The agent-related article of last week that generated a lot of buzz in the sports agent community was a very long piece written by ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.  While I was not able to put aside the time to give it a thorough read until several days after it was written, I am glad that I kept that tab hanging around and finally read it.  So if you have not yet read the piece, Agents and coaches battle for prospects, go ahead and give it a try.

Adding a player as a friend on Facebook is an interesting tactic for an agent to employ.  As Cameron Schuh, the Associate Director for Public and Media Relations for the NCAA, once told me, there are no restrictions between agents and student-athletes in the NCAA rules/bylaws as far as communicating through social networking … AS LONG AS no oral and/or written agreement has been made.  Katz basically echos that statement in his piece.

Additionally, SPARTA and other laws are not particularly well-suited for online communication.  So it seems as though an agent is not violating any particular rule by communicating with a student-athlete over a site like Facebook.  And if an athlete is so bothered by agents contacting him on a social networking site, that athlete always has the option of not adding the agent as one of his contacts, or not having a profile on that site at all.

Coaches do hate it when agents have contact with their players, even if the agents are taking actions that are 100% legal.  I will not mention any names, but I have already had an experience with a college coach leaving me a 3 minute phone message, screaming expletives at me and basically telling me that he would make sure I never sign another college basketball player again in the future.  Was he out of line?  Of course.  Especially because he did not know that his player actually contacted me and asked that he be the one to break the news to his coach that he would be leaving early to play ball professionally.  It was not my fault when the player did not tell the coach until a couple of days before leaving school.

That’s why I am not surprised at all when Katz writes that Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio said to him, “Anybody that I find who goes behind my back to get my kids, I’ll do everything in my power to see that they’re not involved in the process.”

But is it any better if an agent goes through a coach instead of going directly to the player?  Coaches might refer a particular agent to their players even if that agent is not necessarily the right fit for the particular player.  Then we have to worry about shady coach/agent relationships…is the coach getting a cut of the action?

And yes, AAU coaches have taken the spot of college coaches as the emphasis for agents in building relationships for all the reasons mentioned by Katz.  But many college coaches still have very tight relationships with various agents.

The moral of the story is that basketball is pretty dirty.  There are a lot of different actors looking to benefit from an athlete’s talent.  There is a lot of money in the game of basketball, so the fact that there is so much shadiness behind the scenes should not surprise anybody.

Baseball

• Florida Marlins are only spending $27mil more than the absolute minimum [Minimum Salary].
• Travis Snider should be with the Blue Jays, but arbitration stands in the way [Super Two Update: Maybin, Snider].

Football

• Leigh Steinberg sits on the board of directors for Myron Rolle’s nonprofit foundation [Call him a Rolle model: Former Florida State player Myron Rolle a scholar and an athlete].
• Awesome use of $4,000 [A Charitable Chain Reaction].
• $5.8 million guaranteed per year = elite guaranteed money [Eli Manning: Elite Quarterback?]

Social Networking

• Twitter allows sports agents the power to shape their messages exactly how they want it to come across [Breaking News on Twitter].

Basketball

• A talented FEMALE college basketball player leaves school early to play overseas [College Star Epiphanny Prince leaves NCAA for Europe].

Sports Law

• Attorney, former NFL Asst. General Counsel, former sports agent, former General Counsel of Upper Deck…[The David Cornwell Chronicles: A (Semi) Regular Look at Sports and the Law].

• By the rules
• The Wetzel plan
• Letter of Intent benefits schools, not athletes

And his recent provocative pieces…

• Agents and AAU: Unrequited Love
• Probe: UConn violated NCAA rules

I guarantee that his most recent piece on UConn will catapult Wetzel’s popularity tremendously.  I hope that he gets to the bottom of all the recruiting violations and cleans up the business of sports a little bit.

Anyway, the site RealClearSports just interviewed Wetzel.  Here are the parts of the interview that I thought was worth extrapolating:

RCS: Last week, you (and Adrian Wojnarowski) broke the story uncovering UConn’s recruitment violations. What will be the follow-up and fallout from this story?

Wetzel: Well we’re doing a series of stories of the changing roles of agents in college basketball. There’s endless subject matter on that. I don’t know if that would necessarily involve UConn or not. UConn is just one school, the problem is everywhere. But if you don’t provide specific examples then these projects have no impact.

There’s an NCAA investigation already underway concerning multiple, major violations. The story is on the record. This wasn’t about anonymous sources. There’s no doubt that there was a relationship between Josh Nochimson and Nate Miles that was against NCAA rules. There’s no doubt that UConn assistant Tom Moore pointed Miles out to Nochimson and knew that the relationship was going on. And there’s no doubt that UConn exchanged 1,500 plus phone and text messages with Josh Nochimson while it was going on.

That’s why this is a different kind of story. I know people’s eyes glaze over with agents and phone calls and all of that. But this is a program initiating, knowing about and possibly directing a relationship between an alum, who also happens to be an agent, and a top prospect. I’ve heard people compare it to the Indiana case, because there were also some excessive phone calls. Excessive phone calls are the least severe of the charges. This is far more significant than Indiana. It’s not even close.

I’m sure UConn will figure out some kind of a defense, but the NCAA is taking it seriously. What comes of it is up to them. It’s their rules and their system.

RCS: What about the longer term fallout? How will the culture of NCAA regulation and college recruiting change from even just a single story?

Wetzel: Personally I don’t think it’s going to change very much because there’s so much money at stake. But hopefully with the series of stories, it makes people aware of how things have changed.

I think the general consensus out there, even inside college athletics, is the problem with agents is still some kind of shady runner waiting out the parking lot trying to meet a kid. What we’re trying to show with this story, and a previous story on an agency in New York, Ceruzzi Sports, is just how organized it is, how high tech it is, how much money is at stake.

The last story was about how agents donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the non-profit organizations that fund AAU coaches in an effort to get access to players. This one is how college coaches can use agents to recruit high school players.

We’re not doing the same old, blame the “street agent” stories. He isn’t the problem. The problem is at the top with a lot of wealthy, powerful people orchestrating this thing. This isn’t about who is selling a player, it’s who is buying the player.

If college basketball wants to change, they have to at least be embarrassed that they’re own coaches are the problem. Whether or not they change, that’s their issue, not mine. They do need to know that using the same blame game model from 25 years ago isn’t going to do anything. It’s way bigger. It’s way more inside, way more brazen and it’s way more sophisticated than most people realize.

RCS: One of the interesting things about the UConn story is that you’ve written extensively on the subject, including in your book Sole Influence, and that your perspective on cheating in college basketball is particularly nuanced. You told The Big Lead a few years ago, it’s not “made up of black hats and white hats. They are all grey hats. They about all cheat.”

If all programs cheat, with regards to cheating in recruitment, what balance – what shade of gray – should college basketball enforce?

Wetzel: Well there are a couple of things on that. College basketball makes these rules. If they want to change their rules, go ahead. I don’t necessarily agree with their rules. But this is what they have as their standard. This is what they sell to the American public. They claim that their tournament is pure. They get a great deal of the media to believe in their white-hat, black-hat scenario, which is absurd. “This guy’s shady, this guy’s a saint” – it doesn’t work that way. But that’s how it’s consumed.

The NCAA enjoys tax-exempt status and other benefits from the government based on this idea that they’re operating an amateur athletic organization and that this stuff doesn’t happen. That’s a promise they made to Teddy Roosevelt. If you take the UConn case, you say, “Well, if the UConn coaching staff points out an alum and agent to a top recruit, and that alum, with their knowledge, takes care of the kid and gets him surgery, lodging, transportation and all these things, and then the kid goes to UConn, how amateur is that?” And it isn’t just UConn.

What the NCAA sells to the people, what CBS sells to the people, and what they sell to the government so they don’t have to pay billions in taxes, is a farce. That’s probably more my problem with them. If they want change the rule, if they want to pay taxes, I don’t care. That’s their rules. But if they’re going to have rules, I think someone should call them out.

RCS: Rick Maese of the Baltimore Sun recently wrote a column about the lack of NCAA regulation, in which he quoted you, arguing, “[The NCAA is] almost completely reliant on self-reporting or media accounts. Schools rarely self-report a major violation. There’s been just one major infractions case involving a major basketball program in the last 2 1/2 years (Indiana, which self-reported). As media has cut back/changed, the number of investigations has also dropped.”

Realistically, with schools rarely self-reporting and investigative reporting fading away, is cheating in college basketball going to get worse?

Wetzel: Yeah, I’ve written a column calling this “the Golden Age Cheating” in college football and basketball. No one gets punished anymore. I think the NCAA is trying harder right now then they did a few years ago. I do think there are people at the NCAA, certainly on the enforcement staff that want to control this. But when you have 20 investigators on the entire thing, you’re just completely overmatched. I’m not so convinced that the infractions committee, which doles out the punishments, is as committed to the rules. Their penalties have been notoriously weak of late. As a result the level of corruption in college sports right now is just off the charts. If you knew all the stories, you’d watch these games a lot differently.

On Tuesday, March 31 at 8:00 p.m. EST Fox College Sports presents LIVE coverage of the tournament championship game between Bradley University of the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) and Old Dominion University of the Colonial Athletic Conference (CAA).

Bradley’s Chris Roberts provided the You-Tube classic moment with his 75-foot buzzer beater, to send the Braves into Wednesday’s semifinal matchup against visiting Pacific.

“CollegeInsider.com is excited to be partnering with Fox College Sports to televise the inaugural championship game of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament,” said GAME, Inc. President Jason Belzer, whose agency worked with CollegeInsider.com in putting the tournament together.  “With the limited number of available spots in the NCAA and NIT, the CIT rewards deserving college basketball programs with the opportunity to continue playing in the post season after successful regular season campaigns. It is an exciting time in college basketball and we’re thrilled to bring a little bit of March Madness to Fox College Sports.”

The championship game broadcast crew includes; Kyle Macy (Color) as well as GAME, Inc. clients Chris Munson (Play-by-Play) and Horace Broadnax (Analyst). GAME, Inc. President Jason Belzer will join a half-time panel that also includes Rick Byrd (Head Coach – Belmont University) and selection committee member Riley Wallace (Former Head Coach – University of Hawaii).

The game can also be streamed for free on www.foxsports.com Tuesday night.

Earlier this week, Andy Katz of ESPN wrote about a subject that I have covered many times on this blog: the proliferation of runners in the college basketball community.  The main subject of the article was Blake Griffin, who every analyst and self-proclaimed analyst has being picked by whatever team ends up with the #1 overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft.  While Blake and his family have warded off runners and the agents who employ them, many top athletes and their families do not make the same intelligent decision.  I believe that education is the answer, and as more high-profile writers at the largest media empires begin to discuss the state of college athlete recruiting, perhaps more athletes and their families will begin to see the light and place the important decision of picking an agent back in their own hands.

Coaches can also be a major help or burden to an athlete’s education.  Coaches like Jeff Capel at the University of Oklahoma are doing their due diligence by actually helping his players on and off the court.  Instead of being an accomplice in “the game” and strengthening certain runners’ and agents’ abilities to access his players early, Capel tells his players to be aware of any new friends that try to come into their life.  Good advice.

Not to be outdone by ESPN, Yahoo! Sports had its big dogs do some investigative reporting (it took six months of research) and came up with quite the interesting story concerning recruiting of college athletes by agents and their runners.  Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel wrote the story that shocked the nation yesterday: Probe: UConn violated NCAA rules.  It all started with Josh Nochimson, the former basketball agent who was decertified by the NBPA in 2008.  In his hayday, Nochimson was team manager for UConn and possibly stole $500,000 from Rip Hamilton.  Wojnarowski and Wetzel report that Nochimson also funded lodging, transportation, and restaurant meals for Nate Miles while Miles was a student-athlete at the University of Connecticut.  That’s a big no-no according to NCAA rules and Section 14 of the Uniform Athlete Agent Act (which Connecticut has adopted).

In the Yahoo! article, Rip Hamilton is quoted as saying,

“[Josh Nochimson] admitted to stealing…I always remember my agent saying, ‘Rip, don’t put your hands on him because he’ll be able to sue you. [Nochimson] was doing everything off of me. He looks like a high roller. It’s hard for a kid because you may not have anything and you see this guy.”

I have to think to myself, how many other talented student-athletes think the same thing when an agent or his runners approach the athlete blinged out with a nice car and offer to take the athlete to an expensive dinner at a high class steakhouse (which would be a violation if the athlete is still a student)?  Nochimson is not the only one out there putting up a facade.

And agents are not the only ones to blame for this terrible state of recruiting.  As always, Marc Isenberg put his valuable two-cents into the recruiting issue.

The NCAA, college programs and coaches can shift the blame to the agents, but ultimately it takes two to tango. What’s so damning in this investigation is the volume of calls between the agent and the UConn coaching staff. According to Yahoo!, there were “1,565 phone and text communications with Nochimson, including 16 from head coach Jim Calhoun.

The agents and their runners need to be threatened against committing violations, not egged on by NCAA institutions.  Besides that point, though, I remain in my statement earlier this month, the answer to these recruiting problems is education.  If you are a talented student-athlete that possesses the attributes to make it in professional basketball (overseas you can make a ton of money, as well), then why take the risk of working with guys like Josh Nochimson who are only going to threaten your brand?  There is nothing wrong with listening to people you trust, but in the end, the decision you make on an agent should be your own.  It all starts with the athletes.  If the top picks in each draft begin to ward off runners and wait to make agent decisions until their college eligibility has expired, NCAA institutions will find no need to work hand-in-hand with agents, and runners will no longer be on agents’ payrolls.  It all starts with the athletes.  It all starts with education.

For Immediate Release

Introducing The Inaugural CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament

Jan. 26, 2009

MIAMI, FL-GAME, Inc., the coaching division of Dynasty Athlete Representation, and CollegeInsider.com are pleased to announce the creation of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, which will begin inaugural play in March 2009. The tournament will feature 16 teams not participating in the NCAA or National Invitational Tournament. The field will be determined after the official announcements of the two existing tournaments. GAME, Inc. is responsible for tournament sponsorship revenues and broadcasting acquisitions, as well as all facets of event and hospitality planning, management and execution.

During the 2007-08 season 53 teams, that finished .500 or better, did not participate in postseason play. Eleven of those 53 teams won 20 or more games, with an additional 19 teams amassing at least 18 wins. The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament will provide a second season for 16 deserving college basketball programs. Criteria for selection will include, but are not limited to, win-loss record, strength of schedule, strength of conference, and final ten games.

The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament is a single-elimination tournament, consisting of four rounds, with the first three rounds being played at on-campus sites, which will be determined by seeding. The inaugural championship game will be played at an on-campus site to be determined by seeding.

* The NCAA and the National Association of Basketball Coaches have been consulted throughout and are fully aware of the parameters and guidelines established by CollegeInsider.com.

# # # # # #

Eligible Teams

• Participating teams must finish the regular season with a winning record against division I opponents. Teams whose conferences have less than fifty-percent (50%) of their teams participating in the NCAA and NIT tournaments will be given higher priority for selection into the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament.

Schedule:

The tournament consists of 15 games: Eight first-round games, four second-round games, two semi-final games and a championship game. In an effort to minimize travel and limit class time missed, teams will be bracketed geographically. The official announcement of the 16-team field will be made following the announcements of the NCAA and NIT fields respectively.

• The opening round games will be played on Monday, March 17 and Tuesday, March 18 (the first round of the NCAA Tournament will begin on March 19).
• Quarterfinal games will be played on Monday, March 23.
• Semifinal games will be played on Wednesday, March 25.
• Championship game played on Tuesday, March 31.

Selection Committee:
A selection committee determines the field of participants. The panel consists of current and former coaches, athletic directors and senior CollegeInsider.com personnel.

• David Adelman (CollegeInsider.com)
• Brian Doyle (CollegeInsider.com)
• Matt Drake (CollegeInsider.com)
• Joe Dwyer (CollegeInsider.com)
• Hugh Durham (Former head coach, University of Georgia)
• Pat Flannery (Former head coach, Bucknell University)
• Lou Henson (Former head coach, New Mexico State University)
• Gene Keady (Former head coach, Purdue University)
• Kyle Macy (Former head coach, Morehead State University)
• Jim Phelan (Former head coach, Mount St. Mary’s)
• Nolan Richardson (Former head coach, University of Arkansas)
• Riley Wallace (Former head coach, University of Hawaii)
• Perry Watson (Former head coach, University of Detroit)
• Rich Zvosec (Former head coach, UMKC)

More information about the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, Dynasty Athlete Representation or any of its coaches:

www.collegeinsider.com/tournament

www.dynastyreps.com

Jason Belzer 732.322.5145 jbelzer@dynastyreps.com

###

Marquette University (1-0) (Scott Monarch)

Wesley Matthews scored a career-high 27 points and No. 16 Marquette rolled past Houston Baptist 95-64 Friday night in Buzz Williams’ debut as the Golden Eagles’ head coach. Jerel McNeal had 20 points and Lazar Hayward added 19 points and 12 rebounds for Marquette. The Golden Eagles never trailed and broke open the game with a 14-0 spurt to start the second half. Matthews added a career-high eight assists and five steals.

SE Missouri State (0-2) (Rodney Hamilton)

(11/14/08) New Mexico started the second half on an 18-3 run to blow open the game and then coasted to a 102-59 win over Southeast Missouri at the Pit in Albuquerque. Southeast led by as many as five points early in the game, leading 16-11 with 12:14 remaining, but the bigger and stronger New Mexico team built up a 46-31 halftime lead. The home standing Lobos put six players in double figures led by Tony Dandridge with 16 points. Roman Martinez added 10 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

(11/16/08) Kansas State of the Big 12 Conference built up a 39-16 halftime lead but had to hold on for an 88-68 win over Southeast Missouri State. The Wildcats, 2-0, built a 39-16 halftime lead while controlling the boards 34-19 while the Redhawks shot only 17% from the field.

Arkansas State (0-1) (Elwyn McRoy)

Ole Miss’ David Huertas poured in 24 points to lead the Rebels against the Arkansas State Red Wolves, 65-52, in ASU’s season opener Friday at the Tad Smith Coliseum. ASU had trouble converting its shots, hitting only 35 percent (21-60) from the floor for the game and scoring only one three point basket (1-12) in the game.

University of Illinois-Chicago (0-1) (Tracy Dildy)

A career-high offensive output for Robo Kreps and Scott VanderMeer’s double-double were not enough as the UIC men’s basketball team suffered a 67-61 road defeat at the hands of Bradley in the season opener for both teams at Carver Arena on Friday night. Kreps led all scorers with 24 points, hitting five of his nine three-point attempts for the Flames (0-1). VanderMeer scored 15 and pulled down 11 rebounds for his ninth career double-dip effort. Theron Wilson had a double-double of 12 points and 13 rebounds for Bradley (1-0), while Dodie Dunson led the Braves with 21 points.

North Carolina Central University (0-1) (Henry Dickerson)

North Carolina Central University opened its second season as a Division I men’s basketball program with a 94-48 loss to No. 21 Wake Forest University inside Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Friday night. NCCU freshman guard Jamar Briscoe scored a team-high 18 points to lead three Eagles in double figures. NCCU senior J’Mell Walters came off the bench for 11 points, while sophomore transfer Vincent Davis added 10 points. As a team, NCCU shot just 26.7 percent from the field, including 18.8 percent in the first half. Wake Forest, on the other hand, hit 59.7 percent of its field goal attempts, including 60.6 percent in the opening 20 minutes.

Savannah State (2-0) (Horace Broadnax)

(11/14/08) Rashad Hassan scored 19 points in his first collegiate game to pace Savannah State in a resounding 83-45 win over Brewton-Parker in the Tigers’ season opener Friday night. Arnold Louis, another freshman forward for Savannah State (1-0), had seven rebounds to kick off his college career. Jurbien Byrd scored 14 points and had six rebounds to lead the Barons (1-4). Brewton-Parker started the season with three straight defeats, but ended the losing streak Tuesday with a win over Morris College before dropping tonight’s contest.

(11/16/08) The University of North Florida put together a furious second-half rally but couldn’t sustain it in a 75-60 loss to open the season at Savannah State. UNF (0-1) made up a 15-point deficit, eventually taking a three-point lead in the second half of play before Savannah State put together a late 18-2 run to capture the victory.

Tennessee Tech (1-0) (Steve Payne)

Senior Daniel Northern scored 18 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked three shots to lead the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles to a 76-48 victory over Bryan College Saturday night in Eblen Center to open the regular season.

Louisiana-Lafayette (0-1) (Robert Lee)

Louisiana Tech outscored Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns men’s basketball team 13-4 in the final six minutes to rally and escape the CAJUNDOME with a 61-59 victory in the 2008-09 season opener for both teams.

Xavier Henry has a brother named C.J., who is in the New York Yankees organization.  When a player signs with a club after getting drafted, often times, the MLB team will offer a signing bonus along with an additional education bonus so that if said player decides that he wants to obtain his college degree at a point in the future, the team will pay for his enrollment.  This bonus is obviously not available for a player who has graduated college and is selected after receiving his degree.  Anyway, C.J. has decided to use his educational bonus and recently became a Memphis Tiger.

C.J. will play basketball for the Tigers.  He was a solid player in high school, and actually committed to Kansas before deciding to sign with the Yankees.  Why would his brother, Xavier, not do the same exact thing?  Memphis is one of, if not the best, college basketball programs in the country.  The Tigers have expressed interest in Xavier, and I am led to believe that a big reason they want C.J. is to strengthen their chances in acquiring Xavier.  By next year, I think that you will be looking at two Henry’s proudly wearing blue and white.

But after seeing those 10 kids get drafted, it really makes you second guess this rule that states players must be one year removed from high school before entering the draft. It has made a complete mockery of college basketball, and the student-athlete concept.

High school seniors are now going to college with no intention of being students, just athletes. While it may help these athletes with marketing themselves, it severely ruins the intriguing nature of college basketball. I would love to see how many classes this freshmen class attended, or at least their final freshmen year GPA.

It’s time that David Stern realizes his imposed age restriction does nothing but harm college basketball. The NBA should follow the NCAA football model, that requires players to be three years removed from high school.