Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Recruiters Have Fun With The Internet

Barry Jacobs checks in from the AAU tournament in Orlando:

The talk in Orlando this summer was of a package deal in which a prominent prospect from the ACC region was being offered around with the stipulation a school must hire his handler’s younger brother.

That would be John Wall and Dwon Clifton.

Jacobs continues:

Then there was the almost-ACC recruit who skittered from school to school to school, ending up with a Big East program that allegedly hired his trainer.

New wrinkles to bend or circumvent the rules are of course as omnipresent as the avarice that drives practitioners.

One coach told of a competitor’s creative use of the Internet to steer NCAA-banned payments to the father of a signee. According to this scenario, the parent was advised to create a website, post analysis of his offspring’s AAU team and teammates, and then charge a subscription fee equivalent to the cost of round-trip airfare to his son’s school. The benefiting college coach promised to subscribe at the appropriate level.

I'd like to see the analysis on that website. "Peter Prospect Jr.: plays like Jordan, leads like Jesus."