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Saturday July 14. The Hogans are Back Ran into Roger Hogan JR. and his older brother Steve at Marv Marinovich's training facility this week. Roeger finished his high school career strongly after transferring to Foothill H.S. in Tustin. He took a year off and simply went to school at Santa Ana JC, but did not play. Not only does he seem relaxed, happy and at peace with himself, but he has grown to 6'1". All the Hogans are excellent perimeter shooter, but Roger is a true zone buster, who has worked hrd to amke himself into a true point guard. Steve was at one time a real fine long distance shooter and tough physical 6'4" wing. He has not played competitively for a few years, but both boys have decided to go to Orange Coast JC, to give them a chane to play on the same team, for the first time. Younger brother Kyle has sprouted to 6'5" and is a full time starter at Villa Park H.S., and both Roger and Steve cannot stop bragging on their "baby" brother. Dad and mom have not missed many games that any of their boys have played. Same for grandparents. BWBA wished the best for all 3 Hogans. Thursday July 12 BWBA to have 5 quality big men at Adidas Big Time As previously mentioned Wednesday, 6'8" 235lb Eric Engstrom will play for BWBA Red and he is a strong, physical low post rebounder scorer with super grades, who needs to be looked at by all the elite academic schools. BWBA Red also will have 7'1" Blake Scholberg from Will C. Wood H.S. In Vacaville, CA., up near Davis, outside of Sacramento. Blake has considerable upside. He had over a 3.0 gpa, but will attend Maine Central Institute, a top flight Prep School, in order to improve his SAT score, and to give him a year to mature and improve. Every low major D1 needs to take a long look at Blake. I will be highly surprised if he is not highly recruited, at that level. BWBA Purple will have 7'0" Chad Kosmo form Belfast, ME. He averaged 22ppg and 15 rebs/g and will attend Maine Central Institute also. He had an 87 average in school academically, but also needs to improve his SAT score. I have not seen him play, but Karl Hendrickson of MCI, worked him out and is very impressed with his upside. Again, all low major D1's need to take a long look and he should become quite well recruited at the low major level. Nathan Nowak 6'6" 230 lb graduating senior, will be playing for BWBA Red. He will go to Prep School if he is not recruited in Las Vegas. He is a bruising, physical power forward deluxe. He is an excellent rebounded with great strength and toughness, and a good scorer at the block He should be looked at by al NCAA D2, NCAA D3 and NAIA programs. He is a full NCAA qualifier with a 2.7 gpa and 1040 SAT score. Ray Schafer, on the other hand, is a 6'11" JR from Wasilla, AK, and he will play on BWBA Orange. Ray is young and just coming into his own. Had a good solid year as a starter, and shows signs of becoming a complete, well rounded center, who with another year's development and maturity, may well develop into a high major. He is down here a week early with his dad, training with Marv Marinovich and Bob Gottlieb. His dad will film his workouts with Marv Marinovich. Marv Marinovich is at the cutting edge of what is being all over the world, to enhance an athlete's speed, quickness, strength and overall explosiveness. He does not use heavy weights at all. Much of his training is done on unstable surfaces, to promote the strengthening of all the small muscles in the body, not just the large muscles. He also emphasizes using lighter weights and exploding through a distance to promote and develop the fast twitch fibers, as opposed to the old fashioned approach of lifting heavy weights slowly through a distance. This also builds strength, but develops a the slow twitch fibers, or a stronger but slower reacting muscles. Ray is one of 6 athletes from Alaska, Vancouver and Oklahoma that are training with Marv and Bob Gottlieb this week. These include Landon Ray, 6'3' gd from Enid, OK, who will start Cal Lutheran in September. Shawn Stewart 6'6" and Zack Hogan 6'5" from Vancouver have been here for 10 days, and they have made major strides already. Shawn has improved both his athleticism and outside shooting and was chosen for the Top 20 All Star Game for juniors at the West Coast All Star Camp. Zack is a highly athletic combo guard, and his outside shooting has gone form poor to very good. He will be a SR and it could well spell the difference between a D1 and a D2 scholarship. Chris Devine, from Chugiak H.S. in Anchorage, AK, showed up 2 inches bigger than last December and is now a 6'6" guard. He is tremendously athletic and his shooting and scoring have picked up immeasurably. he was chosen to the 3rd all star game last week at the Rim Rattlers Camp. He shows signs of having a shot at becoming a high major, in another year. Nathan Nowak, 6'6" 230 graduated senior, also from Vancouver is also working hard with us. All but Ray and his dad are living at Bob Gottlieb's for the week. They are staying at the Anaheim Hilton. The best part of the entire week is Jane Gottlieb's cooking. If she is not the best cook in Orange County, she is certainly among them. Bob Gottlieb and Marv Marinovich will also be training athletes the entire month of August. Interested parents need to call Bob Gottlieb at 714-997-0380.
Wednesday July 11 Travis Niesen Recruiting Update Travis Niesen, 6'7" combo forward from Mission Viejo H.S. appears to be leaning toward staying relatively close to home. Sources close to the family indicate that UCI and UCSB are in the lead with Santa Clara still a factor and Oregon State showing significant interest. Travis is one of the top seniors in Orange County and has been a 4 year starter for the Diablos. Travis is a very strong low post player, who can play on the perimiter and probably will play the small forward in college. Travis has played mostly with the Hi-Five AAU traveling team, but for some reason, they never play in the major events, in front of the college coaches, in Southern California, so it is not certain whether Travis will play in the adidas Big Time Tournament. He may opt to play with Pump N Run. His teammate, 6'8' 235lb Eric Engstrom, will play with BWBA Red. Eric has really come into his own this summer, having made the all star team at the USD Team Camp last week. He is a 4.6 gpa student with an SAT scor of 1350, so he will have his choice of the best academic schools in the USA. Harvard, Yale and Princeton will look at him, as will the elite small schools like Amherst, Williams and Weslyan. They are academically on a par with Yale and Harvard. I am certain Calremont Mudd and Pomona will be schools out here that are similar academically and would love to have him. Tuesday July 10 Recruiting Update Nik Caner Medley 6'7" forward from Deering H.S. in Portland, ME has verbally committed to Maryland of the ACC Conference. Nic recently played exceptionally well at the adidas ABCD Camp in New Jersey and will be playing for the PUMP N Run 1s team this summer in the adidas Big Time Tournament as well as the follow up Best of the Summer Tournament run by Double Pump to be played at Loyola Marymount University. Brad Buckman, 6'7" power forward from Westlake H.S. in Austin, who also will play for the Pumps has narrowed it down to Louisville or Texas and may make a decision in the near future. He also played well at ABCD Camp. Martin Iti was on the ABCD Camp Roster but did not show as he was unable to get a Visa to travel outside of Australia. Apparently Courtney Rosegreen is still involved with Martin and if he can leave the country, he hopes to play in the adidas Big Time Tournament. The plan appears to be to try to place him in Prep School for the year. Monday July 9 Capistrano Valley H.S. Recruiting Update Capistrano Valley, coached by Brian Mulligan, has three outstanding seniors that are being well recruited. Pete DeCasas JR., 6'3" off guard has indicated that Oregon, UCSB, Auburn, New Hampshire and Liberty University (Jerry Falwell) have all called and shown significant interest. Pete is a talented scoring off guard, who is a very good shooter, can drive, handle the ball and should generate even greater interest as he is seen by coaches throughout the second recruiting evaluation period which begins in late July. His teammate Matt Sweeney, a 6'4" wing with a 3.8 gpa is hearing from Colgate and Yale and 6'2" wing Jake Franzen is also hearing from Colgate, Yale and Army. All three are three year starters. Former Capo star wing Mike Stowell is doing well at Utah State. He not only played for Bob Gottlieb and BWBA in the adidas Big Time Tournament, but he was Bob Gottlieb's first client with the BWBA Recruiting Assistance Service. That summer, we had three superb wing off guards in Nate Hare, who signed at USC, Spencer Gloger who is on scholarship now at UCLA and Mike Stowell. For whatever the reason, Mike was being under recruited. Nobody had offered by mid December. His dad retained Coach Gottlieb and Mike ended up with a full scholarship at Utah State. Mike signed a National Letter of Intent with Utah State, but went on a Mormon Mission for a year, and this past year, red shirted as a freshman. Saw Mike Stowell last week working hard at Marv Marinovich's Training Center. He indicated the coaches have told him they plan to start him as a #3 man this coming year. Sunday July 8 Bill Mulligan Revisited Originally, Bill Mulligan was the long time highly successful junior college coach at Saddleback JC, who came to UCI in the late 70's and brought several of his outstanding players with him and overnight turned UCI into a West Coast power. He had been a USC assistant at one time also. Bill had a tremendous staff in those days, including Herb Livesay, long time Director of the Nations #1 Basketball Camp, Snow Valley. Herb was the X and O's specialist. Bob Schemerhorn, later Head Coach at Arizona State and subsequently at Riverside City College where he still is the AD, was the recruiting specialist. Mike Bokosky, now doing a good solid job as Head Coach at Chapman University was also a young coach on that staff. It was a tremendous staff. However the entire program bore the stamp of Bill Mulligan's very special personality. Originally from Chicago, Bill was an extremely popular member of the coaching fraternity. At one time as a young coach, he was an assistant at USC. He had a wonderful personality and sense of humor. When he was at UCI, I joined their booster club just to enjoy the monthly breakfast's he held with his close supporters. It was always a delightful hour of laughs and inside humor, and I enjoyed it immensely. When Bill came to UCI, he brought with him Kevin McGee. Kevin was the #1 JC Player in the USA that year, and he could have played anywhere. He was close to Bill and together they came to UCI along with Rainer Wolf, an excellent 6'4" wing, now the Head Coach at Trabuco Hills, and Randy W., 6'4" sharpshooter. Together, they took the Big West by storm. Before he left, McGee led the NCAA D1 in both scoring and rebounding. Tom McCluskey, one of Southern California's top high school coaches, who won a State Championship at Tustin H.S., also played for Bill Mulligan at Saddleback, before going on to a fine career at Penn State. He also had quite a bit of success at Fontana H.S. and is now rebuilding Foothill H.S.'s program in Tustin. Kevin was a sure fire NBA 1st. rounder, in most scouts minds, but he was talked into going to the Phoenix pre draft trials and did not play as well as he would have liked. Next thing you know, he was only drafted in the 2nd. round, did not get a no cut contract, and did not make the team. He did go on to a fabulously successful career in Israel, where he was one of the highest paid players in Europe. Nobody will have to hold any benefits for Kevin McGee. Kevin was not only a great college player, but an extremely likeable gracious person that was very much liked as well as respected. Under Bill Mulligan, UCI became a major recruiting force in Southern California. Todd Murphy 6'8" form Long Beach, CA went on to play in the NBA for many years. He is younger brother of Tim Murphy, who played at Colorado State and now is the assistant coach at Cal Poly SLO. Over the years, Bill lost his original staff, and the program was not quite the same. Bill also suffered a debilitating stroke, which ultimately influenced him to retire. His son Brian Mulligan has done a nice job in building a successful program at Capistrano Valley H.S., and Bill can be seen at most Capo games, be it in season or in spring or fall leagues. He is Capo's #1 fan. If there is a Capo #2 fan, its brother Billy Mulligan JR. He is another of Bill's wonderful sons. I think he has three. He can normally be seen at Capo games. Despite having cerebral palsy and being restricted to a wheelchair, he did a great job as a sportswriter while attending Cal State Fullerton. He is also a very well known and well liked Mulligan Before he retired, he brought a half a dozen players to UCI that went on to play in the NBA, including Todd Murphy For a number of years, UCI enjoyed not only tremendous success, but they sold out their home games, and developed the momentum that resulted in the building their beautiful new on campus arena , the Bren Center. Other than the Pond in Anaheim, it is the best basketball facility in Orange County. Saturday July 7
Head Coach Jason Turk recently resigned to take the head coaching position at Ardmore H.S. in Ardmore, Oklahoma. I have never met Turk nor seen his teams play, but in talking with a number of his former players, he was considered an excellent teaching fundamentalist type coach, but a hard nosed, tough, demanding type that was not easy to play for. Enid H.S. is a terrific opportunity for a proven successful coach, as it is one of the larger towns in Oklahoma, with basically one public high school for the entire city, so there is an excellent flow of talent, year in, year out. Enid is the home of Mark and Brent Price, both of whom went on to very fine careers in the NBA. They are the son of Dennis Price, a very fine, long time coach, in his own right, who passed away suddenly last summer, playing pickup basketball with his sons, at the local YMCA. God never made better people than Dennis Price. I first met him in 1969-70 when I was Eddie Sutton's assistant at Creighton, and Denny was John Macleod's assistant at the University of Oklahoma. He was a former outstanding college player who was a standout for the old Phillips Oilers, who in those days were considered an amateur AAU team and the only alternative to playing in the NBA. If you did not make the NBA, there was no Europe or CBA, you played for an AAU team, where they gave you a full time job working for the company, and then you played for their AAU team , which played a full schedule against other AAU teams. Larry Brown, coach of the 76ers, did not make the NBA out of college. Instead, he played for Akron Goodyear's AAU team out of Ohio. They won the AAU Championship, and in those days, when the Olympic team was restricted to amateurs, the Championship AAU team got a guaranteed 4 spots on the Olympic Basketball team. Larry was chosen for the USA Olympic team, coached by the legendary Hank Iba. They won the Gold Medal and Larry was superb. At that time, the original ABA was starting and Larry and His North Carolina teammate and close buddy Doug Mow, were selected by the New Orleans Jazz, and the rest is history. Larry went on to be the MVP of one of the ABA all star games, which included, Julius Erving, George Gervin and a host of other great players. When he finally retire, he was hired to coach the Carolina Cougars in the NBA and later the Denver Nuggets. When the NBA and ABA merged, four NBA teams were taken into the NBA. The Denver Nuggets, featuring David Thompson, the former NC State super star, were one of the four teams and Larry Brown was their coach. At one time, David Thompson signed the first million dollar contract in NBA history. At that time, he became the highest aid payer in the NBA. Dennis Price stayed with John Macleod when he went to the NBA to coach the Phoenix Suns, and Alvin Adams, the 6'11" star Oklahoma center they had recruited to OU, came out of college, and joined his former college coaches, and helped lead the Phoenix Suns to the NBA Finals. Alvin Adams was probably the best high school player in the Midwest and Southwest when he was coming out of high school. he not only was talented, but he was a 4.0 gpa student, and played like it. I spent a tremendous amount of time recruiting him for Kansas State, where I was Jack Hartman's assistant by then. Jim Hefner, the long time assistant at USC under Bob Boyd, had once shared with me one of his recruiting "secrets". When I was first learning to be a recruiter, I sought advice from the best. Joe Hall, then the assistant at Kentucky, was probably the best recruiter in the country, at the time. I called Joe and told him I was Eddie Sutton's new assistant at Creighton. Coach Sutton hired me to join his new staff t Creighton in the spring of 1969, when I was the assistant at Quinnipiac College. Quinnipiac was a Northeastern NCAA D2 power under long time highly successful Coach Burt Kahn. Harry Brown was the other assistant, and Harry is now a very successful basketball agent, living in Orange County. Since I would not be starting in the Fall and would be staying in Connecticut for the summer, Eddie asked me to keep my eye open for any good players to recruit the following year. Well Hell's bells, the next Sandy morning I had Coach Bob Saulsbery and "Super John" Williamson over the house for brunch. John averaging 39 ppg and ultimately went to New Mexico State and played for Lou Henson, but starred in the ABA where he led the league in scoring. John died at a tragically young age His family had a genetic history of kidney problems and for last years of his life he was bed ridden and a shell of himself. So, throughout the summer, I was all over the place at summer leagues games, as far south as Philadelphia, watching the famous Narbeth Summer League. Andre McCarter, who later became the #1 point guard in the USA as a senior, before moving on to play for UCLA, played that night at Narbeth. He was only going into 10th grade at the time. Narbeth is where I met Joe Hall for the first time. His last words were, if I can ever help you young man, please call on me. Little did he eve think I really would call. Well that fall, when I reported to Omaha and to Creighton, Eddie was starting his first year as a major college coach. he was hired as the Athletic Director and Head Basketball Coach. The next day, I went into his office and showed him a comprehensive book I had compiled of outstanding players all over the East Coast, that I had seen play and liked, and their home phone numbers, their addresses, their high school coach's name and phone, and a summary of each players ability, in paragraph form Eddie looked it over carefully, though it over, and the next day, called me in and told me he was putting me in charge f recruiting. well the truth be known, I didn't know the first thing about recruiting, and how to set up a recruiting program. All I knew was to go watch players, and I thought I had a gift, in terms of evaluating talent, but there is a lot more to recruiting than just evaluating.
To this day, I still have the notes form that conversation. I proceeded to set up a recruiting program for Creighton, just as they did at Kentucky. Though we were not capable of recruiting the same level player, we used the exact same approach and ultimately brought to Creighton, two of the best years recruiting back to back, Creighton has ever had. We signed 11 kids in two years, and they were the heart of Creighton winning over 20 games and going to the NCAA Regionals two years in a row, when these kids were juniors and seniors, and ultimately helped Coach Sutton land an incredible deal to become the Head Coach at Arkansas, where he turned that program into a consistent national power. (went to the NCAA Final Four) However, when I moved to Kansas State, it was a whole different ballgame. Kansas State had become one of the truly great programs under Tex Winter. In the late 50's and throughout the 60's, Kansas State won the Big 8 Championship 12 times in 19 years. Not only that, they sold out at home for over 25 consecutive years, averaging 12,500 fans all that time. Tex had left Kansas State. We all know Tex know as the offensive genius and father of the Triangle Offense that has generated 8 NBA Championship Rings in the lat 9 years. In college, he called it the Triple Post, and at one point not only did he have a number of his former assistants using it on their own as head coaches, but it was the most popular college offense in the country, especially in the Midwest. Tex left K-State in the early 70's to move to the University of Washington and Cotton Fitzsimmons, his assistant took over for two years. Cotton won the Big 8 Championship his second year, and got a big bonus for doing so. A couple of weeks after he got the bonus, he resigned and took the Head Coaching job with the Phoenix Suns in the NBA. K-Staters were up in arms. here, we gave him a hell of a bonus, and the next he does is leave. Great Guy. Cotton on the other hand, was quoted as saying in Sports Illustrated, "I thought they were rewarding me for what we had done, not what we were going to do". To be continued.
Friday July 6 Antonio "Red" Lawrence to transfer to Fresno The word in Jacksonville, Florida is that rising 6'6" Antonio Lawrence, considered one of the top 10 players in the Class of 2002, will transfer from Jackson H.S. in Jacksonville, to a high school in Fresno. Antonio was just one of 3 rising seniors invited to the tryouts for the 19 and under USA team that recently held tryouts at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Antonio played well but was overshadowed by LeBron James, who many now think is the #1 player in the Class of 2002. We earlier reported that LeBron, who had been playing with the Northeast Ohio All Stars, will play for Calvin Andrews' Oakland Slam N Jam AAU Team this summer. Whereas Antonio has been playing for Darin Matsamura's EBO AAU Team, based in Fresno, it appears that Antonio will move with his mother and attend a Fresno High School, his senior year. Speculation is that they already have an apartment there, but will not announce anything, at this time. BWBA will also have an outstanding Jacksonville rising senior in point guard Gibran Washington. Gibby is a 6'1" explosive package with a 3.7 gpa, who plays for Mandarin H.S. in Jacksonville. Gibby was referred to Bob Gottlieb by his high school coach, Terry McCarter, and he will return to play for Mandarin this coming year. Bob Gottlieb is the former Head Coach at Jacksonville University 1973-75 during its heyday as one of the top independents in the USA. The Dolphins were 20-10 and 15-11 during his tenure, including wins over Illinois, Cincinnati, Houston, Auburn, Western Kentucky and Florida State. Ironically, Gibran Washington's father Al Washington played with and for Bob Gottlieb on his AAU team in 1960 in Columbus, Ohio when Bob had his own teams and was a player/coach. Al and Bob had not seen each other nor spoken to each other in all these years. Coach McCarter originally sent films of Gibby for me to evaluate, and when I got back to him, he said his dad knows me from Ohio State. Al Washington was a 6'5" NCAA D3 All American at Otterbein College. Several years ago, Al was voted one of the 5 best players ever to come out of Columbus, Ohio. (Columbus is a city of 1 million people) I asked is he about 6'5" and a powerfully built guy. When Terry said yes, I said, oh my god, he played for me years ago. We since have talked and kibitzed about the "good old days" and played "Jewish Geography" about all our old mutual friends. He is coming to Las Vegas to watch Gibby play in the Adidas Big Time Tournament with BWBA, and we are going to get together, on one condition. He cannot call me Bobby, in front of the players. There are not too many friends around that remember my " Bobby" days. We have not seen each other in 41 years. Al was not only a "horse" in the post, but a super guy. He is VP of Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Jacksonville and his son is a straight A student. Thursday July 5 Sylvie Dominguez Got a call this morning from Sylvie Dominguez. He is the former USC Assistant Coach who recently left the staff to join the new staff at UTEP in El Paso, TX. under Jayson Rabedeaux, former long time assistant at Oklahoma, in his first year as Head Coach at UTEP. UTEP is the school that truly integrated college basketball, when they upset Adolph Rupp's team in the NCAA Finals, featuring an all white team, whereas UTEP, coached by the legendary Don Haskins and called Texas Western at the time, started 5 black players in the NCAA Finals, for the first time. Prior to that, many coached went by the philosophy of playing one black player at home, two on the road, and three when they were in trouble. Don Haskins had the courage to start 5 blacks at all times, and he was rewarded with an NCAA Championship, and college basketball has never been the same. I believe Pat Riley played for that Kentucky team. Nevil Shed was the starting center on that great UTEP. Nevil played with and for Bob Gottlieb on his outstanding Woodmere A.C. teams in the famous Rucker Summer League played in Harlem. For many years, Bob Gottlieb was the only white player in the league. I was a player/coach in those days. Those were wonderful times. Everyone treated me just great. Still have some great friends from those days. Nevil Shed later became Bob Gottlieb;s assistant coach at UWM in Milwaukee. He has been the Director of Intramurals at the University of Texas San Antonio for the last twenty years. Got to see him several years back when the NCAA Final Four was played in San Antonio. Sylvie just wanted to review the kids who will be playing for BWBA this summer, that he needs to look at, as well as get a feel for the whole Southern California recruiting scene, and who else he needs to look at this summer.I told him that he ought to know that everyone here in Southern California that he touched, be it other college coaches, high school coaches, AAU coaches and parents and kids missed him greatly. I told him that everyone respected him and appreciated the respect he gave everyone while he was at USC. He will be missed, both on the recruiting trails and on the floor, as he handled the USC defense, which was one of the very best. Sylvie was very diplomatic, and had nothing negative to say about anyone or anything at USC, which was to be expected by a man of his class. Sylvie Dominguez will be heard from again, probably as a head coach, in the not too distant future. You can bet on that.
Wednesday July 4 Tom Abetamarco hired at Cincinnati BWBA sources have told Bob Gottlieb that former Sacramento State Head Coach Tom Abetamarco has been hired as Assistant Coach and Head Recruiter for Bob Huggins' Cincinnati Bearcat powerhouse. Tom was an outstanding recruiter for many years under Jim Valvano at both Iona, during its glory years with 6'10" Jeff Ruland as the centerpiece, and North Carolina State when Valvano took the ACC and the nation by surprise, winning the NCAA title, despite having 10 losses during the season, and despite coming in 4th in the always tough ACC Conference. He also was an assistant at both St. Johns and Rutgers as well as having some very good seasons as the head coach at Lamar and a few tough seasons as head man at Drake. Tommy took over a rock bottom Sacramento State program and rebuilt it with some very good recruiting years, but was sidetracked two years ago by a lack of support from his players. Tommy has been doing radio and TV work in the Sacramento area, but has been looking to get back in the big time recruiting wars. He is known for his dogged persistence and has some great Jeff Ruland recruiting war stories. Iona out recruited all the big boys to sign Jeff Ruland for tiny Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. Jeff led the Gaels to some spectacular seasons, culminating in the demolishing of one of Denny Crum's outstanding Louisville teams in Madison Square Gardens. Jeff went on to a terrific NBA career with the Philadelphia 76ers until his career was cut short by knee injuries. Jeff is now the highly successful coach at his alma mater, Iona. Word was Bob Huggins was more than miffed to learn that long time assistant and outstanding recruiter Mick Cronin left the Bearcats to join Rick Pitino's new staff at Louisville. Mick had been an assistant high school coach in the Cincinnati area, when Bob Huggins hired him to join his staff. Who knows why Mick left to join Pitino's staff. He may have gotten a significant raise or it might have been Rick Pitino's track record of getting his assistant's a head job in college. On the other hand, Huggins gave him his golden opportunity to become a college coach. Mick turned out to be a gem of a recruiter, and Huggins certainly did not want to lose him. However, in Abetamarco, he may even have improved his staff's recruiting effectiveness. Tom brings 30 years of recruiting experience, and especially with Ruland and the kids he recruited at North Carolina State, he proved he can recruit the blue chippers. Recruiting is one thing, whereas recruiting blue chippers is a totally different ball game.
Wednesday July 4 Bluthenthal of USC to have surgery Former BWBA star David Bluthenthal, coming off a spectacular junior season for USC, and rated a strong suspect as an NBA 1st. Rounder next spring, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his knee this week. it is not a major injury, but David has been bothered for some time this spring, and after an MRI last week, it was determined an arthrscopic procedure would best clear up the problem. For much of the spring, David worked out on the track and in the weight room with most of the USC football team. One day while doing squats with weights that were probably too heavy, he heard something pop. Ever since, he has been concerned about some discomfort with the knee. After the MRI results were in, the doctors decided he need the procedure and will be out 3-4 weeks, at the most. David's younger sister Evy, who has a striking resemblance to David, has matured into a beautiful 5'11" athlete, who will represent the USA in the Maccabi Games in Israel this July. She is not only an excellent athlete, but a sweetheart of a person and a heck of lot easier on the eyes, than David.
Tuesday July 3 Westchester H.S. Got a chance to see Westchester H.S. team play in a summer tournament game at Millikan H.S. They are loaded. They have a half dozen NCAA D1 prospects led by 6'6" small forward Brandon Bowman, who is being recruited by the low to mid major D! schools and 6'3" off gd Brandon Heath. Heath is a big time shooter who is being recruited by the high majors, just below the level of UCLA, Arizona, Kansas and Duke. The two high majors at Westchester are Hassan Adams 6'3" off gd, who is being recruited by everyone in the country, and Trevor Razor 6'7" JR. They also have well regarded Ashante Cook, a 6'1" low major pt. gd. Bowman, Heath and Adams are going to Nike Camp and Trevor will attend ABCD Camp. They will all play for Myles Gonzalez and his Sports Express AAU team which will compete in Nike's Tournament in Augusta, GA. Westchester H.S. is coached by Ed Azam. Several years back, they won the State Championship. David Bluthenthal, 6'8" small forward of USC who has a chance to be an NBA 1st. round draft choice if he has a good senior year, Brandon Grandville 6'0" PG and 4 year starter at USC and Tony Bland 6'4" combo guard who transferred from Syracuse to SDSU where he will be eligible this year, all played for that State Championship Westchester team I was at a barbeque recently with Ralph Bluthenthal, and I asked him, what made Ed Azam special, as a coach. He said that Ed has a marvelous way of handling diverse personalities. He said he marveled at how he got David, Tony and Brandon, all three headstrong, highly talented high school superstars, to play as a team, and put the team goals ahead of their personal agendas. Count Ralph Bluthenthal as a big fan of ed Azam.
Monday July 2 Pomona Pitzer Attended the Pomona CollegeTeam Camp last night. Even though we have lived in California for 20 years, it was the first time I have ever been on their campus and was I shocked. It was beautiful, one of the nicest campus settings I have seen in a long time. Unlike the many new buildings that have been built in recent years at UCLA, USC and UCI, Pomona has nothing but stately elegant traditional buildings, that were simply magnificent. Actually there are 5 colleges located in the overall campus setting, all within walking distance of each other. They are all super high academic, among the very best in the USA. There is Pomona College, Pitzer College, Claremont College, Harvey Mudd and one other. For athletic purposes, Pomona and Pitzer combine into one team, and Claremont and Harvey Mudd compete as Claremont Mudd. I have never heard of such an arrangement but it works. The two gyms are located 300 yds. from each other. Can you imagine the rivalry. Spent quite a bit of time with Head Coach Charlie "Kats". His real name is Charlie Kutsiaficas. I asked him to spell it and even he had a difficult time. So you see, he explained, I just go by Charlie "Kats". Charlie turned out to be a super guy, very gracious and hospitable. They play in the same rugged D3 conference as Cal Lutheran and LaVerne. Cal Lutheran took one of my clients this year in Landon Ray, 6'3" shooting guard from Enid, OK. Though they cannot offer athletic scholarships, with his 4.0 gpa and high standardized test scores, his parents got an academic scholarship package that will save them over $100,000 over the next 4 years. Seeing the beautiful campus, it gave me a new perspective on Pomona Pitzer as I get an awful lot of high academic kids that are first class D3 prospects, and would be very impressed by their academics as well as the physical beauty of its campus. Sunday July 1 Whatever happened to David Hamilton Talked to an old friend Paul Peck, Head Coach at Cumberland University, an excellent NAIA program in Lebanon Tennessee. Met Paul years ago when I was recruiting the hard in the junior college ranks. He was the Head Coach of a highly successful JC program in East Texas. We have seen each other from time to time at the NCAA Convention held in conjunction with the NCAA Final Four each year. If you can believe it, I have attended every Final Four except one, since 1968. That's a whole lotta Final Fours. Anyway, Paul tells me that he has been involved in recruiting David Hamilton and had him on campus two weeks go. David is a tremendous rebounder and shot blocker and very athletic 6'9" power forward deluxe, who played for BWBA in the Adidas Big Time Tournament the summer preceding his senior year in high school. David played for Rod Palmer at Compton H.S. when they were one of the top high school teams in the country. DeAndre Moore was their superb starting point guard and he too played for BWBA. DeAndre, after attending Vanderbilt for a year, transferred to SDSU, where he started as a sophomore last year. He recently had shoulder surgery to correct a chronic problem and should be good as new come next fall. David was recruited to Auburn, where Cliff Ellis is the Head Coach. Cliff has done a great job at South Alabama, Clemson and Auburn. he too, was a JC coach when I first met him back in the 70's. Prior to that, he actually was a country and western singer, if you can believe that. David, however had some problems at Auburn, indirectly connected to Chris Porter's problems. Chris was the 6'7" All American at Auburn, who basically had to forgo his senior year and apply for early entry into the NBA draft a year ago, because he had accepted $7500 from an agent. David left Auburn and transferred to S.W. Louisiana to play for Jessie Evans. Jessie has been the head coach there for about 4 years and has done a nice job. He had been a very effective recruiter for Lute Olson, for a number of years, and among his other many stops, as an assistant climbing his way up the ladder. Jessie had also been an assistant at Texas, SDSU, Wyoming and Long Beach State under Tex Winter. Jessie Evans and Bob Gottlieb were assistants together under Tex, before he moved on to SDSU. David spent last year red shirting and trying unsuccessfully to get eligible and so will have to play NAIA to keep all 3 of his eligibility years intact. The NCAA allows an athlete 5 years to complete his 4 years of eligibility, but also says you must sit out a year, any time you transfer from one D1 school to another. If you transfer form a D1 to a D2 school, you can become eligible right away. Since David has already used his "red shirt" year at S.W. Louisiana, he would have to sit out another year, and thus lose a year of playing eligibility, if he transferred to another D1 program. So his choices are NCAA D2 or NAIA D1. However, Paul Peck indicated David is in summer school at LA Trade Tech in Los Angeles, and must finish very well, to have the 2.0 gpa necessary to be eligible for Cumberland. David could take 6 hours at Cumberland if he chooses, and that summer session begins next week. |
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Last Updated: Thursday, August 8, 2002 10:26 AM |