Magnet School

It's just after�seven when the lights flicker on at Red Bug Park, just outside Orlando. The players spill onto the asphalt of this pickup haven slowly at first, but by the time the full-court runs begin some 40 players are waiting for their turn on the court, while dozens more are happy just to watch. Most of the players on the sidelines will do more waiting than playing because one five-man team is accustomed to holding court till the lights go off at 10. That pickup squad has a trio of blue-chippers-- Nick Calathes, Chandler Parsons and Joey Rodriguez--and has ruled the Red Bug run for a couple of years now. The three stars have been doing nearly as well on their Lake Howell High (Winter Park, Fla.) team, a 2006--07 state championship favorite that has helped turn central Florida into a two-sport megastore for college recruiters. Football is still king on Friday nights in this area, but hoops is staking its claim to the rest of the week.

Calathes was in sixth grade when he first played with Rodriguez. They met Parsons at Lake Howell a few years later, and, says Calathes, "by the end of our freshman year we were doing everything together." Their chemistry off the court paid immediate dividends on it: Calathes, a smooth-shooting combo guard, and Rodriguez, a bulldog point guard, were key role players as freshmen in the Silver Hawks' run to the Division 5-A state finals in 2004, and Parsons, a 6'9" forward who joined the varsity as a sophomore, helped propel them back to the final four the following year. "We were just some skinny kids," says Parsons. "But we were beating up on everybody."

The Lake Howell program was moribund until coach Steve Kohn took over in 1989. "When I was hired, they said I should try to get to .500," he recalls. Kohn did better than that. The Silver Hawks were conference champions in Kohn's third season. "It helped that our best player lived at my house," says Kohn, whose son Josh, went on to play at UNC-Asheville. In 2003 the Silver Hawks made the first of four trips to the state final four.

In '04 Kohn handed the team over to his youngest son, Reggie, a former Silver Hawk (class of '99) who holds the school record for assists. When Reggie became director of basketball operations at the University of South Florida last summer, Steve again took over.

As SI's pick to win their first state championship, Kohn and his players will rely on a simple but proven formula: Calathes (27.2 ppg last season) scores, Rodriguez (9.2 assists) passes, and Parsons (8.5 rebounds) cleans up the mistakes. "Getting to the finals was great," says Rodriguez. "But we don't want to be the Buffalo Bills--we want to win one." A Lake Howell title would be yet another step in the emergence of central Florida as a basketball powerhouse. The area has produced several NBA stars in recent years--Tracy McGrady ( Auburndale), Vince Carter (Mainland High) and Amar� Stoudemire (Lake Wales). (Calathes and Parsons have committed to play for top-ranked Florida next season; Rodriguez with Virginia Commonwealth.) The area now has top-flight facilities such as the Disney Sports Complex, which opened in 1997 and is home to the region's AAU tournaments. Four years ago Carter donated $2.5 million to build a new gym at Mainland High.

It's getting to the point where the basketball players are even crowding the footballers on their own turf. Recently Calathes, Parsons and Rodriguez put their undefeated flag-football record on the line against a team of Lake Howell football players. "The quarterback's girlfriend was talking smack in math class," Rodriguez recalls with a laugh. The result: a 10--7 win for the hoops team. "Hey," says Rodriguez, "whatever we play, we're playing to win."