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SoCal Prep Recruiting Report

Everyone Wants to Play for Pat Barrett Now--(November 11, 1997)

According to today's issue of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the CBS Sixty Minutes piece on AAU-player recruiting entitled "Shoe Wars" which featured recruiting expert Bob Gibbons, Sonny Vaccaro, Tayshaun Prince, and Pat Barret, drew more attention than expected for Pat Barrett. Seems that during the week following the broadcast, Nike, for whom Pat Barrett recruits and coaches the Southern California All-Stars, received 400 calls from folks wanting to get in touch with Barrett.

Why?

Why Not?

They've all got kids they want to play for him and his Southern California All-Stars. While Frank Burlison's article mentions that Sixty Minutes did not paint Barrett in a "favorable light," Barrett was actually a pretty neutral character compared to the "official" Nike spokesman, who acted like a complete idiot, actually denying that Nike wants to sell shoes. Barrett's not that foolish. He knows why he's in business. It's to attract the best talent he can get, help them to develop, and to make sure that they wear Nike apparel, clothing, and most important of all, shoes.

In fact, Barrett was simply pictured in the segment as doing his job, which is coaching. As he was interviewed by Leslie Stahl, he just continued to run a practice, looking like he wasn't getting distracted at all by the questioning. He was shown sheparding Tyson Chandler (6'-11 Fr. C Dominguez High, Compton CA) and others on his team to a tournament, and giving Tyson a small pep talk before a game. All in all, from a basketball point of view (is there any other) Barrett simply looked like a good basketball coach. Unperturbed, undisturbed and focused. Hard to complain about that.

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