SVHS hoops star playing for El Salvador
By Stephen Dorman sdorman@theacorn.com

It's not uncommon for high school basketball players to spend the summer months traveling, displaying their skills at various tournaments across the state and/or nation with the hopes of catching the attention of college recruiters.

For Simi Valley High's Michael Meza, this year's summer travel experience has reached a whole new level.

Meza, who will be a senior this fall at SVHS, is currently playing for El Salvador at the COCABA Championship for Senior National teams. The sixteam tournament, which opened Wednesday in San Salvador, El Salvador, also features squads from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico.

The COCABA Championship is a preliminaryround qualifying tournament for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The top two finishers will advance to the Central Basket Tournament, where they'll face South American powerhouses such as Argentina and Brazil.

At only 17 years old, Meza is the youngest member of the El Salvador national team. Most of the other players are in their 20s, he said.

"My teammates are nice guys," Meza said. "They are very hospitable. It's been a little difficult because I don't speak fluent Spanish, but I've been able to pick up little stuff here and there."

Meza, one of two Americans on the squad, has dual citizenship. His father, Frank, was born in El Salvador. His mother, Pat, is an Italian-American born in the United States.

Two years ago, at a basketball camp in Santa Barbara, Meza met one of El Salvador's assistant coaches. The player and coach kept in contact, and when El Salvador's head coach, Enrique Samour, inquired about adding a few American-born players to the national team's roster, Meza was contacted.

"The head coach asked the assistant if there were any American-Salvadorans who were any good," Meza said. "They remembered me from the camp and invited me over."

Meza, his dad and brother arrived in El Salvador on July 11. They, along with many of the other national teams' players, are staying at an old mansion that's been converted into a hotel.

"We're in a city that used to be really nice," he said, "but over time it just kind of got messed up. Now it's a bunch of big houses that were turned into businesses."

At Wednesday's opening ceremonies, El Salvador President Elias Antonio Sara Gonzalez was in attendance. Meza compared the spectacle to an NBA game.

"They had bands playing and girls dancing," he said. "There was a parade where they walked all the teams out, and everyone lined up in front of the president before he spoke."

El Salvador won its opening contest against Guatemala. The tournament concludes Sunday.

Meza said it's been an adjustment playing the international game, where the 3-point line is further back and the key is configured differently than in the United States.

Still, he believes the experience of competing against bigger, stronger players will be a major asset when he returns for his senior year at Simi Valley.

"It's way different over here," Meza said. "I'm playing against grown men, and I'm learning that I need to get stronger. There's also all the little tricks that they have. This trip is going to help me learn a lot about how to play the game."