Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990 TAG: 9005160042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, D.C. LENGTH: Long
It is an idea with merit, an idea that sends the right messages to the athletes: You must do the job in the classroom.
And, because the proposal also would help economically, it is an idea that is likely to get increasing support.
The proposal, offered by a panel of seven high-profile basketball coaches, sounds simple enough but has far-reaching ramifications.
Suggested by Georgetown's John Thompson and presented by Notre Dame's Digger Phelps, the proposal would prohibit in-person recruiting of scholastic non-qualifiers, and would prevent these athletes from making paid campus visits.
Before anybody screams discrimination, understand that these athletes still could accept college scholarships, but only in the last five days of the mid-April signing period.
The only contact the coaches could have with these athletes is by telephone. It would, in fact, eliminate them from the normal recruiting process, and, as Phelps stressed, trim recruiting costs.
"We want to put pressure on them to get ready [academically] as juniors," Phelps said. "There is exploitation on the high school level."
The coaches' plan is intriguing. It would place the onus where it belongs: on the athlete and his family, and on high school coaches and academic counselors.
The plan is not likely to be supported by football coaches.
But what is its purpose?
"These kids are playing spring, summer and fall basketball," Phelps said. "There are all-star games and camps. Nobody's ever counted the number of AAU games these kids play. I watched a 16-team AAU tournament in New England in October."
The coaches believe that all this participation has a negative effect on academics. Perhaps the players will miss a college-board testing date because they are playing. Or maybe they will pass up summer school when they need it, just to perform in AAU affairs.
"Play or get ready for college," Phelps said. "This is a real education problem. It would force public education to do something. It's a national issue."
LSU's Dale Brown, often the maverick and defender of the disadvantaged, backs the plan. Like the other coaches here Tuesday, Brown said, "If they [athletes] know what they have to do, they'll do it."
Thompson, the man-giant whose role often is perceived as intimidator, was blunt. "It is hypocritical of us to fly these [non-qualifiers] all over the nation, when they should be staying at school and preparing for college.
"If we sent the message early enough, that you can't be wined and dined [by the colleges], it might help."
The coaches are frustrated by the all-star games, such as the one sponsored by McDonald's that requires the players to arrive on Tuesday for a game on Sunday afternoon in April. "The only one that benefits is McDonald's," said Dean Smith, North Carolina's coach.
More than half of the players in the 1990 McDonald's game were non-qualifiers at that time. "It makes me sick to hear a TV announcer [Dick Vitale] say he hopes these people qualify," Thompson said.
The NCAA has no jurisdiction over all-star games or AAU events. But by limiting the recruitment of non-qualifiers, "We could provide the incentive to prepare [academically]," Thompson said. "We contribute to the problem" by bringing the players to campus, and by repeatedly visiting them at their school or home, he added.
Understand what such a rule might mean. Virginia, which hadn't been able to sign an inner-city Virginia player, could not have visited Cornel Parker in Norfolk, and Parker could not have taken a paid visit to Charlottesville.
Such circumstances, the coaches say, are worthwhile gambles because the ambition is to have more players achieve the minimum-eligibility standards.
Anticipating that some coaches in lesser basketball programs would claim such a rule would allow the rich to get richer, Phelps said, "99 percent of these players sign with the big schools anyway."
Syracuse football coach Dick MacPherson said he understands the concept under which the basketball people made their suggestion, but said he doesn't think it would work in his sport.
"We have the early signing date in February, and a lot of these kids don't take the [SAT and ACT] tests for the first time until October," he said. "We recruit them in December before we know what their scores are. We signed five kids this year whose scores we had to sweat out."
The basketball coaches might suggest that the game plan is to get athletes to take the college boards as juniors.
One other interesting possibility, which might come about if such a suggestion ever became a rule, is that basketball and football would have separate legislation.
NCAA executive director Dick Schultz said the basketball plan "has some potential; it's a cost-saving [measure] and it sends a strong message."
Moreover, Schultz said, "this is a unique circumstance. The sports have different sets of problems. I suppose you could have different rules."
The basketball coaches are absolutely correct. Their plan has enormous potential. It could restrict the abuses created by the all-star and AAU events, and it tells the non-qualifiers in no uncertain terms: No grades, no goodies.
Let's all applaud that notion.
by CNB