http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/seth_davis/11/21/hoop.thoughts/index.html

Quote :

"If you perused the list of the top-rated high school players who signed letters-of-intent earlier this month, one entry may have caught your eye: James Harden, a 6-foot-5 guard at Artesia High in Lakewood, Calif., signed to play for Arizona State. It's been a long time since the Sun Devils inked a top-flight player from southern California (RISE's No. 28 player in the class of '07), so Harden's commitment is no small matter for first-year coach Herb Sendek. Look a little closer, however, and you'll discern some rather connectable dots. Last June, Sendek hired Artesia's head coach, Scott Pera, to be his director of basketball operations. Sendek also offered a scholarship to Derek Glasser, Artesia's point guard who had previously planned to walk on at USC. Then, on Aug. 9, Harden gave Sendek his oral commitment. When I asked Sendek about these dots this week, he gave the answers you might expect. Pera won championships in two different states (Pennsylvania and California), he's a bright guy and a great leader he hopes is on his staff long after Derek and James are gone, blah blah blah. Having met Pera several times and having seen him coach, I can confirm everything Sendek says about him is true. However, when I suggested to Sendek he could have declined to recruit Harden to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he replied, "And instead of playing in the Pac-10, we could play in the fantasy league. It's our job as coaches to get the best players possible." Now, I'm not saying Sendek hired Pera and signed Glasser solely for the purpose of convincing Harden of coming to ASU. That, of course, would be against NCAA rules. What I am saying is, if Sendek hired Pera mostly for the purpose of landing Harden, there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, you could argue it would have been foolish for Sendek to have done otherwise. Because if he didn't hire Pera, someone else might have, and that someone could have landed Harden as a result. I must confess, I have come a long way on this issue. When I first broke into covering college basketball more than a decade ago, I was shocked that these types of package deals went down. It seemed coaches everywhere were giving jobs to high school coaches, AAU/summer coaches, fathers, uncles, distant cousins, best buddies and the like for the express purpose of recruiting a player. I knew this had to be unethical because nobody ever admitted to what they were doing. But the more I've covered this sport, the more I've come to understand just how common these package deals are. Given all the other nefarious activities taking place in the underworld of recruiting, the package hire actually looks quite tame by comparison. After all, Sendek can scan the country and see all kinds of connectable dots -- starting within his own conference. USC's starting point guard is 6-5 freshman Daniel Hackett, whose father Rudy is the Trojans' strength and conditioning manager. (Rudy Hackett played at Syracuse and then professionally in the ABA and overseas.) A few weeks ago, UCLA hired Clay McKnight, whose father, Gary, happens to be the coach at Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif. You think having Clay, who has previously worked at Oregon State, Syracuse and USC, might give the Bruins a leg up in their pursuit of David and Travis Wear, 6-foot-10 sophomore twins at Mater Dei? I think so, too. Ronnie Chalmers is currently Kansas' director of basketball operations and his son, Mario, is a starting sophomore guard. Shady? Perhaps -- but no less shady than former KU coach Larry Brown's decision two decades ago to hire Ed Manning, who at the time was working as a truck driver in North Carolina. Manning's son, Danny, came to Lawrence (ironically spurning UNC, Brown's alma mater) and eventually delivered the Jayhawks to the 1988 NCAA title. A lot of people thought Brown's move was sleazy, but I can introduce you to 2.6 million residents in the state of Kansas who would argue it was the most brilliant hire in college basketball history. A lot of my colleagues feverishly wrung their hands last spring after newly hired Kansas State coach Bob Huggins poached assistant Dalonte Hill straight off of Bobby Lutz's staff at Charlotte. Hill is a former coach with the elite summer club D.C. Assault, which featured stud 6-9 forward Michael Beasley. At the time Huggins hired Hill, Beasley was committed to Charlotte, but this month Beasley signed to play for -- you guessed it -- Kansas State. Huggins was slammed for the move, but did it ever occur to the slammers that Lutz may have also hired Hill for the purpose of getting Beasley? This past summer, Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon hired another D.C. Assault coach, David Cox, to be his director of basketball operations. One of Pitt's four early signees is Darnell Dodson, a 6-7 forward from Greenbelt, Md. Care to guess which AAU team Dodson played for? You can even connect dots at that noted bastion of hoops dominance, Colorado State. Last spring, embattled Rams coach Dale Layer hired Brian Joyce, who had spent four years as head coach at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colo. During the early signing period, CSU inked two Northeastern recruits, who next year will join a roster that already includes two more of Joyce's former players at Northeastern. One of those players, 6-3 guard Tyler Smith, is arguably the best recruit ever to come to Colorado State. A more incendiary scenario just unfolded in Bloomington, Ind., where first-year IU coach Kelvin Sampson signed 6-2 guard Eric Gordon after Gordon reneged on his oral commitment to Illinois. It certainly didn't hurt Sampson's cause that he hired not one but two assistants with direct ties to Gordon: Jeff Meyer, who coached Gordon's father at Liberty University, and Travis Steele, who coached Gordon in summer ball and is the team's new video coordinator. Is that ethical? I suppose your answer depends on whether you live in Illinois or Indiana. It does not take a lot of research to uncover many more historical examples of what could reasonably be construed as "package" hirings. Dale Brown practically invented the idea back in his heyday at LSU. (Former Tigers Rudy Macklin, Nikita Wilson and Stanley Roberts all arrived in a package.) Wade Houston was Darrell Griffith's high school coach before he was an assistant at Louisville. After Houston was hired at Tennessee, his son, Allan, backed out of his commitment to Louisville so he could play for his dad. (Yes, athletic directors can play this game, too.) Current Creighton coach Dana Altman was Mitch Richmond's junior college coach before he joined the staff at Kansas State, Richmond's alma mater. And right on down the line: Billy Tubbs hired Wayman Tisdale's high school coach at Oklahoma, Steve Fisher hired Jalen Rose's high school coach at Michigan, Rick Pitino hired Jamaal Magloire's high school coach at Kentucky, Steve Lappas hired Tim Thomas' high school coach at Villanova, Billy Donovan hired Mike Miller's AAU coach at Florida and John Calipari hired Dajuan Wagner's father, Milt, at Memphis. Calipari also gave Dajuan Wagner's high school teammate and best friend a scholarship to Memphis, just to be sure. When I first started poking around this stuff many people -- noting that I am a Duke grad -- would remind me current Notre Dame coach Mike Brey was hired at Duke as an assistant from DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., the same high school that produced Duke great Danny Ferry. More recently, Trajan Langdon's father was a visiting professor of anthropology at Duke while Trajan was playing for the Blue Devils. Before moving to Durham, Steve Langdon worked as an anthropology professor at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, so I have no doubt he was well-qualified for that position. Who's to say that's not also the case for all the examples listed above? Hiring a coach on the condition of a player's enrollment is a direct violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.9.3.3.1, which prohibits any kind of "verbal employment agreement." But even when you can see a quid and a quo, it's very hard to prove a pro. (Former New Mexico State coach Neil McCarthy is the only recent example of a coach sanctioned for violating this bylaw back in 1996.) I'm not thrilled that this kind of thing is going on, but if I really try to put myself in these coaches' shoes -- if I imagine my livelihood hangs on the whims of 17 year olds -- I can't honestly say for sure I would do anything different. Coaches have to win or they're fired, and a coach needs good players to win. If making a package-deal hire constitutes selling out, maybe that's not all that heavy a price to pay. "

11/22/2006 11:05:49 AM

Too bad Sendek didn't do much of that at State. I'd have taken an extra top-25 recruit during his tenure for an added "assistant to basketball operations" or "assistant strength and conditioning coach" to the staff.

11/22/2006 11:13:19 AM

Holy shit. Both brilliant and ugly at the same time.

11/22/2006 11:13:41 AM

damn, words.....

11/22/2006 11:14:08 AM

well its kinda like the article says it happens everywhere but I just always imagined herb was sqeeky clean, course maybe he just looks that way standing next to roy and k

11/22/2006 11:14:53 AM

that was an article about shady recruiting that mentioned herb, not an article about herb

11/22/2006 11:15:09 AM

Quote :

"Too bad Sendek didn't do much of that at State."

He did (i think to get inge). So does almost every coach in America. Just like Chris Duhon's mom got a job with Duke even though she wasn't nearly qualified.

** It's not even shady. It's not like anyone else didn't have the same opportunity to hire the coaches. The only shady one really is the Danny Manning thing..

[Edited on November 22, 2006 at 11:15 AM. Reason : x]

11/22/2006 11:15:10 AM

Oh yeah...Lowe does it too.

JJ Hickson's grandma got hooked up with a decent job in Raleigh. It goes one everywhere.

11/22/2006 11:38:01 AM

lowe landed Lewandowski by hiring towe.

we had to have string bean

11/22/2006 11:42:05 AM

Quote :

"However, when I suggested to Sendek he could have declined to recruit Harden to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he replied, "And instead of playing in the Pac-10, we could play in the fantasy league. It's our job as coaches to get the best players possible.""

holy crap, whap happened to our herb? he woulda never made a comment like that

11/22/2006 11:59:46 AM

we hired a brotha

11/22/2006 12:07:24 PM

What's even worse is that Fowler hired a black coach with ties to the NBA so he can connect with black players who want to play in the NBA

seriously, this article points out that everyone does something that someone else considers shady, means absolutely nothing

11/22/2006 12:11:53 PM

didn't herb do the same thing here...hiring Mark Phelps and getting Thornton and Inge? Maybe not..my memory of the Herb era is a little shady.

11/22/2006 12:17:27 PM

Could also go the other way.

Maybe Harris' return to our staff had something to do with letting his son join the basketball team here.

11/22/2006 12:37:27 PM

shady recruiting my ass

the examples are pretty lame too, if my dad worked somewhere, I'd probably be more apt to go to that school too.

11/22/2006 12:40:27 PM

I bet SI forgot to write an article about how Joseph Forte's mom was given an awesome job at a fictional company in Chapel Hill



cough Octagon cough

11/22/2006 12:42:00 PM

^isn't Octagon some sports agency? I remmember reading that his mom was hired so he would sign with them when he turned pro.

11/22/2006 1:01:29 PM

something like that I guess.... set up by unc

it was shady as hell and the NCAA just turned their head... as did the media

11/22/2006 1:06:41 PM

[old]

11/22/2006 1:55:40 PM

Quote :

"What's even worse is that Fowler hired a black coach with ties to the NBA so he can connect with black players who want to play in the NBA"

This isn't even moderately close to what this story is talking about.

11/22/2006 2:44:33 PM

Fire Herb

11/22/2006 3:30:03 PM

What about parental financial troubles disappearing after said player commits to UNX?

11/22/2006 3:30:49 PM

^^^

Quote :

"Jackass, idiot, licker of goat balls, assraper of small furry animals"

11/22/2006 3:47:39 PM

Quote :

"2.6 million residents in the state of Kansas who would argue it was the most brilliant hire in college basketball history"

I am a resident of Kansas and think this move sucked.


[Edited on November 22, 2006 at 3:53 PM. Reason : v]

11/22/2006 3:53:20 PM

Herb did it here. It's not a violation, so why not?

11/22/2006 4:43:44 PM

Quote :

"Hiring a coach on the condition of a player's enrollment is a direct violation of NCAA Bylaw 13.9.3.3.1, which prohibits any kind of "verbal employment agreement."

11/22/2006 7:31:51 PM