College Coaches Pay to Find Out Who's on the Court

[Sexton Hardcastle]

Making copies of tournament packets that can cost hundreds of dollars is prohibited.

College Coaches Pay to Find Out Who's on the Court


By PETE THAMEL
Published: July 26, 2009

LAS VEGAS — After driving three hours to watch a basketball recruit play a game at a tournament in Memphis earlier this month, Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings turned around minutes later and went home.

Just after sitting down with some fellow college coaches, two tournament employees told Stallings that he had to pay $295 for a packet of rosters and information that doubled as an admission fee for college coaches. The coaches in attendance told him that they had been required to do the same thing.

Stallings said he had paid a $10 admission fee and did not want or need the packet, so he hit the road out of principle.

Ryan Luttrell, the tournament organizer, denied trying to force Stallings to buy the packet. But Stallings said he would not cut a deal with Luttrell and left because it would not be fair to the other coaches.

“I’m not protesting or insisting that my moral compass is better than anyone else,” Stallings said. “But mine won’t allow me to do something like that that is that blatantly wrong.”

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[BuffaloScott]

Interesting read.

 

[dyemeduke]

Nice find! This is really an interesting story, showing how ****ed up recruiting has gotten. You can't (or at least I can't) fault the guys for having steeper prices for coaches' packets, but it's just so ridiculous that they're charging that much. I remember back when Bob Gibbons was really the only "guru" around, and there were only a few tournaments (Five Star, Nike, etc). Now there's so much out there...it's crazy. Everyone's wanting something too.

The NCAA doesn't have any jurisdiction in my opinion to stop this, as these are HS kids playing in HS tournaments. They do need to stop "approving" some of these tournaments though (I'm surprised to read that they do). Coaches need to be allowed to travel where they need to go and see what kids they need to say - not ask hypocritical big brother on what they can do.

The article makes a great point - Duke, UNC, KU, UCLA, etc. really only do recruit a dozen or so players after initial evaluations have passed. Bz needs to be recruiting a lot more, because programs like ours don't have the clout necessary to be selective. **** like this article reveals makes the recruiting game harder for us...sucks.