Horace Spencer staying local, remaining grounded

WARMINSTER, Pa. – The archway of the wooden double doors couldn't contain Horace Spencer III, who had to bow slightly to enter the barren, shadowy conference room. No one had arrived yet, though it was like the semicircle-varnished table he was facing, with the nameplates and vacant seats were calling him.

There were camera stands already perched and aimed. Three local TV stations had trucks parked in what would normally be a nearly vacant lot on a tranquil, lazy summer Tuesday night Centennial School Board meeting.

Only it wasn't.

Within minutes the room began to fill. Reporters from local papers sat next to microphone-wielding cameramen from Fox, CBS and NBC. There was a car with a Florida license plate outside. They all came to see amiable 6-foot-8, 200-pound eighth grader Horace Spencer "commit" to his local public high school, William Tennent. It's something the school board encouraged, and it's something everyone involved seemed extremely pleased about. It just wasn't something normally seen every day—a school board presenting an eighth grader with his jersey?

Imagine a press conference with a superstar announcing the signing of a major contract and you get the picture. The gaping difference is that this was a nervous eighth grader about to take another step in his progression as a student-athlete.

Then again, nothing surrounding Horace Spencer has ever been exactly normal. He's considered one of the best 14-year-old basketball players in the country. Perhaps the only one who doesn't know it is Horace himself. He's remained grounded – something refreshing in the me-first, accelerated world that high school athletics can sometimes be. Yet he is burdened by the "next great one" brand and he's yet to play a high school game.

Horace wants to be a 14-year-old that still enjoys watching SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora The Explorer with his young nephews and views basketball as something fun to do. Nothing more. Horace isn't crazy about the comparisons, either, "The Next LeBron James" … "The Next This" … "The Next That."

"I want to be the first Horace Spencer," said Horace, a smile beaming from his narrow youthful face, as he looked down briefly at his size 17 sneakers outside the school district building. "I thought they were going to give me a jersey tonight and that was it. I didn't expect all of this, with the TV cameras and the reporters.

"I'm 14, they treated me like some star, like I'm somebody important. I'm not. I think it's why I was nervous. I'm still a little shaken. I have to get used to all of this attention, I guess."

The comfort of home and remaining with friends ultimately overcame the lure of playing for one of the Northeast's high school basketball powerhouses.

"I'm just happy I made this decision to stay home," Spencer said. "This was really bothering me. It was bothering so much I wasn't able to go to sleep."

When you meet them, you can't help but like "Little Horace," and his dad, Horace Jr., or "Spence." The two seem inseparable. They can laugh and kid each other. They're extremely approachable. It's their pleasure to meet you, not the other way around. Horace hasn't let all the hype and hoopla get to him. He's remained disaffected by the astringent of ego. Spence won't let him.

There are no cloying sycophants that often come tethered this day and age with prodigies looking for some sort of payoff down the line. Not with Spence. He has stepped on the bugs that have tried to enter his son's life. He has a refreshing, unconventional outlook by today's standards, because Spence doesn't play the wink-wink, anything-you-need-we-can-provide game private schools were offering.

Spence never fell for the enticing lures.

Job offers from Texas, California, New York and Georgia? No thanks, we're okay. Extra jerseys and sneakers for your son? No thanks, we're okay. Packages for exotic trips like Las Vegas and Miami? No thanks, we're okay.

Horace pays for his own Whoppers when he stops in at the local Burger King. He just can't get out of the restaurant sometime. A mob of young fans cornered him one time, and it reached a point where police were called in to break up the mass scene of "kids harassing some adult."
It was actually Horace and it was something over nothing; just some local teenagers wanting a glimpse of the kid they've read and heard about throughout the Philadelphia area. Horace and Spence have been on a whirlwind rock tour that led to Tuesday, June 28 at the tiny Centennial School District building, within a three-minute walk of the Spencer house and a few hundred feet from where Horace will be spending the next four years of his life.

"This was a good choice, going to Tennent, I know my son will be taken care of," said Spence, a self-made man who's worked the last 21 years as a lab technician and takes a three-hour round trip to work and home each day. "I feel Horace has a lot of work do to and my job is to keep him as humble as possible. You see these kids in eighth grade who are told they're all-world and they stop working. I don't want that for Horace.

"We heard from a lot of different schools that wanted Horace. I take a three-hour trip every day to work. He can walk to Tennent. I didn't want that for my son going back and forth from some private school just so he could play basketball."

The fact is though that Spencer can play basketball and is an exceptional talent. He's a shot-blocking, rebounding machine who packed his tiny middle-school gym each time they played. Things grew so large that Klinger Middle School in leafy Warminster had to alter its game times from 3 p.m. in the afternoon to 7 p.m. so adults could watch him play after work.

Horace has two YouTube videos that have drawn over half-a-million hits.

"Horace hasn't played basketball that long; he's still learning how to play, but his athleticism is something you don't see in a normal 14-year-old," said Rick Barrett, Horace's AAU coach with the Gym Rats. "Horace has a chance to be super special. What's not really fair is that a lot of people are putting him there already. Horace has all the tools and what it takes to be special, and he certainly could get there. He's like the Shaquille O'Neal of his age group."

Tennent is bracing itself for the Horace tsunami to come. The Panthers received sparse support last season, when they finished 6-16 overall and near the bottom of the Suburban One League. That promises to change this year. Panthers' coach Robert Mulville is counting on it to change, along with two prominent players back, senior Jack Rauchut, Tennent's leading scorer, and junior point guard Mike Wasserleben, who played almost every minute of every game last season.

"I've never had a kid coming in this talented and just from the times I've spoken to him, Horace seems willing to listen, so I'm definitely excited about this. Why wouldn't I be?" Mulville asked. "We had a tough time getting stops late in games last year, with Horace's size and ability, he'll be able to bring that to us right away. He can limit other team's shots, which swings us in a positive direction. I think he's going to fit in fine with us. What adds to it is that Horace and his father are extremely nice people."

For the Warminster community, Horace staying home is a raging success. The Centennial School Board initiated the special presentation Tuesday night, unbeknownst to Horace and Spence. The family had the impression it was going to be a simple presentation and that was it. The school board members wanted it known that Horace will be attending William Tennent in the fall.

What was also on the school board agenda that night was a cutting-edge licensing trademark partnership with Modell's Sporting Goods, which will begin this coming school year to sell William Tennent athletic wear. It has to be pointed out that it was actually a deal that's been in the works since January 2008, before Spencer rose to prominence on the basketball summer circuit. But it coincides with nationally-known phenom joining the Tennent basketball team.

Call it another victory for a school and a school district that wasn't exactly synonymous as a basketball power BH – Before Horace. It is now, and the school board wanted to assure its newest student how grateful they were.

"We wanted to show the Spencer family they made a commitment to come here, and we wanted to make a commitment to them," said Centennial School Board member Mark B. Miller. "We knew all the private schools that were coming after Horace, but how many of those schools would have been chasing Horace without his athletic ability? This was a victory for us and to all the public schools that offer things private schools cannot. I think private schools use these kids. They use these kids to fill stadiums. We wanted Horace to tell us he was coming here and we found that out tonight."

For now, Horace has yet to watch a YouTube clip of himself and continues to move forward without the tangible knowledge of just how big he is. Spence would like to keep it that way.

"The school board thing was as much a shock to me as it was to Horace," Spence said. "It was like Horace was signing an NBA contract with the TV people there. It was kind of overboard. We really didn't want that and Horace didn't want that, either. What I do want is my son to get a quality education, and Tennent will provide that. If Horace can use basketball to go to a great college and have a better life, that's fine. My biggest priority is that my son is happy."

It appears he is. And he's made his local community extremely happy, which seems to please Horace Spencer III even more.