Hidden gems are few and far between in recruiting high school athletes anymore.

Web sites seemingly chart athletes from the time they're in diapers, clamoring for how fast they can make a 40-yard crawl. Fans follow top high school players like paparazzi and fret about every rumor.

Then along comes someone like Eastern High senior Willie Brown, a 6-foot-6, 210-pound three-sport star with Division I potential in football and basketball and a professional sports pedigree in his family. And the recruiting gurus are wondering how they missed him.

He's big-time under the radar," said Allen Trieu, a Michigan high school football recruiting expert for scout.com. "Willie's one of those kids who slipped through the cracks."

Brown, whose uncle is Lakers forward Kwame Brown, has blossomed into a mid-major prospect in both sports while retaining his anonymity.

But not for long.

The more tapes of his football and basketball talents have circulated in the last month, being passed along by Eastern High basketball coach Maurice Nelson and football coach Eddie Saade, the more coaches around the state have been calling about Brown. He is being recruited in football by Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Division II powerhouse Grand Valley State and is starting to draw interest from Wisconsin and Indiana; in basketball, he's being looked at by EMU, WMU, Oakland and GVSU.

Brown said he is leaning toward playing football in college because that's where the earliest interest came from, but he's also keeping his options open if the right fit comes along for basketball.

"He really is a freak of nature when it comes down to it," said Saade. "It really comes down to him being overlooked."

In football, the wide receiver-safety proved to be one of Eastern's few bright spots during a 2-9 season. With 4.4 speed, Brown proved to be a big-play receiver, catching 47 passes for 832 yards (a 17.7 yard-per-catch average) with five touchdowns. He also ran for two TDs and earned honorable mention all-state in Class A and made the State Journal's all-area Dream Team.

"I like making plays, catching the ball," said Brown, who maintains a 3.3 grade-point average but has not reached the required test scores to qualify to play next year in college. "Scoring touchdowns, that makes a man feel real good - can't nobody guard you."

In basketball, Kwame Brown is among the area leaders in scoring at more than 17 points a game and has anchored the Quakers' rebounding effort as their tallest player.

Yet few recruiting analysts or college coaches for either sport were in contact with Brown until late 2006, when much of the recruiting process for high school seniors was completed.

"I didn't find out about (Brown) until after the season," Trieu said. "Part of that is because Lansing Eastern didn't really have a lot else to look at (for recruiting), and he didn't go to any (summer football) camps, because he wasn't on our camps list.

"The biggest time for recruiting is in the summer. From now until August is when kids get discovered for next year. He missed out on a big part of that for whatever reason."

So where did Brown spend his summers?

He wasn't "smoking and drinking" - a few of the pitfalls Brown said he has managed to avoid since being suspended for a game freshman year. And it wasn't playing AAU basketball or traveling to high-profile camps.

Instead, he spent time learning from his uncle Kwame and some of his NBA and NFL friends who would play pickup games.

"In the summertime, that's where we're at, working out and stuff," Willie said. "They'd show me moves, but I can't use some of them around here because they don't play man sometimes. I just try to work on them myself."

The recent basketball buzz about Brown has caused more and more defenses in the area to double- and triple-team him in the post. But that's also a good thing for Brown because word about his talents is spreading.

"When you talk about flying under the radar," Nelson said, "(a college basketball assistant) called me and said, 'My coach is on me, he wants to know who's this Willie Brown?' He's seeing his press and seeing his stats and wanted to know what was going on."

He isn't the only one.

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