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SoCalHoops College Recruiting News

More Clancy & USC: Here Comes
The LA Times With More--(April 30,1998)

The LA Times finally got into the Clancy-USC story. In a big way.

The Times is the first paper to claim that the allegations of the USC recruit involve not only receiving "financial incentives and cash payments", but they've gone so far as to say that the allegations involve allegations of "USC paying $25,000 to a highly sought-after high school player from Ohio as an inducement to accept a scholarship." The Times' "sources" were not identified.

And the Times also is the only paper so far that has gone on record claiming that it has heard, again from "sources" who are unidentified (but this time who are located in Heritage Hall, the building where the USC athletic department offices are housed), that the alleged source of the allegations is Cincinnati. Here's what the Times says about that:

"The origin of the allegation is still unclear, but several sources inside Heritage Hall said they believed it was made by members of the University of Cincinnati coaching staff.

"The sources have accused former UC Irvine coach Rod Baker, an assistant at Cincinnati since being fired by Irvine a year ago, of making the allegation after losing the recruiting competition over Clancy."

Of course, Baker denies this. He said to the Times yesterday:

""You can call the NCAA and find out that I've never turned in anyone in my 21 years of coaching. . . Never in a zillion years. It's not my job to see who's following the rules and who isn't."

Other than these two little bit of startling news, there was nothing new in the Times story that has not already been printed by either the Daily News or the Orange County Register.

Again, Clancy was unavailable to the Times reporter for comment. Oh, maybe there is one more "new" item in this story after all.

The Times reported that it couldn't reach Clancy at his home because it received a recording that his phone was "temporarily disconnected."

You'd think that with $25,000 in U$C money, he could pay his phone bill.