Over at SportsIllustrated.com, Seth Davis writes that the NCAA is considering what to do about schools that hire assistant coaches or aides for the purpose of signing a stellar recruit – i.e. Baylor’s recent hiring of Dwon Clifton in hopes (obviously) of securing the services of top-shelf basketball recruit John Wall. Clifton is a coach for Wall’s AAU team. Now, Clifton is Baylor’s director of player development.
This is hardly a new practice. Go way back to the days of Derrick Hord. The former Tennessee star was followed to UK by his high school coach, Bob Chambers, who became a Joe B. Hall assistant, though after Hord was already on board. And in football, Harrodsburg defensive star Dennis Johnson signed with the Cats, then – shazzam – along came his father, Alvis Johnson, as an assistant athletics director at the school, though then athletics director C.M. Newton all but dared anyone to suggest that the two events were connected.
As has been pointed out in this space before, Kentucky wrapped up Mason County star Darius Miller only after Billy Gillispie added Tracy Webster to his staff. As an assistant at Illinois, Webster had built a great relationship with the Miller family, so great that many thought that the eventual Mr. Basketball would end up playing for the Illini.
As Davis states, such things are against NCAA rules, though they are rarely if never prosecuted. But he contends that might change.
From his piece:
"The change has begun in the NCAA's enforcement office. This spring, the NCAA created a three-person group that will be devoted to monitoring and enforcing compliance in men's basketball. This is an unprecedented move that reflects a growing concern inside the NCAA that the sport is not being conducted ethically. A prime area of concern for the group is the practice of hiring coaches to get players in blatant violation of NCAA rules.
""We recognize there's a definite issue here, and it's been growing and developing for years," says LuAnn Humphrey, the NCAA's associate director of enforcement and a member of the newly formed group. "It's very difficult at times to prove that these [hires] are being done for the specific intent to secure the recruitment of a prospect, but that doesn't mean the enforcement staff is going to turn a blind eye. We don't want to publicize how we're going to go about it, but I will say to you we're going to be a lot more aggressive in our inquiries.""
It will be interesting to see if the NCAA can make any headway on this front.
Anything Seth Davis says or writes is automatically dismissed by me as uninformed drivel. How he got the job he has is truly one of the great mysteries of life.
Seth Davis is a —–. He is right up there with Andy Katz from ESPN. They both grew up in a time period where their generation just got tired of UK winning all the time.
Well dudes, you best start accepting the fact that UK is back and is about to put you out of whack!
I think everyone can agree that Seth Davis is scum. However, he does not use UK as an example in his article. Just as I begin to enjoy some of Mr. Clay’s writings he grabs on to the coattails of the scum and drags himself down in the mire. Yes, Hord was ALREADY on board. Alvis Johnson remained an employee long after Dennis’ playing days were done. Tracy Webster already had an outstanding record as coach and recruiter. He gave UK a presence in Big10 territory we did not have. We already had very capable coaches covering the state of KY and most people really thought both KY boys Johnson & Miller would have chose to play for the HOME team w/o any extra outside coaxing and in spite of the always negative local media.
I don’t care much for Davis either, but let’s not ignore the problem.
This is apparently the second time in just a year on the job that Gillispie is has done very questionable things that border on NCAA violations.(contacting youngsters and hiring friends of recruits)
The warning signs are there, and the NCAA has an eye clearly focused on UK right now.
There are at least a thousand examples of this practice around the nation. Why would you pick out two examples at UK? Got a small thing against the cats there Seth? Did someone from UK beat you up and take your milk money?
I got so carried away with bad-mouthing Davis that I forgot to write about the issue in question.
The problem as I see it is with enforcement. There are so many ways to circumvent any legislation regarding this practice. As an example: college coach A tells high school or AAU coach B, that if he steers a certain player to his program that there will be a job for the coach. That job may be given a year later ( as has happened in the past ), in order to lessen the chance for an appearance of impropriety.
Does the NCAA legislate that any person ( coach or parent ) ever involved with a player, FOREVER ineligible to work for the University that that player chooses to attend?
That’s really the only way to put a stop to this widespread practice.
But I’ll say this; the practice is really no different than the Albert Means recruiting scandal; Means’ high school coach basically sold Means’ services to Alabama ( via a booster ) for $200,000. That was a one-time payment. In the case of an AAU or high school coach; they are taking jobs that pay $100 – 150,000 per year, over the life of a contract, which may be for several years. Of course the coach is providing a service, but is the job one that he would have ever been considered for if not for his player attending the offending University?
It’s a quandary, for sure. It will be interesting so see if the NCAA’s “three-person group” has any teeth.
I do smell an opportunity for attorneys to be the real winners here.