Columnist Steve Carp: Control the issue in new proposals

Steve Carp

Thursday, Oct. 16, 1997 | 9:24 a.m.

ONCE AGAIN, THE NCAA is trying to put Sonny Vaccaro on the sidelines. And this time, it may succeed.

But instead of taking the adidas shoe guru head-on, the NCAA will let USA Basketball and the National Association of Basketball Coaches do its dirty work.

The tales of summer basketball being corrupt, unwielding, self-serving and exploitative have been heard so often, you just go, "Yaada, Yaada, Yaada" and move on. Never mind that what corruption does occur affects less than one percent of the players. The other 99 percent are not looking for anything more than the hope some Division I school will notice them and give them a shot at a scholarship.

And I don't hear too many college coaches grumbling about coming to Las Vegas for a week to watch basketball games. The only time you hear a coach moan is when he gets dunked on by a blackjack dealer.

What USA Basketball and the NABC is proposing is a series of sanctioned development camps in the spring or eight camps over a two-week period in July. The intent is to still allow college coaches to evaluate talent in a group setting while reducing the influence of outside sources; i.e., the likes of Vaccaro, AAU summer coaches and boosters who bankroll summer teams.

It sounds good on the surface, doesn't it? Get more control back in the hands of the high school coach. Keep the devil summer league coach off the court and still give the kid a chance to be seen.

The problem is, you're still not catering to the kid. In fact, you're going to create more of an elitist situation than you already have.

A lot of kids fall through the cracks during high school, recent UNLV recruit Matt Siebrandt being a classic example. And these kids don't get invited to the big camps like ABCD and Nike. So what guarantee do they have that USA Basketball will invite them to a regional camp?

The answer, obviously, is none. Because despite the NABC's opinions to the contrary, this proposal isn't aimed at the kids. It's aimed at the summer hoop tourney organizers, the power brokers of prep ball.

It's all about control. And we know how important control is, especially to an organization like the NCAA. If the NABC-USA Basketball proposal passes, believe me that the NCAA will endorse it so quick, you won't know what hit you.

The NABC has other proposals on the table, including moving the early signing period to January, limiting phone access by coaches to recruits and adjusting the number of contact days a coach has with a recruit.

Again, it sounds fine on the surface. And yes, adjustments need to be made. The recruiting season can be more competitive than the actual schedule and we're talking about real competitive people here in college coaches.

But if the focus is lost on helping the high school player just to gain more control and put people like Vaccaro on the bench permanently, it's not worth it. The kids are the most important thing.