O.J. Mayo has affected a lot of peoples lives.  He has given the town of Memphis hope that one day the Grizzlies will be a contender.  He gave BDA Sports Management a scare when there were allegations of a connection between BDA employee, Calvin Andrews, leading to Calvin’s one-year suspension by the NBPA.  Bill Duffy lost Mayo as a client, but continues to have success acquiring new talent.  And then there was Tim Floyd.  For a long time, Floyd’s name was generally kept out of the media.  The Mayo scandal revolved around names like Andrews, Rodney Guillory, Louis Johnson, and Bill Duffy.  But then, on May 12, 2009, Charles Robinson and Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports dug up some dirt on Coach Floyd.  Only a month later, and Floyd is on his way out of the University of Southern California.

After such a long break in the O.J. Mayo debacle, things have started moving very fast again.  With Floyd’s resignation, which he claims was based on a new lack of enthusiasm, questions surrounding USC’s recruiting tactics have once again hit center stage.  Will Floyd’s resignation save or futher damage USC’s reputation in the eyes of NCAA investigators?

• 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.

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.

Yahoo! has developed a new program that you can access on your mobile phone, giving you up-to-the-minute information on medals won, Olympics news, and photos from the games.  Point your phone’s browser toward http://m.yahoo.com/2008games and you are good to go.  A screenshot of the service is pictured at the bottom of this post.

Additionally, if you own a website, you may be interested in keeping your readers informed with the latest Olympics news, photos and videos.  http://www.nbcolympics.com/widgets/ has a nice looking widget that is easy to install and will make you think you are actually in Beijing (minus the air pollution).

$3 billion is the speculated price for a deal to have a chance to go through, but many believe that Forstmann still would have troubles parting with the company. If offered that amount, Forstmann and his investors would receive four times the amount they paid for IMG in 2004. Does $3 billion cover the value of playing golf with Vijay Singh while having Natalie Gulbis carry your clubs? Some believe that Forstmann loves his IMG toy, and does not want to part with it no matter how much is offered. Everything and everyone has a price, though.

It’s a good thing for Tripp Isenhour that we no longer run a ‘Nightmare Clients Of the Week’ column anymore. As you’ve probably already read, Isenhour, represented by John Mascatello and SFX Golf, faces misdemeanor criminal charges (up to 14 months in prison and $5,000, if convicted, per government sources) for his ‘one-in-a-million’ shot that ended up killing a protected migratory hawk at the Grand Cypress Resort in Florida (where a film crew had been busy filming an increasingly irate Isenhour for an instructional video, during which time the hawk began making loud, distracting noises).

Oddly, it took three months for this story to come out, though the details are still freshly sordid. According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine, Isenhour “got into a golf cart and drove closer to the bird and started hitting balls into the sky. When the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Isenhour allegedly said, ‘I’ll get him now,’ and aimed for the hawk. After getting closer and closer to hitting the bird and getting more excited, Isenhour hit the hawk and it fell to the ground and died.”

Much to do about nothing? Isenhour’s fellow pros certainly think so. “It’s a bad break for the bird, but it sounds like there are a lot of other things people should be worried about,” Mark Calcavecchia said later. Tour brass, as expected, took a more diplomatic route. PGA Tour executive VP Ty Votaw called the entire event “unfortunate,” right after the head of the Humane Society faxed Tour commissioner Tim Finchem a letter urging “appropriate remedial action against Isenhour up to and including fines and suspension.” Ultimately, the stiffest penalty Isenhour will pay will be from fans, and perhaps the loss of sponsors. As Michael Vick can attest, you don’t mess with animals and escape public wrath. Jail time, fine, or not, at the very least Isenhour is sure to go down in eternal infamy as a dumbass.

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Daly, Butchie and Chucky

Another troubled SFX client, John Daly, got (another) wake-up call this week. Months after losing several key sponsors (TaylorMade, Maxfli, Hooters and 84 Lumber), Daly’s longtime friend and swing coach, Butch Harmon, said that he “was not going to waste his time with a two-time major champion who is more interested in drinking than working on his golf game.”

Daly meanwhile, without a Tour card, has been relying on the largesse of sponsors exemptions (including the ones he’s suing) with which to get by. Even Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden pitched in during last week’s PODS Championship, carrying Daly’s bag en route to a 77 and an 80. A few (dozen) brews at the tournament’s Hooters “Owl’s Nest” put out those flames, and Daly seemed happy as ever, even signing his name to the back of a woman’s pants. But for Harmon, the whole circus of it all was the final straw. “When things don’t go right (for John), it’s back to the alcohol stuff,” Harmon said. “I love this kid. He’s a tremendous talent. But if he’s not going to give 100 percent effort, it’s a waste of my time.” Even the commish seemed taken aback. “We’ve worked with John in the past, and we’ll continue to be available to work with him in the future regarding his issues,” Finchem muttered.

Speaking of time, Daly was a no-show this past Wednesday morning for the pro-am round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational automatically disqualifying him from the tournament itself (PGA Tour rules require those in the pro-am to participate or risk being ineligible for the event. And it applies to alternates, whose job it is to know where they are on the list and be prepared in case someone drops out). Another exemption gone. Another day in the life of John Daly.

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Arjun Atwal: Back In The Fast Lane

Things are looking up for once-Nightmare client Arjun Atwal (pictured), represented by Bobby Kreusler and Blue Giraffe Sports. Atwal joined the PGA Tour in 2003 as its first Indian-born player, but lost his card after failing to finish in the top 125. While he was later implicated in a lingering investigation for his role in a fatal car crash that saw the Indian pro getting his ‘Fast and the Furious’ on, Atwal was finally cleared of all charges by Florida prosecutors this past week. Meanwhile, things are improving on the course for Atwal as well. Atwal won the Malaysian Open this past Sunday, and finished second on the Nationwide Tour’s Panama Movistar Championship in January. Asked about his improved play, Atwal credited practice rounds with none other than Tiger Woods.

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World’s number-one Lorena Ochoa “likes the way she’s started” 2008, and who wouldn’t? Ochoa cruised in the HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore by 11 strokes over second-place finisher Annika Sorenstam, relegating the Swede to “Phil Mickelson status” in the process. Yahoo! Sports Josh Peter weighed in with a nice piece on “the real Lorena,” which features comments from ex-agent Rocky Hambric. Ochoa, at the request of her one-time caddy and brother Alejandro Ochoa, left Hambric in 2005, turning over to him control of her business affairs. Alejandro now oversees Ochoa Sports Management, Ochoa Golf Academy and the Lorena Ochoa Foundation. “He also works hard to protect and shape her public image, and frequently erects a wall that separates the private Lorena from the media,” writes Peter.

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Speaking of Rocky Hambric, rumors are swirling that stud client, Anthony Kim, has either jumped ship, or may in fact be in the process of doing so. Hambric Sports Management has been a long time player in the golf management game, and even ‘expanded’ in a way in 2002, when CSS, a British sports-management and marketing company, acquired a minority stake in Hambric. As part of the deal, Hambric became CEO of Stellar Golf, CSS’ golf-management business in North America and Europe. Where could Kim be headed? The smart money, as always, says IMG. If true, one would hope the latest Hambric ‘divorce’ ends a bit more amicably than the last one, when Rocky went to court against IMG and his former client, Charles Howell III.

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Other News

* The annual Golf Digest Top 50 tracks the leaders in total (on-course plus off-course) income. Remember that their agents don’t make a dime of on-course income, but may make upwards of twenty-percent to one-quarter of their off-course contracts. Do the math on some of these guys.

* The LPGA goes You Tube. Check out their channel. I know Hound Dog will. I’ll probably stick to checking out other random stuff.

* More great college golf coverage from Golf World’s Campus Insider Ryan Herrington, including analysis of the recent Stacy Lewis-Amanda Blumenherst duel that I’m guessing had a few prospective agents/managers in attendance.

* Nice piece by The Chicago Tribune’s Ed Sherman regarding Ernie Els, who told Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press that his five-year old son Ben is autistic. The next person who goes on a cliched rant about Els being preoccupied psychologically by thoughts of finishing-second to Tiger Woods should maybe think a little deeper.

* Callaway Golf introduced a stylish, Fall 2008 golf line for women. Pebble Beach meets Paris.

* TaylorMade-Adidas Golf and the Royal Canadian Golf Association announced a new three-year agreement in which TMAG will become the official golf equipment and apparel partner of the RCGA.