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| | Tuesday, August 29 Player contact key issue for coaches | |||||
| By Andy Katz ESPN.com Giving Division I coaches more access to recruits, especially in their junior year in high school, will be one of the key negotiating points when the newly formed basketball issues committee meets in October. Less than a week after the NCAA announced a 16-member committee (two student athletes are still to be determined), a few of the five head coaches selected said they would firmly push for more contact with recruits. "We won't eliminate the summer or AAU coach," said San Francisco coach Phil Mathews, who was one of the five head coaches selected to serve on the committee. "When I was an assistant at Cal State-Fullerton in 1980, I had complete access with the kid. I could go see him when I wanted. I got to know the parents, the grandmother and the girlfriend. Now, you're dealing with the family and sometimes not even the kid. We cut off the access and are forced to deal with the summer or AAU coaches." The committee has been charged with finding a new recruiting model for the summer of 2002. The recruiting calendar will be shortened from 24 to 14 days in July 2001 (two one-week periods, sandwiched around a 10-day dead period). The recommendation will then be forwarded to the NCAA's management council before the board of directors vote on the proposal. At the crux of summer recruiting is how to get the high school coaches and/or guardians back in the decision process. Since the early signing period was introduced in the mid-1980s, the summer coach has had more influence in the decision process to the point where players are continuing to commit this summer well before ever taking an official campus visit, conferring with their high school coach or, at times, their parents. "But you don't want to sew up one problem and create another," said Saint Louis coach Lorenzo Romar, one of the five coaches selected. "The whole reason we cut down the academic year recruiting was because of economics. If we add more time in the academic year, we'll add additional flights and the cost will go up." Mathews, Romar, Oregon's Ernie Kent, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Kentucky's Tubby Smith were the five head coaches selected for the committee. Last year's Working Group Studying Basketball didn't have a single active coach. But the NCAA, led by president Cedric Dempsey, board of directors chair Graham Spanier (president of Penn State) and Syracuse chancellor and issues committee chair Kenneth "Buzz" Shaw stressed diversity on this committee. Not only did they select a number of minority members of the committee, including four African-American head coaches, they also appointed coaches and administrators from high, mid- and low-major conferences. "It's the most coaches we've ever had on one of these (sport) committees," said Dempsey, who is leading a staff charge of gathering information from high school, college and NBA coaches, media and shoe company representatives before delivering a final report to the newly formed basketball issues committee. "It ended up being more people than anticipated, but it gives us added strength and a breath of diversity," Demspey said. "The only complaint will be that there weren't faculty reps, but we have two presidents to handle the academic concerns." The access issue is expected to resonate across the board. Krzyzewski said in July that he saw the lack of access as the reason recruiting has been turned over to the summer coach. "Only a few people involved in summer basketball don't have the best interests of the kids in hand," Romar said. "There are a lot of good people in the summer, many more than bad. But we've got to come out with a solution that will pacify everyone." Romar said the coaches would have to sacrifice something that they want to get a universally acceptable model. The coaches don't want to give up the early signing period or the evaluation period in the summer. But they would gladly take more defining periods of evaluation and contact. The coaches would be willing to part with the evaluation period in September for more contact during the school year. Coaches also favor limiting July to strict evaluation time, eliminating bumps with coaches and parents after games, in the hotels and at restaurants. Keeping a strict rule on one phone call per week will be discussed, as well. A number of coaches have told ESPN.com that coaches have abused the rule by calling players in their hotel room after every summer league game by using house phones, a second cell phone, a pay phone or someone else's phone to avoid the call being traced back to the university phone. "Who knows, we may have to plant NCAA people in hotels," Romar said. "Maybe you can make a call, but only to the player's house, not in the hotel, once a week." But any extremists on the issues committee who would like to see the entire summer change, may not react well to what they see as a minor tweaking of the process. "That summer coach will always be in the relationship because they see the kid all year round," Mathews said. "We've got to try and get the high school coach more involved in the recruiting process." The trick will be to do that without sending the Division I coach on the road throughout the school year. Mathews' example of his time at Fullerton can be done today if the player is in the Los Angeles-area. But schools in remote areas or in cities without Division I talent may find it hard to travel for recruiting during the season. The committee will be under intense pressure to find an acceptable solution. If the committee reaches a stalemate, the board of directors could scrap the entire summer evaluation process. That is unlikely, considering Dempsey said he sees the need for evaluation during the summer for all 318 schools. "There's a sense of urgency that we have to come out with something that will benefit everyone," Mathews said. "We want to come out with something that our constituents in the coaching profession will accept." Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. | ALSO SEE Diverse group named to issues committee Weekly Word: Summer a hot debate | |||||