Our View-NCAA rule targeting kids too young for jock straps

Hmm, some old man in a suit visiting teenyboppers in the locker room seems creepy. An editorial about slick-assed college athletics recruiters tapping middle-school children to play college sports is a no-brainer and practically writes itself. The concept climbs to the top of the heap of things that should piss critical-thinking people off.

Have we truly become such a mindless and heartless nation of sports fanatics that we can’t wait until children enjoy a bit of childhood before we start prepping them for the big leagues?

The recent decision by the National Collegiate Athletics Association to allow college recruiters to hit on “seventh-graders” should earn the governing body a slot on the Megan’s Law website for sex offenders.

Moreover, any university representative who recruits a 12- or 13-year-old boy as a “men’s basketball prospect,” as reported Wednesday in the Daily Forty-Niner, should also be put on a pedophile watch list.

Imagine the implications with this hypothetical scenario: Little kindergartener Johnny Palin’s world-renowned hockey mom is so desperate for her boy to become a national sports figure, she “authorizes” his pediatrician to prescribe anabolic steroids to beef him up for first-grade kickball.

Before screaming “Hyperbole, hyperbole,” consider we are debating childhood development versus victory-at-all-cost; including disallowing natural development of the human mind and body to achieve the ultimate goal — maturity. The modern victor is obviously victory-at-all-cost.

It’s one thing for parents to decide to push the physical and competitive growth of their children for philosophical family reasons. Some parents prefer to place that type of burden on their kids, but usually for vicarious reasons. The carrot on the stick that puts money, competition and athletic glory above the well-being of the child, however, should be more heavily guarded.

Have we forgotten that at least one athletic protégé experienced later trauma in life? Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci won worldwide acclaim as the 14-year-old darling of the sports world by winning five gold medals in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She is still the youngest all-around champion on record, but it came at a high price.

Comaneci’s coach started grooming her for the international stage when she was 7 years old. When the sports world felt she was washed up, she was abandoned, ostracized and eventually defected from her homeland. Comaneci was left with a panacea of emotional problems — including an eating disorder — she was not equipped to deal with.

Aside from providing spot commentary during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, appearing as a contestant on Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” and a few other minor celebrity appearances, Comaneci has mostly been relegated to mediocrity.

It’s bad enough that our national craving for competitive sports allowed the old-rule NCAA standard to include recruiting high school freshmen. At least at that level most youngsters have a little fuzz on their privates.

Now it seems like it’s becoming OK to rob the cradle and coaches are lining up to change diapers in order to land a prepubescent Kobe Bryant at the tiny-tots stage. It won’t be long before they discover the “sports” gene and start designing athletes in the womb.

Mental and psychological maturity hasn’t reached physical equilibrium for most kids in high school. Critical thinking skills, competitiveness and judgment are crucial to developing young minds, but prepping children for college athletics strips kids of other options. They don’t get to explore the potential that they could be doctors, lawyers or engineers when they’re being preened primarily to be jocks.

A barrier has to be drawn somewhere for giving college recruiters access — and early puberty should be the demarcation line. That’s probably the best zone defense a society could practice. The NCAA and college coaches should respect the child as the child, not for the promise of a golden trophy. Life is not all about sports.