Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
The University of Kansas Athletic Corporation created a policy governing signs at Kansas athletic events.
SEE PAGE 2B
Jayhawk track
The Kansas men's and women's track and field teams competed in Pullman, Wash.
Monday May 4,1998 Section: B
SEE PAGE 3B
Jayhawk softball
Page 1
Despite strong individual play, the Kansas softball team was eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament
SEE PAGE 3B
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Gotta be da shoes
Shoe company-sponsored summer camps persist despite complaints by college basketball coaches
Story By John Blakely Wilson Photos courtesy of The Kansas City Star
"How serious are you about not recruiting Jaron Rush?" a reporter asked Roy Williams at a February 12 press conference in Hadl Auditorium.
Williams' face lit up with an ear-to-ear smile. He had already called Rush on the phone to tell him he was no longer a Kansas basketball prospect after Rush had questioned Williams' coaching style on a Kansas City radio talk show.
Williams spoke carefully, explaining a world with which he doesn't agree.
The saga of Coach Williams and Rush, a basketball idol from Kansas City's Pembroke Hill Academy, showed the flaws in a recruitment system where shoe company summer camps rule and allow unqualified, opportunistic coaches to over-inflate the egos of 18-year-old prodigies.
"Up until the past couple years, I have enjoyed recruiting," Williams said. "But I don't enjoy it in 99.9 percent of the cases now. It's always been hard, and it's always been a little demeaning and distasteful."
"If it wasn't for that part of it, I would work for minimum wage and be the happiest guy in the world," Williams, who makes $113,850 a year plus revenue from a Nike shoot contract and summer camps, said. "But because of that, there's not enough money to pay me to where you feel it's worth putting up with some of the stuff that has occurred recently."
The Importance of Summer Basketball
Until the early 1980s, college basketball stars signed college letters of intent after the high school season finished in the spring.
But in the mid 80s, the NCAA changed those rules to allow for an early period in the fall and a four week evaluation period in the summer when college coaches could recruit incoming high school seniors. That turned summer basketball into the most important part of the college recruiting process—the first crack at high school stars.
Jaron Rush, a high school senior at Pembroke Hill Academy in Kansas City, Mo., was ranked as the top player in his class by HooScoop Magazine by the time he was in eighth grade.
Soon the importance of shoe company sponsored summer events like the Nike All-American camp and the Adidas ABCD camp increased. These summer camps brought the best players together for Division I coaches.
As pressure became greater on high school players to play in summers, high school athletic federations made
"They didn't want to make all the kids have to play all summer with their coaches
or be at a competition advantage." Mike DeCourcy, college basketball writer for The Sporting News, explained. "But that took the qualified educators out of the process."
Those NCAA and the high school association rules have turned summer amateur basketball into a high stakes game of b ing money
"Just as IBM and Apple are competing to be the computer of choice in high schools by donating equipment across the country, we are looking for loyalty from our consumer, the athlete," Nike representative Vizhier C. Mooney said.
Shoe companies like Reebok, Adidas and Nike flood large amounts of money into summer basketball with hopes of building product allegiance with the young stars. Today, approximately 230 NBA players, 70 WNBA players and 193 NCAA college athletic programs wear Nike products alone.
Michael Johnson, an Oklahoma State freshman forward who played two summers ago with Rush on the Kansas City 76ers, said he thought Nike had built a relationship with him.
"Nike sponsored us with shoes and uniforms so we helped them whenever we could," Johnson said. "I feel an allegiance to them even now because they helped me in the past."
"There are AAU coaches out there asking for handouts, but I don't think you can legislate morality," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. "I hope college coaches keep their ethics and morals in the process so the wrong people don't have influence over the process."
This constant flow of money leads to the dark side or sports, some coaches said, with unregulated third party summer coaches peddling their influence and controlling the recruiting process throughout the summer recruiting period
Of course, a shoe company wants the best players at its camps, and attracting these players involves contact with third party middlemen, their summer coaches. These summer coaches are not regulated by the NCAA or any state high school athletic associations. Critics said talent brokers often do not live up to the same standards as high school or college coaches.
"It doesn't make sense to take the qualified educator out of the process," said Steve Buek, former basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Kansas City. "They are left with a situation where the lowest common denominator controls."
The Rush Story
Jaron Rush burst onto the national recruiting scene playing for the Kansas City 76ers, a summer basketball team sponsored by Kansas City businessman Tom Carson, when Rush was only 12.
Grant, when Rush was only 12.
By the time Rush enrolled in high school, his national reputation had sprouted wings. He was crisscrossing the country on the traveling team.
Top high school players like Rush spend four weeks each summer jetting across the country to various camps and tournaments, sponsored by shoe companies. College coaches take in the action, scouting potential athletes. The shoe companies pay summer coaches to deliver athletes to their camps in hopes of building a bond between the star and the brand.
As an eighth grader, HoopScoop Magazine named Rush the best player in his class, and Grant chose to pick up Rush's tuition at the prestigious Kansas City private school, Pembroke Hill Academy.
The 76ers attracted other nationally ranked high school players like Corey Maggette of Chicago and Korleone Young of Wichita
With the team went a Nike endorsement deal for their coach, Myron Piggie, a man once indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of drug trafficking and assaulting a federal agent.
The Basketball Times reported the Nike-Piggle deal to be worth at least $250,000 for five years, but neither Piggie or Nike would confirm his
With the team went a Nike endorsement deal for
earnings.
"The top teams
Shannon
e top teams
get a national treatment from the sh o e o nies," said b a i n, n a i n
See RUSH on page 10B
Jayhawks slide home after ending so-so season
By John Blakely Wilson Kansan sportswriter
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas baseball team won its first three-game series of the season this weekend, fighting past Kansas State 9-7 and 5-2 on Friday and Saturday before losing 2-1 yesterday at Frank Myers Field in Manhattan. The wins snapped a seven-game losing
The wins snapped a seven-game losing streak for the Jayhawks.
Kansas (20-29) won Friday night behind
grand slam in the fifth inning and strong relief pitching from Les Walrond. Walrond was dominant in six and one-third innings, striking out eleven while upping his record to 4-5.
Center fielder Clint Wyrick tied a school record with five hits, including a three-run home run.
Wedd: Hits a grand slam against Kansas State
On Saturday, first baseman Randy Case.
Philbrick, who evened his record at 3-3,
allowed just two runs and four hits while
smashed a three-run home run in the top of the 10th inning, and Rusty Philbrick closed out a 10-inning, complete-game victory.
Kansas State pitcher Pat Hertzel outdueled Kansas pitchers Dan Auckland and Brian Schriner yesterday.
Kansas made a late charge in the top of the ninth. The Jayhawks had loaded the bases with no outs when first baseman Randy Case hit a sacrifice fly to center.
Case: Hits a three-run home run against Kansas State.
Kansas's hopes were dashed when center fielder Clint Wyrick attempted to tie the game and was caught running to home plate after a pitch squirted away from Kansas State catcher Yancey Avres.
All hopes for a sweep were killed when designated hitter Wedd popped a lazy fly to center that was caught by Kansas State's Brian Bobier.
Schriner worked three perfect innings in relief, and starter Auckland also threw well, allowing two runs on five hits in five innings. Third baseman Paul Levins batted lead-off and had two hits in four at bats, while Case drove in the Jayhawk's only run of the contest.
The Jayhawks finished in last place in the Big 12 Conference with a 7-20 record and won just 12 of 28 games against Division I schools.
■ Kansas is scheduled to play its final games of the season against St. Collegeast on Saturday at Hoglund-Maupin Stadium. The Jayhawks will play a doubleheader beginning at 2 p.m.
NFL dreams dwindle for former Kansas running back
Since the age of 6, Eric Vann's future always has been crystal clear — to play football.
By Jodi Smith
Special to the Kansan
Now, doubt is beginning to cloud that vision.
His aspirations of playing in the NFL quickly are slipping out of his hands, leaving him no control of a future that, four years ago, he was certain about.
Vann, a stand-out running back for the Jayhawks since 1994, has not always been focused entirely on football.
El Dorado as a baseball outfielder and football running back, playing both sports in college was his goal.
"There were schools that would call, like Syracuse called, and they don't even have a baseball program, so that was out in one conversation." Vann said.
After a high school career in
Former Kansas football coach Glen Mason was more than happy to let Vann play baseball if it meant him coming to the University of Kansas.
"He was a tremendous high school football player," Mason said. "He had everything we were
looking for in a running back."
Vann did play baseball for two seasons, until his junior year when coach Terry Allen replaced Mason and began spring football.
Vann, who was determined to start his senior year, put football ahead of baseball for the first time. And after cruising the sidelines for three years behind Kansae' star running back June Henley, Vann was placed in the starting role he thought he had deserved since the beginning.
Vann never got the chance to battle Henley head-to-head.
When he and Henley were in practice, Henley took his runs behind the first-string offensive line, and Vann took his behind the second-second. Vann said.
"My first three years were so frustrating," he said. "It's one thing to get beat out by somebody, but it's another thing to not get a chance to beat somebody out."
As far as Mason was concerned the competition was healthy.
"I think that's a situation that a lot of people are faced with." Mason said. "I think it would be hard to dispute that June was
See FOOTBALL on page 4B
Former Kansas running back Eric Tann fries to break the tackle of a Missouri defender. Vann enjoyed a starting role during his fourth year at Kansas, but his football now is uncertain.
Photo by Steve Puppe/KANSAN
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