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USA Today’s Eric Prisbell wrote an article published today about [URL=”http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/story/2012-07-31/ncaa-takes-aim-at-influence-of-agents/56636864/1″]how the NCAA wants to remove the corrupt influence of AAU coaches and recruiters for sports agencies from NCAA schools[/URL]. The story highlights how punishing the University of Central Florida for their association with Ken Caldwell is the first step towards a more targeted emphasis on stopping summer basketball coaches and agents from benefiting from their relationship and influence on top NCAA sport prospects.
Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and former coaches Tom Penders, Gary Williams and Fran Fraschilla all add interesting first-hand experience with the issue. John Calipari chimes in that he no longer has a problem with AAU coaches asking for a handout:
[QUOTE]No coach in the modern era has had more success recruiting elite prospects than John Calipari, who has also fought the perception that his longstanding relationship with influential power broker William Wesley helped him land top-rated recruiting classes at Memphis and Kentucky. Wesley often sits in the stands behind Kentucky’s bench and at times was given access to the Memphis locker room when Calipari coached the Tigers.
When asked if the presence of third-party recruiting influences has become more common, Calipari said: “If I were where I used to coach, it probably would be more of an issue for me, you know what I’m saying? There’s always been more than just the high school coach or the kid you’re talking to in recruiting to figure out who is who. I’m at Kentucky now. When I was at Memphis and Massachusetts, it was a lot harder than it is now. Fifteen NBA draft picks the last three years, it’s gotten easier.”[/QUOTE]
Basketball writers can’t hardly ever mention John Calipari without mentioning ([URL=”http://www.nationofblue.com/night-worldwide-wes-11571/”]Boogidy-boogidy[/URL]!) World Wide Wes. You can believe that Wesley was funneling future NBA stars to Calipari at Memphis and Kentucky because [URL=”http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/16874/william-wesley-in-the-spotlight”]Wesley knows Calipari will develop the players[/URL] better for the NBA than any other coach; or you can believe Wesley was benefiting in other ways. Back in 2010 [URL=”http://highschoolhoop.com/high-school-stories/2010/08/worldwide-wes-dont-believe-the-hype/”]Marquis Teague and other top recruits[/URL] didn’t really care about World Wide Wes’ influence. They were more concerned about which school was the right fit for them, their families and their future careers.
It is comforting that the the combined power of Kentucky’s facilities and success with Calipari’s ability to train top-rated talent quickly shoos away some elements that might get both UK and Coach Cal in trouble with the NCAA. (Future debate: “Amateurism” in major sports actually means “exploitation”. Let’s not get into that now.)
The USA Today story takes a turn for the hilarious when the first NCAA coach quoted in supporting the NCAA’s efforts to crack down on the grey area of AAU recruit steering was from North Carolina’s Roy Williams: “In the last five years, it has just gone off the charts. There is no question that some of these parts outside the actual game itself have really made the coaching profession not nearly as much fun as it used to be.” Coaching is much more fun [URL=”http://www.thebiglead.com/index.php/2012/07/26/north-carolina-academic-scandal-why-did-basketball-players-stop-majoring-in-african-and-afro-american-studies-in-2009/”]when your hand-picked academic adviser was allegedly steering your players into a corrupted academic department for majors while you win national championships with those players[/URL].
It remains to be seen if the NCAA has the power to wrangle AAU clubs into acting like proper not-for-profit amateur entities. If the NCAA can’t subpoena when investigating scandals occurring within their own schools, how do they expect to make AAU teams open up their funding history? In summer basketball [URL=”http://www.nevadapreps.com/AAU-tourneys-fight-over-drawing-cards-163507286.html”]the real power is in the shoe companies[/URL].
