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GREENSBORO -- As the summer heat begins to wilt the very ground we walk on, we're reminded once again why being young is underrated.

The cars will move slower this week, in part because of traffic patterns, but mainly because the air conditioners slow them down. And the lines in and out of gas stations and swimming pools and air-conditioned malls and movie theaters will get longer as we get older and more tired just trying to avoid the heat.

So what are our young kids doing this week? They're playing football. And basketball. And soccer.

Youth really isn't wasted on the young. It's wasted on the young who try too early to emulate the old.

The annual East-West All-Star Games will be played this week as players and coaches from all over North Carolina converge on Greensboro, as they have every summer since 1949, to test themselves against each other. The heat will be a concern because, well, it's hot. But mostly because we'll be talking about it all week while the kids practice and play and compete, not against the elements, but other teams and athletes.

The games were founded by longtime Grimsley football coach Bob Jamieson and longtime News & Record sports editor Smith Barrier, both Guilford County Sports Hall of Fame members. They assumed correctly that summertime was the perfect time to invite all the coaches and the best players from around the state for a week of clinics and competitions.

Some 60 years later, they're still coming.

The games are for the players, those having just graduated from high school, and select coaches who are invited each year to participate. The clinics are for all coaches who want to come and hear teaching and coaching sessions from the best college and high school coaches in America. Clinics for 12 sports will be held this week with speakers including Jerry Moore, the football coach at Appalachian State who has won three straight national titles; Joanne P. McCallie, the women's basketball coach at Duke; Ned Skinner, the swimming coach at Virginia Tech; and Jeff Trivette, the tennis coach at UNCG.

Local coaches Herk DeGraw, Reggie Peace and Clayton Nance have been working with the N.C. Coaches Association for a long time coordinating the individual games, and it helps to make a fairly seamless transition over the decades of organizing an overall event that draws thousands of people, piles up thousands of hotel nights and restaurant tabs and brings in millions of dollars to the local economy.

"So far we've only had one player not show," NCCA president Phil Weaver said. "We're trying to find her right now. All the venues are looking good and all the little things are settled. We have our typical emergencies, but our people have been through just about everything. It's like a good coaching staff. We've had people doing the same things now for a long time. We have a lot of experience."

More than seven thousand coaches will be at the clinics, and the five games (football and boys and girls basketball and soccer) will attract people from all over the state. And for the first time, the games will be televised on Time-Warner select channels. It all seems like a massive event bringing together thousands of moving parts year after year after year.

Really, though, it's just a bunch of Greensboro guys opening the doors of the city to the athletes and coaches for an annual get-together. It's one of the things that makes this a great city.

The kids come in not worrying about the price of gas or the rising temperature. They come here representing their home town and their high school to play in games against the best players in the state.

"The kids are different every year but they're always the same," Weaver said. "They're a little nervous being around each other, a little reticent for a while. Then after two days they're like the best of buddies."

They'll all be surrounded by trainers and coaches and specialists, teachers and administrators and coordinators making sure everything is taken care of, every precaution, every piece of scheduling, transportation, meal and errand. This is one of the things Greensboro does best. We've been doing it so long, we sometimes take it for granted that it's one of the things we have that no one else has.

This is a Greensboro event, run by Greensboro people, founded by Greensboro people.

And while it's always been an adult operation behind the scenes, when the lights go on and the whistles blow, we're reminded that we do it for the players.

For one week every summer, the traditional third week in July, we open our gates and invite the best of the best into our city.

We make sure they have everything they need, then we get out of the way to let them play.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin @news-record.com