nabc letter

SoCalHoops Commentary

An Open Letter To The NABC: Don't
Legislate The Summer Away--(Aug. 4, 1998).

Many people criticize the summer open evaluation period. They claim it's out of control. The most common themes expressed are:

(a) The recruiting period is "too long";

(b) The players play too many games;

(c) The high school coaches need "more control";

(d) Club and "AAU" coaches are generally a bad influence;

(e) College coaches don't want to be on the road during the entire month of July;

(f) There are mysterious, dark, and sinister forces at work "influencing" high school players, with offers of shoes, clothing, cash, and worse; and/or

(g) All of the above.

Unfortunately, some very prominent commentators and mainstream media (notably 60 minutes) have focused on the conduct of a few AAU and club coaches and have attempted to tar the entire summer open evaluation period with the same broad brush. Right now the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and the NCAA are considering adopting rule changes to the college recruiting system which could have a devastating impact upon the lives of thousands and thousands of kids who hope to get basketball scholarships. The changes could dramatically impact upon camp operators, independent tournament operators and promoters, and will most certainly change the way players are "scouted" by colleges, perhaps not for the better.

Because many coaches who are voting members of the NABC read the articles over at CHI, and lots of coaches also read our articles (at least they tell us they do), we thought we'd express our views on the subject. College coaches, high school coaches, and members of the NABC, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, we believe, need to think very carefully and seriously before they "re-tool" or "revamp" the current system of open evaluation. Frankly, we were convinced last year that the time was ripe for reform. However, we've had a year to again see the summer process at work, and we believe that the NABC reform ideas are not well taken, and would be ill-advised.

Consider the following: Do you enjoy watching summer basketball tournaments? Regional and local events such as the Slam-N-Jam, the Nike Peach Jam, the adidas Double Pump Best of Summer, the adidas Big Time, or maybe you even traveling to Teaneck to watch the ABCD camp, or (if you can get in) to the Nike Camp in Indianapolis? Are you a player dreaming of getting a college basketball scholarship? Good. If you are, read on. If not, you might want to read on anyway.

Under the current NCAA recruiting system, here's what the upcoming year looks like:

August 1 through September 8, 1998: Quiet Period-- no contact or evaluation of players permitted.

September 9 through September 26, 1998: Contact Period-- coaches can telephone players

September 27 through November 8, 1998: Quiet Period-- again, no contact at all.

November 9 through November 12, 1998-- another dead period. Coaches are not permitted to visit with or speak to players. A National Letter of Intent cannot be hand delivered during this time; it must be mailed.

November 13 through November 18, 1998: Yet another dead period.

November 19, 1998 through March 15, 1999 [except for (1) below] Evaluation Period- 40 evaluation days selected at the discretion of the institution and designated in writing in the office of the director of athletics; institutional staff members may not visit a prospect's educational institution on more than one day per week during this period:

(1) Those days during November 19, 1998 through March 15, 1999, not designated above for evaluation purposes: Quiet Period

March 16 through March 22, 1999: Contact Period

March 23 through March 24, 1999: Quiet Period

March 25 through March 30, 1999 (noon): Dead Period

March 30 (noon) through March 31, 1999 (8 a.m.): Quiet Period

March 31 (8 a.m.) through April 4, 1999: Contact Period

April 5 through April 8, 1999--Dead period: National Letter of Intent cannot be hand delivered during this time; it must be mailed.

April 9 through April 14, 1999: Contact Period

April 15 through July 7, 1999: Quiet Period

July 8 through July 31, 1999: Evaluation Period

As things presently stand, the longest evaluation period actually takes place during the period from November 19 through March 15, when there are 40 evaluation days permitted. July 8 through 31 is only 24 days. But the problem with the winter period is that college coaches are busy with their own teams during this period, and never could adequately focus on recruiting during that time period. So the summer evaluation process developed, and the major shoe companies and camp operators stepped in to create the venues and events for the college coaches and players.

During the month of July, hundreds and thousands of kids across the country have the chance to play for a shot at the big time. Right now, other than with the ABCD and Nike All -American camps, there is no "committee" of faceless "powers that be" who invite only the "best" players to an open evaluation period exposure event. Right now, the way it works is that if you are a player, can get some other players together to field a team, find a good coach, pay an entry fee, and raise some travel money, then you can play in the adidas Big Time, in the Nike Peach Jam, in the Slam-N-Jam NIT, the Pump Best of Summer or any number of other events. And if you can't find a team to play on, you can still get your shot at exposure to the college coaches by attending any number of "exposure" camps, such as the Converse Shootouts, the Pump West Coast All-Stars, the Rim-Rattler Camp, 5-Star Camps, or any of the hundreds of other NCAA ceritifed exposure camps and events where college coaches are sure to be in attendance.

But if the NABC membership (which consists of primarily high school coaches) convinces the NCAA to institute changes to the way the summer recruiting period works all of this will change. It probably won't change until after July 31, 1999, but after then, watch out, it could be entirely different. And in our view, some of the proposed changes won't be for the better, because they will just limit the opportunities for players to be seen and evaluated. Why? Well, there are a lot of vested interests at work on all sides of this issue, so let's examine a few of the issues.

First some statistics directly from the NCAA: The NCAA estimates that in any given year there are more than 500,000 high school basketball players in the US. If that's correct, then that means that with most schools being four year high schools these days, about 125,000 of these players are seniors. Assume that half of these players are girls, so there are on average about 62,500 senior boys playing high school basketball. There are 302 Division I college basketball programs in the country (more or less). The NCAA basketball scholarship limit for Division I schools is 13. That means that in any given year there can be a total of 3,926 (more or less) scholarship basketball players in the U.S. Let's say that 1/4 of the 13 slots (again assuming a four year ride) is reserved for incoming college freshmen, and that is a huge assumption, since some schools this year only have 2 or 3 scholarships to give. Of course it evens out because other schools have 8, 9 or even 10 to fill, so let's just say that 4 out of the 13 slots on average are available at each of the 302 D-I schools.

What this means is that you have 62,000 (rounding) graduating high school seniors around the country all vying for about 1000 openings in college Division I college basketball. That means each player has about a 1.5 in 1,000 chance of attracting the attention of a college coach enough to get an offer.

Let's give this another perspective. Most regional tournaments like the Slam-N-Jam or the Double Pump Best of Summer attract about 68 teams (remember it should be number divisible by four, if it's a properly constructed tournament). Each team has between 8 and 10 players. This means that 680 kids, maximum will attend, and the number is probably lower because many of these same kids often play for more than one team, at least at a tournament like the Big Time (which is in a class by itself, so let's just stick with the regional adidas, Nike, Converse and Reebok events around the country, ok?) So let's say that each of these events attracts about 650 kids just to be on the safe side. And these are big camps, places where the college coaches can observe three, four, five or even six games simultaneously in one facility as they can, for example at the Converse Metro Classic played last weekend at Seton Hall's six-court facility.

At last count, the NCAA had a list of summer events which were certified for coaches to attend which numbered more than 68 pages of single spaced materials, consisting of tournaments, leagues, camps, and the like. That's more than 680 events from June 1 through July 31 which are NCAA Sanctioned. On average these leagues and events serve about 300 players per tournament/event/league/camp, so you begin to get the picture: These events serve to give a lot of kids, a lot of exposure, and the events accomodate almost 70,000 players throughout the summer who are seen by any and all of the coaches who can get to these events.

Of course, not everyone is D-I. There are thousands of D-II, D-III and NAIA and JC's who also scout these events, looking for players to play at the next level beyond high school. Many of the coaches from these Divisions also watch and look for players to fill out their programs.

But all this exposure business means that college coaches have to work really hard to see the better players. And fortunately, the better players tend to play for the best teams, and those teams all seem to congregate at the "major" events around the country, culminating with the Big Time on a national level, and the Best of Summer and the Slam-N-Jam NIT on a more regional level. So the coaches from the biggest D-I schools all know to attend the biggest events anyway. But they've also got lots of opportunity to discover players who, for one reason or another, don't or can't make it to those "bigger" events. Something for everyone, the free-market at work. The shoe companies foot some of the bills, sponsoring some teams, but mostly, teams just get free shoes or some portion of the entry fee waived.

A few more numbers: Each division I school has 13 scholarship spots (unless they're on probation, like Cal). There are about 302 D-I schools. About 4 scholarships on average turn over. So there are about 1200 freshman spots that open up on average each year. Yet there are about 70,000 or so high school rising seniors, sophomores, juniors and freshman who participate in these summer events. Assuming the majority of players at these events is a rising senior, there are still more than 20,000 players looking for about 1,200 Division-I spots.

Now, imagine that you're a young high school player, pretty good, but you haven't gotten much publicity (deserved or otherwise). You're not Carlos Boozer, Majestic Mapp, Donnell Harvey, and you're not likely to be any time soon. You attend a small school, and there's not much chance that Tubby Smith, Steve Lavin, Ben Braun, or any other D-I coaches will be attending your high school game against Podunk High any time soon, especially when your games are scheduled in January, February and March, the same time as the college season. Not much chance that when Steve Lavin is battling Stanford, that he'll be catching a plane to see you play another high school team, no matter how good you are.

Yet that's just what the NABC is proposing. They want to limit the summer evaluation period pretty drastically. The current proposal calls for two types of reform. The first form is to simply limit the summer period to 14 days. The more drastic reform is to institute regional, invitation-only camps to be run by USA Basketball, which bills itself as the official governing body of basketball in the U.S.

So what does the first limitation mean?

That the shoe company invitation-only camps (ABCD and Nike All-American Camp) will obtain even more importance. And it will leave only one week following those camps for the rest of the evaluation period during summer. Which means that teams and players will either go to Vegas or to strictly regional events. And that will mean that Vegas and the Big Time will exert even more control over the evaluation process. Thus, rather than limit the influence and effect AAU and club coaches have on the game and players, it will make the limited period of evaluation even more important.

The more Draconian result urged by the NABC, which again is predominantly composed of high school coaches, is to eliminate the shoe company and regional exposure camps entirely by instituting these USA Basketball camps. If you think it's tough to get exposure now with the free-market based system of camps, tournaments, and other events, you haven't seen anything yet. Just how USA Basketball proposes to fill the needs and exposure requirements of more than a handful of players, the same ones who now get invited to ABCD and Nike Camp, remains a mystery. What does seem certain though is that the majority of players other than the top 400 or so players will just be out of luck during the summer.

The idea of expanding the high school basketball recruiting evaluation period also seems ill-conceived to us. Indeed, the reason the current situation exists at all is because the NCAA realized that college coaches simply don't, can't or won't actively do recruiting during their own college basketball seasons, except for the most high profile recruits and then only if they are closely situated geographically. The present summer open evaluation period was a direct response to the situation which the NABC is proposing to return to, a system of recruiting which, for all but the very largest and best programs such as UCLA, Kansas, Georgetown and a few others, really was unsatisfactory. It didn't permit much live evaluation so the coaches clamored for more in the summer.

Sure, if a kid plays three games a day for more than 30 days, it's too much. But most kids involved in the recruiting process don't do this. Most go to camps, play in a couple of events, and also play summer league for their high school teams, playing for those same high school coaches who are now clamoring for "more control."

And do the high school coaches truly deserve more "control?" That's a question that we suspect really can't be answered simply. Many high school coaches complain about club and AAU coaches unduly influencing players, inducing them to transfer to this or that school. Sure, there are overbearing coaches who may or may not, in the opinion of some, really "coach" these summer teams, and there are a few bad apples in every bushel, so to speak. But by and large, many of the club and AAU coaches we've met and spoken to and known over the years have been pretty good guys. They're either high school coaches themselves, or they work with kids through a local YMCA, or a youth program, or the like. We can count on the fingers of one hand the "shoe company" coaches around the country who covet and seem to collect the "top" talent. And maybe a team filled with 10 "all-stars" who play together for a month isn't really all that "coachable" to begin with, so the idea of a club coach exerting "influence" from what we've seen, is another big, fat myth. Just an urban legend, designed to sell papers or advertising time on television. A story that only 60 Minutes would love.

Currently, the recruiting system is, through some pretty stiff and arcane rules, the best example of the free-market system at work. Competition betwen athletes, event organizers, and coaches at it's best. Sure the shoe companies "sponsor" some teams. So what? Are they to be faulted for sponsoring the "best" teams? What would you do if you were them?

If the NABC and the NCAA votes to approve the changes, you'll see them instituted after next year. Frankly, we think the proposed changes are a bad idea. Thousands of players won't get seen. The influence peddlers, scouts, street agents, and other "shadow people" will assume an even greater prominence because the college coaches will be forced to rely upon them even more for their information about who the best players are. The video tape companies and scouting services will have a field day. But the majority of players won't. They'll be largely unseen, unscouted and under-evaluated, because there just aren't enough scouts around, even with the internet to aid in the process.

Yet many of the same high school coaches who complain about the supposed undue influence of the club and AAU coaches could, if they wanted to, continue to coach their teams throughout the summer, either in NCAA sanctioned summer leagues or by entering their teams in NCAA sanctioned summer tournaments. These same coaches could familiarize themselves with NCAA Clearinghouse requirements. They could prepare their athletes for college ball, and advise them of the possibilities that exist at all levels. Many good and dedicated high school coaches in fact do this, working throughout the summer with their own high school team, or working with other dedicated outside coaches whom they trust. We suspect that these high school coaches, the ones whose "influence" continues to be felt during the summer, are not the ones crying for "reforms."

And we also suspect that it is those same high school and college coaches calling for reforms who just do not appreciate the numbers of people who will be adversely impacted by the proposed changes.

If you want to be heard on this issue, we would urge you to write, fax or e-mail the NCAA and the NABC with your thoughts. Personally, we'd urge them not to make the proposed changes, but instead to consider other less drastic reforms, perhaps a certification system for the coaches. For example if a coach is not NCAA certified, then he wouldn't be allowed to coach. Any number of other solutions, directed at the heart of the real problem would be better.

But unless you make your voice heard, your concerns and thoughts known, the NABC and NCAA won't know how you feel until it's too late.

Here's where you can reach them: Write to

Stephen A. Mallonee
NCAA Legislation

or write to USA Basketball and let them know whether you support or oppose the proposed legislation.

We know that we will.