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SoCal Prep Recruiting Report & News

Not Quite "60 Minutes" of Tyson Chandler, Sonny Vaccaro,
and Pat Barrett-- (October 26, 1997)

Tonight's CBS "Sixty Minutes" segment on adidas and Nike was truly about the state of Southern California basketball at it's most extreme level. The segment was largely designed as an "expose" on how the shoe companies are perverting the top talent, hooking them for life, almost like drug pushers, so that a player will wear one brand or another, and convince his friends to do the same. Made Nike look almost worse than the cigarette companies, with "Joe Camel". Except that 60 Minutes forgot to tell us all that nobody ever got cancer from playing hoops.

What they did tell us about was the relentless "shoe wars" involving young amateur basketball players, some as young as 8, 9 or 10. And then there's Tyson Chandler. Now that's a whole different story.

The segment opened with correspondent Leslie Stahl sitting cross-legged on a gym floor next to 6'-10' Tyson Chandler, who will be a transfer freshman at 14 for Dominguez. Stahl asked Tyson if he was a "Nike guy" and he of course responded that he was. "All the way". . . shoes, shirts, shorts, you name it, Nike guy.

Stahl then went one-on-one with Sonny Vaccaro, head of adidas' summer camps and recruitment programs:

Stahl: "What's in it for Nike if you find some talented 8, 9, or 10 year old?"

Vaccaro: "The company's stock goes higher, profits are better."

Stahl: "Why?"

Vaccaro: "Because what you do is you bring this person along and hopefully he stays in the family."

Stahl: "So you're looking for the 10 year old who's going to be the next Michael Jordan when he grows up. And then he'll wear adidas and all the kids in the country will wear adidas?"

Vaccaro: "Yes. That would be very nice."

Actually, what the show did point out is that at least Vacarro and adidas are a bit more candid and open than Nike and its reps about what the shoe companies are really trying to accomplish. When Vaccaro was asked whether Tyson Chandler's impending transfer to Dominguez had anything to do with academics, he openly admitted that "at this level [of basketball] it has nothing, nothing to do with academics." The segment featured a small clip on the Nike and adidas summer all-star camps, held in Indiannapolis and Teaneck, N.J., during the same week each summer, and observed that, of course, each company is trying to lure the best basketball talent to their own camp, and to make sure that the competition doesn't get the best players.

Contrast this with a few sound bytes from a Nike rep who sanctimoniously and smugly (and a bit defensively) kept repeating to Stahl that "Nike is involved with these athletes and in the game because of it's passion for the game of basketball, and it's respect for the players," to which Stahl said each time, "c'mon, Nike's involved because they want to sell shoes." Each time the Nike guy responded with what sounded like a religious mantra, about "the passion of Nike being for the game first, and then the product second", Stahl would respond "C'mon, admit it, you want to sell shoes." Apparently, Nike wasn't willing to admit why it's in business. The Nike guy never really admitted that Nike wants to sell shoes, just that they are involved in basketball "with passion". Uh huh.

At least Vaccaro was honest about what adidas wants to do. None of the religious zealotry. Yeah, they want to sell shoes, and they aren't ashamed of it. So what? Anybody got a problem with that? Huh?

Someone who does is Bob Gibbons, a talent scout and recruiting expert. Stahl asked Gibbons if, after watching the "shoe company wars" and the involvement of ever-younger kids into the battle meant that things were "out of control" (while I'm not sure who she thought should be "in control", it seemed like a pretty loaded question, and clearly she believes the shoe companies shouldn't be), Gibbons responded that " It's out of control, and I'm not sure how you ever really regain control, or even whether you can."

Gibbons was asked about Nike's "passion" mantra, and he pretty much said that it's bull. "You don't see Nike, if it is so passionate about the game, giving it's shoes away to schools that don't have 'stars' playing for them do you? I think if you did a study, you'd find that the shoe companies are really only doing this to control the markets with the kids in the future, " said Gibbons.

The segment also featured locally prominent Pat Barrett, the coach of the Southern California All-Stars, a Nike sponsored team for which Tyson Chandler plays. During a workout, Stahl asked Barrett if Nike paid him in excess of $100,000 in cash, to which he sort of shrugged "no", but wouldn't really commit. When she asked if that was "in the ballpark" he agreed that it was. I'm not sure what the point of that was other than to suggest that Nike pays Barrett to look for talent to play for his Southern California All-Star teams. There was no attempt to really impugn Barrett's integrity or honesty, just an attempt to suggest that with all that money, he was providing Tyson with shoes, food, lodging, travel expenses and the like to showcase Tyson's talents at various tournaments around the country. And that from a player's point of view Tyson's a pretty lucky guy.

But then Stahl reminded us that maybe that "player's view" isn't all that we should be concerned about. After all, she reminded the viewers, Tyson's only 14, and maybe he's not able to make the best decisions for himself. But this was contrasted with shots of Tyson running up and down the court, stretching, and dunking. And then there's that big tatoo on his left arm. How many 14 year olds do you know with a tatoo on their arm? Not many. No, Tyson is really a man. Maybe a little boy in a man's body, but he's still a man. Just needs a little help and guidance is all. And the big question is from whom does he get this guidance. From Pat Barrett? From Bob Gibbons? From Russell Otis? From his mother? Maybe even his teachers? Yeah, all of them if he's lucky.

Oh yeah, about those tournaments: The 60 Minutes show really didn't have a lot to do the playing of basketball. What they did was to make it appear that the Las Vegas tournaments and others like them are simply an excuse for "bad coaches" (like the unidentified "Nike coach" who was shown berating his players with a half time pep talk, yelling at what looked like a group of 10+U players that they weren't running enough and that they were "pathetic"), to let young kids run wild on the Vegas strip, unsupervised. Now this seemed a bit of a cheap shot, and pretty unnecessary, in what was otherwise pretty good presentation of an important issue affecting the future of kids and the sport. C'mon 60 Minutes, if you're going to talk about the tournaments, and whether they are really necessary, at least talk about the level of play and show a little ball. It's not all about shoes, and the Vegas strip after all.

One portion of the segment featured Stahl interviewing Tyson and his mother about his transfer from San Bernardino to Dominguez in Compton. Stahl's voice over of pictures of the exterior of the Dominguez gym and other school buildings, described it this way: "Most people think of Dominguez in Compton as a public school. But it's coach (they didn't mention Russel Otis by name) is known as producing the top basketball talent. Dominguez is a Nike school, one of about 100 in the country to whom Nike offers free shoes, free uniforms and, often cash for the coach."

With this background, Stahl asked Tyson why he was going to transfer to Dominguez, and he said (or inferred) that it's where he thinks he'll get the best basketball exposure and experience. His mother says that she's concerned that her son, whom some college coaches reportedly think may turn pro after his sophomore or junior year in high school (yeah, you read that right, high school, as in he might not even wait to graduate from high schoo before turning pro), wants to be sure that her son still gets to "just be a kid." She says she's concerned that things are happening too quickly for Tyson. But, she said she'll make the sacrifice for his basketball, and travel (for now until they move, according to Tyson, who looked at his mom and said that he thinks they'll move soon) more than one hour each way every day to see to it that Tyson gets to Dominguez this year.

Gibbons responded that if Tyson's mom is so concerned about her son getting to experience being a kid, that she shouldn't listen to Pat Barrett, or to anyone else. "Let him stay at his neighborhood high school" near their home. Vaccaro again admitted that Tyson's transfer probably has nothing to do with academics, but only is about basketball, something which is probably beyond dispute.

Gibbons was asked then by Stahl if the shoe companies' interest in players like Chandler is "healthy" (another softball question), to which he responded, "I don't think so. Tyson will never have to worry again for the rest of his life about what he'll wear to school, because he'll have all the shoes, all the apparel and clothing he'll ever want or need." But, Gibbons said, this is not true for the majority of other players, whom he is fearful will be lulled into a false sense of security that they really don't need to study or do well academically because they'll always be the sought-after star, and the shoe companies will always be there with the next free pair of $150 shoes when they want them. Gibbons believes that's a fallacy and a trap for most of these kids, and he's concerned that too many will believe that they too can be the next Tracy McGrady or Tyson Chandler, and instead of focusing on academics so they have something to fall back on if basketball doesn't work out (as it won't for the majority of these kids who think they're going to go pro), won't have anything when it ends. "For some, it's dangerous because when the ball stops bouncing, it's really over," said Gibbons.

Clearly Gibbons also thinks that Tyson is a major talent, and that it's likely that he'll go pro one day. With this in mind, he thinks that Tyson should have probably stayed where he was in school and instead focused on his education, because he really doesn't need to go to Dominguez to be "discovered" nationally.

As Gibbons noted, "If you're 14 years old, and 6'-10", you don't need to go to Dominguez to be 'discovered' in the world of basketball. The whole world already knows about you, and you can stay at any school, even a 'non-basketball' school. You'll be discovered anyway."

"I mean, Pat Barrett isn't exactly Christopher Columbus, is he?" said Gibbons.

This show brought to light an important topic, one that is being hotly debated around the country in the AAU, among the NCAA powers-that-be, in the national media, and at the grass-roots local level. And it's also debated more often than we care to admit in households nationally between parents who want to give their kids a good education but who also want to give their talented athletic offspring all the benefits they can to develop and become financially secure, assuming that pro sports is truly an option. Moderation? Is that the answer.

I personally don't think that "moderation" is the answer for someone like Tyson Chandler because he's so exceptional. But there's the real problem: Why portray him as a (or "the") role model for a majority of basketball youth. He's not. He's clearly a step above the rest. It's just really a question of keeping perspective for the rest of the 99.9% of the youth basketball players out there who may never play Division I or Pro ball. For them, even if they're now getting the free shoes, they need to know that they won't always be there, and that they better have an education too. At least that's my opinion. What's yours?

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