.

"I think the plusses have far outweighed the disadvantages," says Kunstadt, who says he started the scouting service because he believed too many Texas players were missing out on scholarships because of a lack of national exposure. "Of course, any time you have a big change like this, you're going to have some people who don't get in for the right purposes."

Kunstadt and Plano's Inman are careful to point out that many summer league coaches have players' best interests at heart. But Kunstadt acknowledges "some have personal agendas to influence kids where to go. Some of them have their hands out, trying to get things from colleges that colleges shouldn't provide them."

Inman goes a step further. "It's pimping," he says. He says some select coaches not only try to influence where players attend college but also high school. Transferring high schools for athletic purposes is against UIL rules.

"It's reprehensible," Inman says, citing the case of a Plano freshman who wound up attending nine high schools. "It almost becomes a part-time job to protect your kids from unsavory elements."

Farney and Breithaupt say the issue has become a huge headache, with money the root of the problem – the hundreds of dollars in fees that parents pay non-school coaches; the thousands that can be saved if a player earns a scholarship.

"So many of these kids are being misled that they'll get a Division I scholarship," Breithaupt says. "You stop and think about the kids who decide to play on a specific AAU team or change his high school to better himself because that's what the non-school coach told them to do. They end up being left out."

LOUIS DELUCA / DMN

Dallas Mustangs coach Tony Johnson talks with his players during a timeout. Eleven of Johnson's players received Division I scholarships in 2006-07.

The Dallas Mustangs' Johnson has heard such complaints for years, but he says he has a good relationship with area high school coaches. He points out that the 11 Mustangs who received Division I scholarships in 2006-07 came from more than a half-dozen high schools.

"The kids play with me in the summer, and they play with their high school team during the season," he says. "I don't have any disagreement with any high school coaches."

Johnson says high school coaches should be grateful because he believes non-school competition has improved the quality of Texas players, which has raised the level of high school play. He points out that summer ball keeps kids out of gangs and focused on school but acknowledges that kids today regard high school basketball much differently.

"You've got these kids trying to choose what high school is going to be best for them now," he says. "The kids are treating it like college now."

Farney says all the UIL can do is monitor and address issues case by case, but he sees little way for rules to be rolled back to pre-Senate Bill 1 days because "it's just really hard to say no after you've said yes."

So, who is winning the tug of war?

"Well, you give the call," he says. "Right now, it would seem like a good athlete can do pretty much what they want to."