MOtorboat
11-19-2008, 07:37 PM
I think this is an excellent article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?id=3710807
Gray scale: Recruiters struggle with perfectly legal yet ethically questionable
By Dana O'Neil
ESPN.com
Nearly 20 years ago, Eddie Sutton resigned as Kentucky coach after a package sent from assistant Dwane Casey to the father of recruit Chris Mills opened in transit, spilling $1,000 for all to see.
Pardon some coaches if they wax nostalgic for the days gone by, when rule breaking was clear-cut and obvious.
Like the evolution from Chuck Taylors to Air Jordans, the art of cheating has been refined and streamlined.
Sure, rules still are being flat-out broken the old-fashioned way, but the new wave sweeping the game is rule circumvention, not rule breaking. Clever coaches are employing a strong grip on semantics to expose loopholes and reinterpret rules to their benefit.
It's not so much cheating as it's, well …
"You mean shady?" Texas Tech coach Pat Knight supplied.
Here's some ways cheating is made in the shade these days:
Carefully choreographed elite camps; travel team coaches suddenly ending up on college benches with their super-stud players conveniently going along for the ride; speaking fees for those same coaches at colleges that just happen to be recruiting their players. It's all ethically questionable yet mostly on the up-and-up.
Why break a rule and buy a kid a hamburger when you can obey a rule and buy his coach?
"People are always going to work the gray areas," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "Most people if they've had any success in life have learned how to work the gray areas."
Guided by the security that no foul equates to no harm, coaches are pretzel-bending the NCAA bylaws, using a wink and Cheshire cat grin to trample and shred the original intent of the rulebook.
"Instead of having a really good skill instructor on your staff, you're better off with a lawyer who can parse the rulebook," Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. "You need someone who can say, 'I got it. Eureka! I got the loophole.'"
But the perfectly legal yet ethically questionable choices are causing a growing divide among college basketball people.
On one side are those who argue that they're being attacked yet technically haven't done anything wrong. This isn't about clandestine meetings or dark alley exchanges. Everything people are railing about is done in broad daylight because everything is within the framework of the rules.
"I don't even know why we're talking about this," said Larry Orton, the father of top recruit Daniel Orton, who has been sucked into the maelstrom thanks to his son's recruitment at Kentucky. "It's all legal. It's perfectly legal."
But on the other side is a growing number of coaches -- Martelli among them -- who see things a little differently. They don't see clever coaches so much as they see master manipulators, people who carelessly blur the ethical lines of the game without an interest in anything more than self-preservation.
They also see coaches who play by the rules fired for lack of production and coaches who report other coaches ostracized.
Worse, they see the very notion of college athletics taking a bath, sucked under by gamesmanship instead of sportsmanship.
"An awful lot of people have benefited or risen in the coaching ranks with huge raises as a result of being clever," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "And then there are the other guys, the ones sitting out there saying, 'I've followed all these rules and done it with the actual intent of the rule and I'm making a buck ninety-five.' Where's the incentive to do right?"
Wednesday marked the end of the early signing period. It should be a day to celebrate the future of the game as college kids inked their names to their futures.
Instead, most people exit November asking one question: What did that coach do to get that kid?
"There's an awful lot of money moving underground to get kids where they need to get to develop relationships," Montgomery said. "I just sit here and wonder, how are all these kids making unofficial visits 3,000 miles from home? How are they getting to these elite camps? Somebody is paying for it and that is very troubling to me."
The distrust and skepticism among coaches is almost palpable. This is a fraternity of men who spend as much time looking over their shoulders as they do breaking down game tape.
The paranoia is not at all unfounded. One AAU coach said that when it comes to recruiting the top echelon of players, "you can bet somebody is getting something."
But when the something someone is getting is entirely permissible, what do you do?
Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie, who impishly tweaks the NCAA at every turn, came under fire not once, not twice but three times in the past six months. First he lured a verbal commitment from an eighth grader, prompting the National Association of Basketball Coaches to recommend coaches refrain from making scholarship offers until after a recruit's sophomore year of high school.
Then he moved Midnight Madness up one week, prompting emergency legislation from the NCAA Board of Directors to cement the Midnight Madness date.
And the day after that early madness he got a commitment from Daniel Orton, a top-10 player. Orton played for his father, Larry, on the Athletes First travel team. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Larry Orton pocketed $4,800 from Kentucky for 16 speaking engagements at Wildcats summer camps. Terrence Crawford, Daniel's stepbrother, was paid $1,950 for nine talks he gave to Kentucky campers. It was all perfectly legal since coaches are allowed to be paid for speaking engagements, even if they also happen to be related to a recruit.
Daniel Orton, by the way, attended two of Kentucky's camps.
Critics argue it's little more than well-couched payola done under the artifice of the rules. By hiring Larry Orton, Kentucky basically funded Daniel's camp appearances, allowing the Wildcats to bring a top recruit on campus before he was allowed an official visit.
"It shouldn't be allowed," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said, "but it is."
Even Gillispie understands the criticism.
"I think the rule -- I've been in favor of the rule being changed for a long time," Gillispie said about being allowed to pay coaches to speak at his camps. "I think that's best for everyone."
But the rule hasn't been changed, and consequently, there is nothing more than the perception of a dirty deal.
Larry Orton insists that Kentucky did nothing to sway his son's decision. He also was paid to speak at camps at Oklahoma State and Kansas (attempts by ESPN.com to access records were denied since the camps are run privately and not funded by the universities) and Daniel attended elite camps at Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Connecticut.
"Don't talk to me about how it looks, talk to me about the facts," Larry Orton said. "Did someone break a rule? The answer is no."
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?id=3710807
Gray scale: Recruiters struggle with perfectly legal yet ethically questionable
By Dana O'Neil
ESPN.com
Nearly 20 years ago, Eddie Sutton resigned as Kentucky coach after a package sent from assistant Dwane Casey to the father of recruit Chris Mills opened in transit, spilling $1,000 for all to see.
Pardon some coaches if they wax nostalgic for the days gone by, when rule breaking was clear-cut and obvious.
Like the evolution from Chuck Taylors to Air Jordans, the art of cheating has been refined and streamlined.
Sure, rules still are being flat-out broken the old-fashioned way, but the new wave sweeping the game is rule circumvention, not rule breaking. Clever coaches are employing a strong grip on semantics to expose loopholes and reinterpret rules to their benefit.
It's not so much cheating as it's, well …
"You mean shady?" Texas Tech coach Pat Knight supplied.
Here's some ways cheating is made in the shade these days:
Carefully choreographed elite camps; travel team coaches suddenly ending up on college benches with their super-stud players conveniently going along for the ride; speaking fees for those same coaches at colleges that just happen to be recruiting their players. It's all ethically questionable yet mostly on the up-and-up.
Why break a rule and buy a kid a hamburger when you can obey a rule and buy his coach?
"People are always going to work the gray areas," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "Most people if they've had any success in life have learned how to work the gray areas."
Guided by the security that no foul equates to no harm, coaches are pretzel-bending the NCAA bylaws, using a wink and Cheshire cat grin to trample and shred the original intent of the rulebook.
"Instead of having a really good skill instructor on your staff, you're better off with a lawyer who can parse the rulebook," Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. "You need someone who can say, 'I got it. Eureka! I got the loophole.'"
But the perfectly legal yet ethically questionable choices are causing a growing divide among college basketball people.
On one side are those who argue that they're being attacked yet technically haven't done anything wrong. This isn't about clandestine meetings or dark alley exchanges. Everything people are railing about is done in broad daylight because everything is within the framework of the rules.
"I don't even know why we're talking about this," said Larry Orton, the father of top recruit Daniel Orton, who has been sucked into the maelstrom thanks to his son's recruitment at Kentucky. "It's all legal. It's perfectly legal."
But on the other side is a growing number of coaches -- Martelli among them -- who see things a little differently. They don't see clever coaches so much as they see master manipulators, people who carelessly blur the ethical lines of the game without an interest in anything more than self-preservation.
They also see coaches who play by the rules fired for lack of production and coaches who report other coaches ostracized.
Worse, they see the very notion of college athletics taking a bath, sucked under by gamesmanship instead of sportsmanship.
"An awful lot of people have benefited or risen in the coaching ranks with huge raises as a result of being clever," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "And then there are the other guys, the ones sitting out there saying, 'I've followed all these rules and done it with the actual intent of the rule and I'm making a buck ninety-five.' Where's the incentive to do right?"
Wednesday marked the end of the early signing period. It should be a day to celebrate the future of the game as college kids inked their names to their futures.
Instead, most people exit November asking one question: What did that coach do to get that kid?
"There's an awful lot of money moving underground to get kids where they need to get to develop relationships," Montgomery said. "I just sit here and wonder, how are all these kids making unofficial visits 3,000 miles from home? How are they getting to these elite camps? Somebody is paying for it and that is very troubling to me."
The distrust and skepticism among coaches is almost palpable. This is a fraternity of men who spend as much time looking over their shoulders as they do breaking down game tape.
The paranoia is not at all unfounded. One AAU coach said that when it comes to recruiting the top echelon of players, "you can bet somebody is getting something."
But when the something someone is getting is entirely permissible, what do you do?
Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie, who impishly tweaks the NCAA at every turn, came under fire not once, not twice but three times in the past six months. First he lured a verbal commitment from an eighth grader, prompting the National Association of Basketball Coaches to recommend coaches refrain from making scholarship offers until after a recruit's sophomore year of high school.
Then he moved Midnight Madness up one week, prompting emergency legislation from the NCAA Board of Directors to cement the Midnight Madness date.
And the day after that early madness he got a commitment from Daniel Orton, a top-10 player. Orton played for his father, Larry, on the Athletes First travel team. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Larry Orton pocketed $4,800 from Kentucky for 16 speaking engagements at Wildcats summer camps. Terrence Crawford, Daniel's stepbrother, was paid $1,950 for nine talks he gave to Kentucky campers. It was all perfectly legal since coaches are allowed to be paid for speaking engagements, even if they also happen to be related to a recruit.
Daniel Orton, by the way, attended two of Kentucky's camps.
Critics argue it's little more than well-couched payola done under the artifice of the rules. By hiring Larry Orton, Kentucky basically funded Daniel's camp appearances, allowing the Wildcats to bring a top recruit on campus before he was allowed an official visit.
"It shouldn't be allowed," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said, "but it is."
Even Gillispie understands the criticism.
"I think the rule -- I've been in favor of the rule being changed for a long time," Gillispie said about being allowed to pay coaches to speak at his camps. "I think that's best for everyone."
But the rule hasn't been changed, and consequently, there is nothing more than the perception of a dirty deal.
Larry Orton insists that Kentucky did nothing to sway his son's decision. He also was paid to speak at camps at Oklahoma State and Kansas (attempts by ESPN.com to access records were denied since the camps are run privately and not funded by the universities) and Daniel attended elite camps at Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Connecticut.
"Don't talk to me about how it looks, talk to me about the facts," Larry Orton said. "Did someone break a rule? The answer is no."