Waterford — Frank and Sheila Beneski are the first family of high school basketball in Connecticut, the husband-wife duo who sees hundreds of games every season and whose presence fortified the big-game feel last weekend at the Francis X. Sweeney Fieldhouse.

The Beneskis drove down from their Suffield home to watch No. 6 Trumbull and No. 7 Waterford at the "X," where more than 1,000 fans watched a beauty not decided until the buzzer. It was, in its way, a bit of Americana: the high school gym filled close to capacity and hot and noisy and kids rushing the floor, sort of a wink and a nod to a movie scene.

I've known Frank and Sheila for a few years now, certainly enough to pick their estimable brains about teams throughout the state. If nothing else, their wisdom leads to a more educated top 10 vote from yours truly in the GameTime CT poll.

We talked for a bit about kids and teams before Frank said the perception around Connecticut is that talent levels appear to be down a bit this year.

I asked why.

"Prep school," he said.

As in: There are an appreciable number of kids throughout the state that decided to forgo the remainder of high school careers to attend a prep school somewhere. It's all the rage now.

And it's really sad.

Sad that those kids and their families can't experience what the folks inside the "X" did Saturday: high school sports the way they were intended to be played and portrayed. Kids playing with their friends and for their town before what felt like the whole town watching. Not in some isolated prep school inside some dinky gym with all the atmosphere of book club, before friends, relatives and a few college coaches.

I get that kids attend prep school — and forgo high school — for reasons beyond sports. That's fine. But sports-related decisions are nothing more than an extension of societal self-indulgence. The allure of the scholarship is a bill of goods sold to parents who are turning their kids into independent contractors and not good teammates. It's as though prep school provides this mystical, esoteric experience only those with the savior faire of the inner circle realize.

We are supposed to be teaching our kids about the fruits of looking beyond their self-interests and not only acknowledge, but embrace, some greater good. I can't think of a better example for adolescents than the communal concept of playing for your town with your friends, the same kids you grew up with, for the name across the front of the uniform, not the back.

I'm growing tired of college coaches promoting the prep school culture, too. They do so because it makes their jobs easier. One-stop recruiting. And the idea that it dupes parents and robs kids of the high school sports experience? Irrelevant. It serves their self-interests.

I don't get why a kid can't have a normal high school experience with his or her friends. And then if a postgraduate year is needed? Go for it. I'd recommend a postgraduate year with the great Jere Quinn at St. Thomas More to anybody. But missing out on the privilege of wearing your school's jersey?

Sorry. You only get to be a kid once.

Kids who earn college scholarships are rare. Very rare. Certainly rarer than the number who attend prep schools and lose out on the high school experience with their friends.

If you're good enough, college coaches or pro scouts will find you, regardless of whether you attend the local high school or Panacea Prep. You always have the option of the postgraduate year, if you think the tuition is worth it. But this idea that your kid is above it all and is better off athletically, socially and emotionally in some isolated prep school — instead of with her or her friends — tugs at the fabric of what we should be teaching.

Mike Strecker, the timer at Waterford's home games, wore a wide grin in the wake of Waterford's one-point win the other day. He said, "The games just keep getting better in this place, don't they?"

They sure do. How lucky the kids are for the experience.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro