San Pasqual’s Meek Signs to Attend Duke

ESCONDIDO —  Looking a little spent, San Pasqual center Erik Meek ended his four-year battle with college recruiters by officially signing Thursday with the Duke Blue Devils in front his friends and family.

Meek, 6-foot-10, said he chose Duke over Kansas, Vanderbilt and Stanford because of the Atlantic Coast Conference school’s strong reputation for academics and basketball. The Blue Devils have been to the Final Four four of the past five years.

“It’s a question of how good do you want to be?” Meek said. “Duke is at the top right now. I asked myself how much better would you get if you played against great players in practice every day. I didn’t see it as a situation where they had so many players I wouldn’t get to play.”

Meek said he was impressed with Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski.

“He’s real down to earth,” he said. “He was real straight with me. I was happy to get to know him as a person.”

Joining Meek at Duke will be 6-11 Cherokee Parks of Huntington Beach’s Marina High, who also signed a letter of intent Wednesday. Meek said he is happy that he will teaming up with Parks.

“I felt that we could both play (at Duke),” said Meek, who averaged 28.5 points and 12.5 rebounds a game last year. “At Duke, the four and five spots are kind of the same thing. And I’d like to be able to be more versatile.”

Parks said he believes he and Meek can coexist on the court.

“It depends on how both of us mature,” Parks said. “We could go with a two-man inside game.”

Meek did not say which school was his second choice, but he did say San Diego State and the University of San Diego were never in the picture.

“You look across the country and see how big basketball is some of these places,” he said. “I wanted to go somewhere where there’s a lot support for basketball.”

San Pasqual Coach Tom Buck said his standout player can now concentrate on basketball.

“I can tell right now that this is a big weight off his shoulders,” Buck said. “I haven’t seen him smile in a while. He looks like a different person.”

San Pasqual opens its season Dec. 5 in the Grossmont Tournament against Helix High. Meek’s new fans will see him when San Pasqual travels back to Raleigh, N.C., for a tournament Dec. 27.