Maybe Johnny can't read.
But he has a nasty crossover move, and he's done Vegas.
College basketball is loaded with contradictions: Players represent institutions of higher learning, but March Madness is more about entertainment than education. Games are played in winter, but programs can be built or destroyed in July.
The recruiting of elite talent is no longer focused on high schools, but at summer camps and tournaments primarily sponsored by shoe companies. In July and September, teen-agers travel thousands of miles while marketing themselves to college coaches.
Critics say the organizers exploit the players and steer them to certain universities. Proponents say the circuit offers scholarship opportunities and a way to stay out of trouble in the summer.
"We've put so much emphasis on the summer, we've taken education out of the recruiting process," said Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. "We've made the school year not nearly as important as it used to be.
"With some kids, you never talk to their high school coach or their guidance counselor. You never see him on his home turf, and add value to the people he comes into contact with every day, so he'll say, 'They must be important.' If everything is done in the summer, that becomes more important, and the danger is that the people who run the summer aren't under any rules."
Two months ago, the NCAA readied legislation that would have lessened the importance of a circuit that winds down this weekend with the Charlie Weber Adidas Invitational Tournament. Held at the University of Maryland, it showcases athletes from Calvert Hall's Reggie Bryant to Maryland signee Steve Blake.
The NCAA instead created the 27-member Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues. In so doing, the NCAA decided to step back and survey an entire forest of issues, not just the sprawling tree that is the recruiting calendar.
The conflicts of interest in basketball reform are staggering. If shoe companies like Adidas and Nike can give lucrative sums to coaches like Krzyzewski or subsidize entire college athletic departments, why should they be prohibited from providing high school players summer tournaments and equipment?
"The NCAA has to realize that, as long as they're in bed with the shoe companies, they can't legislate morality," said Sonny Vaccaro, an Adidas representative. "I don't think they have a clue about summer basketball. As long as they keep taking money from me, how can they legislate morality?"
Cost containment
The prospect of reform originated with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. He contends an unregulated "summer environment" contributes to problems in college basketball ranging from players with unrealistic dreams of going to the NBA to attrition and graduation rates that are the worst among Division I sports.
"The spring and summer environment in the sport of basketball at the elite youth level," Delany wrote in a position paper, "has developed into a chaotic series of camps, regional, national and international competitions funded and fueled by corporate entities and non-school-based agencies and individuals."
Anthony Lewis, the coach and director at the Cecil-Kirk Rec Center in Baltimore, said: "The NCAA created their own monster," and Delany would agree.
As late as the 1970s, few restrictions were placed on college coaches in the recruitment of high school talent. Limits were gradually imposed because recruiting abuses had gotten out of hand. The calendar tightened, until cost-containment reforms in
1991 that were designed to limit coaches' travel inadvertently boosted summer events.
The NCAA has two "evaluation" periods, when coaches may watch prospects play. Coaches select 40 days in the winter, when they hope to catch a recruit when he isn't in foul trouble, injured or facing an inferior opponent. Most prospects, however, are typically targeted during a 24-day period in July, when there's a glut of glitzy camps and tournaments.
On July 7-10, Adidas put up 259 players at its ABCD Camp in Teaneck, N.J., while Nike staged its All-American Camp in Indianapolis. Two weeks later, Adidas went to Las Vegas and Nike to Orlando, Fla., to sponsor tournaments that attract clubs that are called AAU teams, whether or not it's an Amateur Athletic Union event.
During the evaluation period, contact is limited to what is called a "bump," when coach A happens to run into player B. During "contact" periods, coaches may make in-person, off-campus contact.
The NCAA is in the midst of a contact period, hence the timing of the Charlie Weber Adidas Invitational, which will attract 64 teams. Last year's event drew more than 150 college coaches, who paid $50 apiece for an informational packet.
Two months ago, the NCAA nearly changed the evaluation periods. Legislation would have trimmed the July period from 24 to 14 days, and increased the winter period from 40 to 70 days.
The rationale was that it would "reduce non-scholastic influences" and increase the impact of high school coaches in the recruiting process. The shoe companies could still hold their events, but without college coaches in attendance, prospects might not be in such great demand and pulled in so many directions.
The NCAA had second thoughts, in part because the existing calendar has its defenders. There are 300-plus colleges in Division I. An overwhelming majority rarely appear on national television and rely on camps and tournaments to see and be seen.
"There is a huge number of players out there, but we find very few who qualify for a school like ours," Navy coach Don DeVoe said. "The lower Division I programs, like us, we need to see more players. If you were to limit July, that would really affect us. If I don't see a person, I'm not going to recruit him.
"The NCAA should allow us so many days a year when we can recruit off-campus, and let us use them as we so desire. If it's important for Navy to be out 30 days in the summer, so be it. If Georgetown wants to go out only five, so be it."
Too much, too soon?
Even recruits who aren't going to be offered scholarships by Atlantic Coast Conference or Big East schools travel the country and play close to 100 games a year. Camps can house and equip players; transportation is usually handled through sponsors and fund-raising.
Vaccaro said that Adidas spends $1 million on summer camps and tournaments. George Raveling, his counterpart at Nike, could not be reached for comment. But both have argued that the summer circuit offers much more than the chance to play basketball. Dick Vitale or Brevin Knight might stop by to speak on a variety of topics, from preparation for the SAT to AIDS awareness.
Some college coaches say other issues need to be addressed, like youngsters' sense of entitlement.
"Some shoe companies have become too powerful," Coppin State's Fang Mitchell said. "They're getting involved with young people at an early age, and because they're catering to them, it's become harder for college coaches to motivate them. If you've been given a lot early, what is there to get excited about?
"I tell kids, 'We're going to Hawaii this season.' Well, they've been to Europe already."
Boo Wilkins is executive director of the Harrisburg, Pa.-based National Alliance of African-American Athletes, which will hold seminars in conjunction with the Weber Invitational. He is critical of summer travel and some of the chaperones.
"You have kids who can barely read and write, but they're out playing in Las Vegas for a week," Wilkins said. "Education is nice to talk about, but the budget of the higher-profile AAU teams is determined by wins and losses and whether they can deliver players."
Educators lament a lack of professional standards in the summer, but Lewis, the respected Cecil-Kirk coach, who in 27 years in the Baltimore Department of Recreation has helped develop some of the top players to come out of the city, said critics use too broad a brush.
Asked if he had worked in his travels against coaches who didn't have proper qualifications, Lewis said: "I see many more that do. I see many more qualified people out there than I do unqualified people."
The National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations is encouraging its coaches to increase their influence over young players by stepping up their involvement. But the group has its own recruiting concerns to address, such as high schools stealing each others stars. And there are rules in place that limit coaches' roles.
And the educational aspect is particularly touchy in urban school systems where students have difficulty meeting NCAA standards for initial freshman eligibility.
Six seniors from Baltimore were named to The Sun's 10-man All-Metro team last season. Only two met the NCAA's academic standards for freshman eligibility, St. Frances' Shawn Hampton going to Virginia Commonwealth and Mervo's Damien Jenifer going to Loyola.
The first half of the student-athlete equation can be obscured at the elite camps, where 16-year-olds play in front of NBA scouts, who keep an eye out for the next Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett.
"It all goes back to the initial environment," said Meredith Smith, who'll coach his 18th season at Southern High. "Too many kids think that in order to be successful, you have to be an athlete, or an entertainer or a drug dealer. They don't see accomplishment through academic or intellectual means."
Vaccaro, the Adidas representative, took umbrage with comments such as Smith's and the maneuvering of college and high school administrators.
"I want high school coaches to be more accountable, too," said Vaccaro, who repeatedly fends off accusations that shoe companies dictate where talent will go. "Everyone accuses AAU [summer] school coaches of doing deals with college coaches. Does that mean that every high school coach, before this system was in place, didn't have deals?"
The NCAA is aware that changes to the recruiting calendar could take money out of the pockets of summer camp and tournament directors, who might counter with legal action.
"We have to be more deliberate in everything we do," said Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, "but we can't be afraid to do the right thing."
Key dates
Important days on 1998-99 NCAA Division I basketball recruiting calendar:
Summer season
Sept. 9-Sept. 26: Contact period. Coaches may evaluate players off-campus and make home visits.
July 8-July 31: Evaluation period.
High school season
Nov. 19-March 15: Evaluation period. Coaches select 40 days to evaluate players off-campus; contact prohibited.
March 16-22: Contact period.
March 31-April 4: Contact period.
April 9-April 14: Contact period.
Letter-of-intent dates
Nov. 11-18: Early period.
April 7-May 15: Late period.
Pub Date: 9/18/98