Recruiting practices take spotlight

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Just last week SFN highlighted the difference between local recruiting budgets in this well-received entry.

Almost simultaneously, the University of Tennessee’s football program came under scrutiny for the use of its Hostess Program to ‘lure’ recruits to the University. We started talking about the news in real time in this thread on our message boards. As with most of our threads, I was a lot smarter about the topic when I finished reading through it. Thanks to the community for surfing the web, researching, and posting links and relevant information from a host of sources!

The anecdotal story about the ‘irony’ of this story breaking on a national scale out of Knoxville, Tennessee —

In 1985 through 1987 a friend of mine was recruited to play basketball at many ACC and SEC schools – including Jim Valvano’s NC State program and the University of Tennessee. He wasn’t as good as he thought he was, but was impressive ‘athletically’ on the court and I’m sure that the college coaches thought they could mold him into something better than they really could. I loved speaking with him about the recruiting process, especially since the Wolfpack was recruiting him.

Surprise, surprise…guess the focal point of the stories about his trip to Tennessee? That’s right – girls, girls, girls. This was in 1986! Not 2009. My buddy and teammate came back from his trip to Knoxville with a ‘permagrin’ on his face and said there was no way he couldn’t go to UT. Said he was set up with girls during the weekend and it was the greatest thing in the world. Said that the school would even set up recruits’ friends when they visited. He couldn’t stop talking about it.

It was at that point where I started learning more about the ‘truth’ of college athletics and started learning the ‘real stories’ of recruiting and that different schools had reputations for certain ‘niches’ of what/how they could/did offer certain benefits to players. I’m not saying that the practices from Tennessee are/were not replicated and utilized by dozens of other schools; I just found it particularly interesting that UT has been particularly famous for this stuff for such an extended amount of time.

Continuing on that theme, The Big Lead posted a couple of entries this weekend that are very enjoyable for long-time fans.

In the first entry focused on the 1980s, Big Lead highlights a, “very interesting article from the SI archives about college football recruiting and hostesses. The article is from all the way back in August of 1987 and its called “Persuasive Hostesses Help Colleges Lasso Top Prospects.” The main characters in this story are the University of Florida’s Gator Getters. Also mentioned are the Hawk Hunters, Bengal Babes, Hurricane Honeys, Catamount Kittens, Sweet Carolines, Tigerettes and the Garnet and Gold.” The Big Lead’s comments and the SI article are very interesting.

Speaking of the Sweet Carolines from the University of North Carolina — I was channel surfing past Pardon the Interruption on ESPN last week and Tony Kornheiser was discussing the ‘Hostess-gate’ and referenced that the “Sweet Carolines” started it all in the 1950s/1960s. I once dated a young lady whose father played football at UNC-CH in the early 1970s who shared that the ‘enticement’ of the Sweet Carolines was a great complement to the cash and other benefits that Bill Dooley’s program provided.

I felt like the cat who swallowed the canary when he made comments about receiving pay while playing at Carolina, and then I realized that everybody knows and nobody cares. If the local media or NCAA cared, then the Tarheel program could have never survived Lawrence Taylor autobiography of the mid-to-late 1980s. Then I realized that I better hold my breath because the more that Carolina made the NCAA mad, the more NC State’s program better watch out for retribution!

The Big Lead followed its hostess retrospective with “More Old School Recruiting” from the SI Archives in NC State’s glory years, 1974.

I’m aware there are no surprises here, but I’m fascinated by how frank everyone was back then.

“This year’s top high school basketball prospect, Moses Malone from Petersburg, Va., has been offered cars, a campus apartment and money.”

Malone signed a letter of intent to play at Maryland before going into the ABA. I wonder what Lefty Driesell offered him to actually get him to sign.

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34 Responses to Recruiting practices take spotlight

  1. StateFans 12/15/2009 at 10:18 AM #

    LOL!! I think a lot of you need to leave this conversation to the ‘big boys’ and just sit back and learn.

    We just had someone who thinks the proper spelling of the word “roll” is “role” try to teach me something! and had another person who happened to see some nice cars parked outside of a dorm make an allegation.

    Hilarious and sad all at once. When will the madness end?

    Recognize that most of us are not making off-the-cuff conclusions/allegations based on random, unsubstantiated observations. We are talking about years and years of information gathering from various sources supplemented with personal

    KNOWING that most of the Carolina basketball stars of the 1990s – including specific names like Forte & Jamison – ‘happened’ to drive Range Rovers while in college while also hearing interesting pieces of information about their special ‘lease’ program is a damn far cry from someone saying they saw some nice cars parked outside a dorm or some cars ‘roleing’ up to a party. (LOL!)

    Antawn Jamison’s father was featured in Charlotte Observer articles about having to take 2nd and 3rd jobs as a janitor to make enough money for his family to have food and clothes. And, Jamison drove a friggin Range Rover in college. REALLY?

    Anyway…I appreciate the poster commenting about our players who finished their eligibility. To men, the saddest of the bunch was Cedric Simmons who decided that he wasn’t going to play for Herb anymore and took money/car after the season ended. Then Herb left and Simmons wanted to play for Sidney and it was too late. (I’m so damn tired of some people now knowing that story that it was time to share).

  2. packplantpath 12/15/2009 at 11:41 AM #

    Statefans, not sure if that is directed to me or not. But, in my case it it wasn’t nice cars parked by dorms. It was the huge number of Lexus, Cadillac, Range Rover, Hummer, etc. These all had rims that cost more than some cars. And they were not by the dorms. The Weisiger-Brown Athletic complex entrance is right by the Wood hall dorms and these cars drove in and out of there all day long. Not sure, but I think this is the training facility for some teams, including basketball but not football?

    It could be a coincidence since as GAWolf said, not all athletes are destitute. I never got a good look at any of the drivers, tinted windows and all that, but they were definitely college age. I can’t say for sure who they were but I think the conclusions I drew were quite reasonable.

  3. PackerInRussia 12/15/2009 at 12:36 PM #

    That’s interesting about Ced Simmons. Was it already clear by the time Sid arrived that Ced could not play because of these things? If so, why did he spend time trying to convince him to stay seemingly to the detriment of planning for a future without him?

  4. wolfmanmat 12/15/2009 at 5:20 PM #

    Guys, stop acting like State players don’t get similar treatment for cars/ladies/etc. We hung around the Upper Deck in the 90’s and the employees were instructed to put all player tabs on a “special” card. The manager was really one of our best friends at the time. The point is, while State coaches may not give “directly” to players, the money is still there from the boosters. Carolina is the same way; you don’t seriously think this is Roy or Butch with direct involvement? This is boosters. The coaches may know it goes on, but they are completely out of the money loop for obvious reasons. Boosters give the money for the cars/women/food and drink.

  5. ncsu_kappa 12/15/2009 at 7:31 PM #

    I would actually argue that we are much different because we don’t have the resources to compete cash for cash with schools like UT and UNX.

    I never saw Julius Hodge behind the wheel the entire time he was at school, with an attractive female, or fly clothes. Judging by his frame, he wasn’t taking advantage of the free meals that often either. Marcus Melvin used to only drive his female’s cars. If this practice is equally prevalent at State it completely got by me. Julio Jones from what I remember hearing (granted I didn’t see it with my own eyes) was driving an escalade to summer practices down at Alabama.

    Andre Maddox and Dantonio Burnette each drove cars worth a combined $5000 (Andre Maddox had 1991 or so corrola). Whether or not a restaurant refuses to charge athletes is one thing. But to compare that with free luxury vehicles is a bit of a travesty. These are some of our best players, if these guys didn’t get the crazy gifts/cars, who did?

    Again, I can’t say with confidence that NC State didn’t do anything. However, from the players I knew most of them stayed on campus and didn’t have anything extravagant until their decision was made not to play anymore. In the case of Sean Price, his time in the luxury car was really short lived.

    I’m with SFN, if it happened I would love to know of an example that was questionable.

  6. Dogbreath 12/15/2009 at 10:26 PM #

    Philip Rivers drove an 80s model Taurus with no hub caps for his entire 4 years.

  7. wolfmanmat 12/16/2009 at 5:30 PM #

    The money is from boosters. Not all kids accept it. Just so happens that at Carolina, alot of players accept it and the money is everywhere. The same is true at State, although the amounts and priveldges are a bit different. We just don’t have the same type of boosters…ie. you don’t see David Thompson Nissan in Raleigh(like ole’ MJ Nissan in the Hell), do you? Now if you don’t think MJ is a Carolina booster, then you are crazy. We just don’t have the same kind of boosters. State is at a completely different level for big money boosters who would provide players with items such as cars. But, State boosters do provide incentives to players. All schools do. It is completely naive and biased to think otherwise.

  8. Dogbreath 12/16/2009 at 7:18 PM #

    Its true. At Clemson, and I suspect every other major school including State there is a “Cheating Coordinator.” these people typically have ambiguous job titles like associate vice deputy director or quality control coordinator, and that sort of thing. When a big athlete needs a flight home, money for an abortion, a lawyer, or any sundry expense, they take care of it.

  9. McCallum 12/18/2009 at 6:50 AM #

    Jeb Barlow?

    Now he’s no Ed Geth but land-O-live I haven’t thought of that 3 rate hack in nearly 20 years.

    Legend has it that Jeb feathered his hair with a mixture of soybean meal and Martha White self rising flour.

    All the rest of this piece is speculation.

    McCallum

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