The other side
Busy?
Day 4 was supposed to be an overview of AAU basketball, its issues and the possible solutions. Then Chris Grier Luchey responded to my request – on Facebook, of course – for an interview.
That changed things. Grier Luchey has a fascinating story, and he was willing to tell his side of it. For those of you who follow basketball recruiting closely and spend some time on message boards, you know him as a villain in the eyes of MSU fans. He’s been the AAU Joker to Tom Izzo’s Batman – before moving from the state, graduating to sports agent and widening his pool of detractors. For those of you who don’t, it’s time to catch up.
Here are the basics on Grier Luchey, serving as a backdrop for the summer hoops discussion.
Grier Luchey and a close friend you know well offer some defense of his character.
Fascinating Character No. 2 (Sonny Vaccaro) gives his thoughts on summer ball and Tom Izzo’s dilemma.
Coaches weigh in on what can be done to improve things.
And most would agree that one thing that must change – but probably won’t in the near future – is the short-sighted one-and-done rule.
Now back to Grier Luchey. The thing some may find interesting about his story of Famutimi and the switch to Arkansas is how much control he obviously exerts over these players (or at least, that player). Here’s the full comment (it had to be cut some to fit into the paper). It is an answer to this question: Have you ever taken money to steer a player to a particular college?
“Absolutely not. I’m gonna give you an example of one opportunity, where I tried my best to just show how I’m cut. Missouri had allegations come up that they were paying players. At the heart of that moment, I had one of the best players in the country, who lived in my home. His name was Olu Famutimi, a McDonald’s All-American. Most people had him somewhere between 8th and 15th (in the nation). Olu was going to Missouri. Pretty much had been to Missouri, wanted to go to Missouri the whole time.
“There were unique dynamics involved because Tony Harvey was assistant coach there, a Michigan guy, but Tony Harvey’s father was legal guardian for Robert Whaley, who was the best player along with Kelvin Torbert, on our team (two years earlier). Jeff Ferguson, also who lived with Tony Harvey’s dad, they both committed to Missouri. So you had Robert Whaley, you had Jeff Ferguson, both Benton Harbor kids, Tony Harvey’s dad was guardian of both of those kids. You know, Olu Famutimi wanted to go to Missouri.
“Well, when I got wind of the allegations and the things that were coming out, I forbade it. I basically told him, ‘Listen, you can go anywhere, but you’re not going to Missouri.’ I took some heat from those guys because I’m pretty close to Quin Snyder, obviously I was close to Tony Harvey because we had two kids in our program who played for us who lived in his dad’s house. So obviously we had a relationship. And he was furious at me. But I said to him, ‘Listen, you guys have allegations that you’re paying people, I’m already an AAU coach, they already think I’m taking. The last thing I need – I don’t want nothing – is for it to come out that y’all are doing something for someone else and they’re gonna assume that I’m taking. So, no. We’re going to (the) strait-laced Michigan State guy at Arkansas.’
“But yet, I get no credit. Michigan State people are, ‘Aw, Stan Heath ain’t here no more.’ But he’s a Michigan State guy. He’s the head coach at Arkansas, Olu Famutimi goes to Arkansas. Now if there was any kid that I could do something with, or if I was gonna do something crazy, naturally the opportunity would have come with the kid that lives at home with me. But I ran from the program that allegedly was doing that and sent him to Arkansas to be Stan’s first recruit.”
It’s an interesting defense, a story about forbidding a kid from attending one school and steering him to another to save yourself from being implicated in cheating. Grier Luchey has other things to defend as well, such as the move from AAU coach to agent.
A lot of people were “killing my name,” he said, when he made the switch.
“When I went over to becoming an agent, I got it from all sides,” Grier Luchey said. “I got it from some people saying, ‘He’s an AAU coach becoming an agent, he shouldn’t do it.’ Then you have some of the grass-roots people you’re on the same level with disappointed or jealous that you elevated. That’s you were given that opportunity. ‘Well, why wasn’t it me?’ I had one very prominent AAU coach come up to me and say ‘I’ve got to apologize because I was crucifying you for a few months. Because to be honest, I was jealous, I wanted that job.’”
Before that move, Grier Luchey made the move out of Norm Oden’s Michigan Mustangs program to form his own, the Michigan Hurricanes. He says he is “totally disconnected” from that program now that he’s an agent, but he also sat down with successor Will Smith and Izzo recently to smooth out issues.
Oden, unlike Grier Luchey, has a good reputation in grass-roots circles. So why did they split?
“To be quite honest, we split because I guess maybe it was two chiefs, not enough Indians,” Grier Luchey said.
“I had the best talent, I had Robert Whaley, I had Paul Davis, I had Kelvin Torbert, I had Anthony Roberson, I had Jason Richardson, I had Brent Darby – basically the best players,” Grier Luchey said of that time period, when he coached for Oden. “Everyone that played in Flint, Saginaw and a little bit Detroit, I had them. To be quite honest, I kind of dominated AAU for most of those years. So my name kind of became bigger than the team name. And so everywhere you went it was ‘Chris Grier, Chris Grier,’ and people didn’t know about Norm. It was his group. It was his team, I was just a coach, just a very successful coach.
“So to be honest, there was a college coach who said something to him. We were all at Sonny Vaccaro’s house and he said to Norm, ‘Who do you work for?’ And Norm says, ‘I’m with the Michigan Mustangs.’ And this guy says, ‘Oh, you work for Chris Grier.’ And Norm Oden was like, ‘No, Chris was one of my coaches.’ After that, there was no turning back. He didn’t want me to coach. It was like, ‘I’m the coach now, you sit back.’ And this team included Anthony Roberson, Matt Trannon, Paul Davis, this was next year’s team. That’s how I split from Norm, the same way he split from the Michigan Mavericks five years prior.”
I asked Oden about the incident. As you might expect, he had a slightly different take on things.
“I’ve got no response for anything he says,” Oden said.
According to Oden, he felt it was the right time for Grier Luchey to start his own program and the split was amicable. It wasn’t until Grier Luchey wanted to use the name “Michigan Mustangs Elite” that Oden got upset, he said.
Still, there were philosophical differences.
“He was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go in,” Oden said.
So Grier Luchey took most of Oden’s best players at the time, except for Paul Davis, who stuck with Oden.
Grier Luchey implies jealousy, particularly as it relates to then-adidas kingpin Vaccaro.
“Norm didn’t understand, my relationship with Sonny superceded his relationship, even though it was his program,” Grier Luchey said. “Me and Sonny’s relationship was personal. There was some bitterness. There was, I mean, Norm was an awesome general manager. I was an awesome coach. So together we dominated. We completely, totally dominated AAU basketball. The Family wasn’t even a program people talked about. It was irrelevant. Nobody was relevant but the Michigan Mustangs at that time.
“But that incident created the issue, the doubts or the problem Norm had with me. I wasn’t ready to go backward. I had surpassed being the 15-and-under coach. I can’t go back and be the 15-and-under coach. No. At this point I’m a director at the (adidas) camp. Sonny has me involved in the Roundball Classic. I’m now myself coaching with adidas. What are you talking about? I’m not going back to coaching 15 and under. So either you GM this thing and we coach together or I’m about to do something different.”
Oden chuckles at the suggestion of jealousy, but says he isn’t surprised by it.
“I don’t believe he actually thinks that,” Oden said. “He would say I was jealous, but you know what? I’m not mad at him. Anybody who gets involved with this, traveling with kids, keeping them off the streets and out of trouble every weekend for three months every year, is doing good work.”
Clearly, some would disagree. Grier Luchey moved quickly from MSU friend to MSU foe with the decision of Roberson. It may seem trivial now, but at the time it was a major blow to Izzo – the first significant in-state recruiting loss in a few years.
“Message boards have crucified me,” Grier Luchey said. “They made me out to be … it’s amazing. First I was a Michigan State (supporter). Mike Chappell played for me, he went to Duke, transferred back to Michigan State. Jason Richardson played for me, went to Michigan State. Charlie Bell played for the Mustangs, which I was a part of, he went to Michigan State. Kelvin Torbert played for me, he went to Michigan State. We’re talking about top-10, top-15 players.
“As soon as one player does something different, which was Anthony Roberson, who if you get him on the phone he will tell you today, he was never going to Michigan State, because he didn’t want to back up Marcus Taylor. The reason for that was, look in the history books. Anthony played against Marcus Taylor as a sophomore. Marcus was a senior. They played twice. One of those games, Anthony had a hell of a game, 23, 25 points. So his thing was, ‘Everybody is making Marcus Taylor out to be this icon, he ain’t that much better than me.’ So in his mind, ‘I’m not gonna be the guy to back up Marcus Taylor.’ Now look at irony, irony is so crazy.
“Marcus Taylor ends up declaring for the draft, but that was long after the recruiting period. That doesn’t happen until March. If the recruiting period is the same, you don’t sign until April, boom, they probably get Anthony. But because of the early signing period, Anthony is adamant (in November), ‘I’m not going to Michigan State.’
According to Grier Luchey, Roberson’s top choice was Duke, but Sean Dockery took that spot. Raymond Felton went to UNC, Daniel Horton to U-M, Dee Brown and Deron Williams to Illinois in an incredible 2002 point guard crop. Roberson visited Florida, Grier Luchey said, and he did not accompany the point guard. He said Roberson called him from there, though.
“Anthony is like, ‘Man, coach, it’s the spot. Florida’s the spot.’ I’m like, ‘Well you’ve got to get home, talk to your high school coach, talk to your grandmother (who was his guardian), talk to your mom,’” he recalled of the conversation. “He comes back home, you know, gets with his family, we’re out of touch for a couple days, he’s like, ‘Man, let’s just commit.’ He commits. Well (Saginaw High coach) Marshall Thomas at that time apparently was speaking at Michigan State’s camp.
“Apparently he and (Roberson) never talked, so when it comes out, it’s like I took him to Florida, got paid – I’ve heard every rumor – I got paid, that Michigan State Spartanmag website, it was like the most … I was horrible. From then on, they hated me. And yet Maurice Ager is on the same team and commits three months later to Michigan State. But no one talks about that, I’m just crucified. Anthony Roberson didn’t come, I’m done. I’m done. And so it honestly started an issue, because Michigan State didn’t get my best player. There was fallout because of that.”
Yes, the rumor was $200,000. When I mentioned that to Grier Luchey, he laughed loudly. He’s heard a lot of rumors, about himself and others.
“When I was coaching, the bad fish was Myron Piggie,” he said. “Everyone was comparing everything, all I heard about was Myron Piggie and his deal with Corey Maggette and all those guys, that traveling team with players from all over. That was the bad fish. We didn’t know about any other, there were no stories about who was doing what. A lot of things at that time were legal.”
The Pump brothers, for example, found ways to make money with exhibition games, a scouting service and Final Four tickets.
“When they did it, every AAU coach in the country followed behind it and did anything that was legal,” Grier Luchey said. “The NCAA didn’t have rules in that place at the time. So yes, absolutely, I would say 80 percent of AAU coaches participated in something, whether it was a scouting service or exhibition teams, something of that nature. All of those things were fine, there were no issues. People got rich, the Pumps got rich off of that. There are really only one or two groups you can talk about that really dominated that and got rich off it. They made a business off it. The Pump brothers made an incredible life off of all of those things.”
And what about the suggestion that some AAU coaches are making money off the backs of their players?
“My perspective is this,” Grier Luchey said. “The first thing you need to realize is this: For every alleged kid that is positioned into a college or whatever, all these stories I hear about, then there’s a college coach on the other side who is buying. The biggest story in the history of basketball is Myron Piggie.
“If Corey Maggette goes to Duke and Myron Piggie is taking money from everyone, surely he got money from his best player.”
Grier Luchey had more to say about the other side of the illicit deals.
“College coaches make approximately $2 million a year,” he said. “They are rewarded with shoe deals. Jordan’s kid goes to Central Florida, says ‘I’m not wearing these (adidas shoes).’ Central Florida loses its whole deal with adidas and now is a Nike school because one kid says, ‘I’m not putting those shoes on.’ There’s no comment, there’s no fallout, there’s no issues with any of that. Furthermore, the kids are locked up on a letter of intent, they’re bound to that school. It depends on the situation whether or not they’ll release a kid. But the coaches leave all the time. Just arbitrarily leave them.
“So I hear all these moral things about, ‘Who’s getting this and who’s doing that?’ but the system has said that basically the decision has already been made. The only good people are these guys and the bad people are these guys. There’s no opportunity to look at it case by case.
“It’s like this: Some people think abortion is bad. Some think abortion is necessary if a lady is raped or taken advantage of or molested or something like that. You can look at it case by case, but you have some people that have a blanket, ‘We don’t care. Abortion is just bad. That’s it. I don’t care if you were raped, I don’t care what happens, it’s just bad.’ Now I don’t have an opinion either way, that’s just an example I’m using.
“I feel like, in this case with AAU, people’s perceptions, they don’t care. They don’t care about the facts, they don’t care about the information. It’s a judgment call that they’re making regardless.
“So I don’t know. If you take advantage of a kid and the kid doesn’t know about it, I have a problem with that. But if the kid benefits and the coach or someone who developed him benefits as well, I don’t see a problem with that. That’s not different than if I go play for Michigan State and we go from the bottom of the Big Ten to first place, that coach is gonna get a raise. Did that coach get a raise because he was so great or did he recruit good? What got him that? It was those kids. If those kids don’t go out there and perform, that coach isn’t gonna get that raise. I don’t see the difference.”
The difference, of course, would be the NCAA rules.
“I mean, I’m all for the rules,” Grier Luchey said. “I’m not for breaking the rules. But what I’m saying is, prior to two or three years ago, the college coaches would hire an AAU coach or a high school coach. This started with Danny Manning, I think they hired his dad at Kansas for him to come there. So it started with a high school coach, it didn’t start with an AAU coach. Most of these trends started with high school coaches.
“It was OK to hire a coach for a kid to come there, then the NCAA makes a rule up and says ‘OK, you can’t do that.’ But that doesn’t make it morally correct or incorrect just because the NCAA comes out with a rule and says, ‘OK, now you can’t do that.’ That’s all I’m saying. But I’m all for following the rules, but the NCAA can arbitrarily … it’s their business.”
Finally, there’s the issue of Grier Luchey and Izzo. Grier Luchey is an MSU grad, a guy who lived with Shawn Respert and spent a lot of time at the Breslin Center cheering on the Spartans, and he says that bias influenced him to push MSU to his players. When that changed, he said, so did his relationship with Izzo.
“Izzo has known me since I was 18 years old,” Grier Luchey said. “He knows what I’m about. Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs because of, obviously he wanted to get every player. But it worked out good for a lot of kids. To be honest with you, the first time it hit me in the face where I had to at least, I owed it to the kids to let them look at other schools, was (when) Mike Chappell and Jason Richardson were both at Michigan State. Jason Richardson was considering not going to Michigan State because Mike Chappell had just decided he was gonna transfer there. Now remember, he was leaving Duke as a stud.
“Jason’s thing was, ‘I’m not about to sit behind Mike Chappell and Charlie Bell. I ain’t going.’ And Mike Chappell sent word to Jason Richardson, ‘Hey man, I just want to win. Come on young fella, it’s all good.’ They had a relationship because of me, I coached Mike Chappell in high school, I coached Jason Richardson in AAU. I used to have this little intrasquad scrimmage where my ex-high school players would play against my AAU guys. So they knew each other and Mike was dominant at that time, Jason wasn’t on his level.
“Well, their careers obviously went opposite. Jason had tremendous success. Mike had decent success, but obviously Jason dominated and became a pro. Mike had a European career. Well, when those two would come out of the locker room (at MSU), one of them would be highly excited, the other one would have his head down. They were both my kids, and I’m still close to both them. One of them is becoming a star, one of them is in his senior year and he’s not even playing.
“So that was difficult for me to swallow as a coach, because I’m close to both of them. That’s when I realized, ‘I can’t make kids go to Michigan State, that may or may not be the best spot for them.’
“If you speak to Izzo, he will probably say to you, if he’s honest and I’m sure he will be, that he kind of had the home cooking with me. And it was disappointing when I would allow other teams to recruit those kids. But he will also say to you that I’m an honest guy, that no malice involved and that I care deeply about my kids.”
Izzo didn’t have a lot to say about Grier Luchey, but he did say in the linked main story that they’ve set aside their differences. Those differences lasted a while.
“A lot of years,” Grier Luchey said. “We actually met (in May), because Will Smith runs my former program. And they’ve had their own dealings back and forth, Eric Devendorf, this kid, that kid, so on and so forth. So I wanted to, we had kind of a meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page, that the relationship is positive. We’ve been pretty good for about three or four years. We’ve been really good over the last year. You know, BG is down here with me at Georgia Tech. I’m very close with Brian Gregory, very close with Stan Heath. Still close with coach Izz, Tom Crean I don’t see as much at Indiana, but when I do get a chance I sit down with him, we’re still close as well.”
Is it simply a matter of time healing wounds?
“It does,” Grier Luchey said. “It does and it took time for both of us to see the other person’s perspective. Tom and I took a moment and sat down and talked, and just listened to each other. Let each other explain, and what happened is there was a lot of fluff on situations. For instance, ‘I heard this.’ ‘Well no, Tom, that’s not true, what happened was this.’ ‘Oh.’ And I would say to him, ‘Well I heard this.’ ‘Well no, that’s not true. What I said was this.’ And so it was a lot of, to be quite honest, one of the biggest issues was, I was a dominating program, he was a dominating program. You get jealous (people) that want to divide and conquer. So you have AAU teams that want to be in that position with Michigan State. And you have colleges that are upset about that relationship that I had with Michigan State. So you’ve got a little bit of divide and conquer coming from AAU coaches to Izzo and colleges to me.
“Joe Blow College Coach would say to me, ‘Tom said you were (a jerk). Screwed him out of Roberson.’ Joe Blow AAU Coach would say to Tom, ‘Yeah man, Chris, he was screwing you the whole time on the Roberson deal. He was planning on doing X, Y and Z.’ So that (increased) the pain of the fact you didn’t get this kid, or the pain of me feeling like Izzo has it out for me. So it was kind of like jabbing into a wound, continuously. And when we finally talked ourselves, there was so much fluff and BS and so many stories that we had both gotten, that really our issues were very simple. You know, he didn’t get a kid or two and was disappointed. I was disappointed in how he responded. But ultimately, our relationship, we have been good to each other and have the utmost respect for each other.”
So there you have it, Grier Luchey’s story, for the first time. Do with it what you will. And we’re not done. Today’s cutting room floor is awfully cluttered.
Vaccaro on Grier Luchey’s move to agent: “When Chris Grier started AAU, he did not do anything that other guys did not do in that era. That was the time period of the ‘90s, OK? That’s when AAU really started to blossom. That’s when I left Nike and went to adidas. When I did that, more money opened up and more teams were being sponsored. Norm Oden was and is and will always be a friend who ran a very good program. He had an offspring, which was Chris Grier. Chris Grier did everything that everyone else in AAU did. They try to get players to be on their teams to get sponsorships. That part of that story is true, and it’s nothing. Chris Grier worked as hard and put together as good a program as there was in America. It was one of the top programs. He did it under the guise of what AAU basketball is, getting sponsorship. And the problem with the American public and the nation is, they don’t want these guys to get sponsorships.
“So going back to the original breakup, I knew them both. Norm is a different personality. Chris then ventured off recently, last five or six years. That is the one area that Chris has to be accountable. … Now, is that a catchy problem? Yes, absolutely. That’s a problem … that’s a taboo. You can’t be the coach of a nonprofit and be an agent. That’s something you can’t do. What usually happens is, a lot of times during the years, a lot of people made alliances (with agents) and did it, but they never were their own boss. Chris is his own boss now. He changed his name or something, right? So that’s a touchy subject.”
Vaccaro on the reputation of summer basketball: “For the public to be misled by the concept that most people in summer basketball – because that’s what the word of mouth is – are illicit children, and give free pass to high school coaches is beyond my comprehension. Because I go back before there was summer basketball in the sense that we have it. Every scandal in the ‘80s preceding the first ABCD camp and the sponsorships. Go back to that. Do you want to talk about the high school coaches back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and ‘80s? See, the trouble with me is I’ve lived too long. That’s why people like you call me.
“What they do today is, high school coaches are lionized. Summer league coaches are bastardized. That’s as far from the truth as some of these politicians we vote for. It’s not right. They picked and chose -- they being the NCAA and the small group of individuals who agree with them – they picked and chose who the bad people were. That’s not right. I’ve been opposed to that from day one. And for that, I get dragged into everything they want to (say) negative.”
Vaccaro on reform: “If they really want to right this wrong – put this in your article in East Lansing – give these kids a four-year scholarship. Say they’ve got to stay the whole four years, unless you’re kicked out for beating up someone or flunking. Give them a four-year scholarship, not the one and done. Why aren’t you guys asking that question?”
More from Vaccaro: “My point has always been, if anyone ever thought I was illicit, and the shoe companies I worked with over the years, then they were just as illicit. They took our money. They never turned down the shoe company money. I did start it. Absolutely. They can’t rewrite history. Now it’s like to my benefit when you say, ‘This kid from Pittsburgh, 99 years ago thought of something no one in the world thought of at the time.’ In the present world that would be like one of these Google kids, in a different atmosphere.”
Vaccaro on his claim (to Dan Wetzel a few years ago) that Bobby Knight is one of three or four coaches who have never been accused by anyone of cheating: “I’ll stand by that. He asked me if I ever thought anybody could do this without cheating. And I said in my own opinion, there were three people and probably a fourth guy, that I never even heard a bad thing. And I certainly never witnessed it. I could not say that for anybody else, on some level. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean cash. He asked me about cheating, someone getting a test done, whatever you want to talk about. And in the world I lived in, I always heard a coach call and say, ‘Boy, such and such is cheating.’ They all squeal on each other eventually, you know that don’t you? They all talk about each other. Little do they know, the same guys they’re talking about are talking about them. That’s how I eliminated Knight and the other guys.
“I can go to my grave saying I never heard one kid, or one coach or one person say that they ever did a deal with Indiana or Bobby Knight or the other guys.”
Vaccaro, asked if Bobby Knight stands alone: “I didn’t want to give the other names because everyone would assume I’m protecting Jimmy and Joe and Billy too. But Bobby, in my mind, because I’ve been around Bobby, when I wasn’t even in the shoe business he was coaching at my camps when he was a kid at West Point coaching. So I can say that on the mountaintop. And I couldn’t say that, especially now 45 years later because it’s impossible to say that. They all talk about each other. And somebody gets somebody, then you cheated to get the guy that they were cheating to get in the first place. Stretching the envelope. Let’s not say cheating because then they think it’s a million dollars or something. Stretching the envelope, I call it.”
Vaccaro on the perception of Izzo: “My feeling, I can’t speak for others, I knew him when he was with Jud. I have nothing but respect for him. I think he may be the last of the breed that coaches the way the old-timers did. I would say that recruiting and coaching today are two different elements. Tommy, because of who Tommy is and what a great coach he is and what greatness he’s achieved, the way he’s done it, it’s moving past that level now. I don’t think you can do what Tom Izzo’s done – get kids from Michigan and win national championships anymore. He’s so stern and so hard, he would be one of those people – and I don’t want to use a name in this of the three or four (I mentioned) – it’s be very easy for me to say he was one of those three or four people I never thought would have cheated. But on another level, he would be one of the people now, as the game is where it has progressed today where you’ve got South Florida getting help, and all these other schools rising out of the ashes, that you almost have to do something to do something anymore. Coaches like Tommy in today’s world, it’s harder to be successful for them.
“As good as they are, it’s almost impossible to imagine any of those guys being All Stars in the NBA, and the only guy recently I think would be Jason Richardson. I mean good good. So to be that good, to win as many and to win championships and to go to Final Fours, he is an enigma. It’s almost not possible to do what Tommy’s done, in my opinion. I think that’s why he drives himself, he’s got to be intense, crazy – I don’t want to say crazy because people will interpret it wrong – but the guy’s intense. And I don’t think that fits in today’s world. I don’t.”
More from Vaccaro on Izzo: “Your biggest story here, as far as I’m concerned, is the Tom Izzo story. Because Tom Izzo is obviously one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game. And he’s tried everything in his life to do it ‘the right way.’ And I would believe that he has, OK? But it’s harder and harder. And what happens? You see transfers now that you never saw before. I have no idea, but I’m betting you there’s more transfers at Michigan State the last four or five years than in his first 15 years. That’s what happens. So here he is, this guy could have signed for 9 zillion dollars last year in Cleveland. He didn’t do it. And it’s hard for people like Tom Izzo and Michigan State to do this and win. It’s really hard. And I think the coach is the one that changes. Then there are problems that never existed before that are existing.”
Wetzel, author of a book on summer basketball called “Sole Influence,” in defense of AAU coaches: “Let me say this: It takes work to shepherd a talented 13-year-old between 13 and 19 when he goes pro. Especially if he comes from a dysfunctional place. So let’s say these guys are making money off the kids. It’s not that they don’t necessarily earn it. People say, ‘Well, they’re just leeches.’ OK, well maybe, but somebody’s got to get the kid there. Again, everything can go wrong and there’s a service to what they do. Maybe my position has softened over the years, but the AAU coach is vilified because of the NCAA rules. But if you just look at it, it’s a guy in the community who takes talented young people and … let’s look at boxing for a minute. Look at a different sport.
“Say I’m at Kronk Gym in Detroit and I find these 13-year-olds and I get them in my gym and I feed them and I train them and I work on them. And then they turn pro. I get them through school, all the different things to show support. And when they turn pro I get some kind of kickback, or I’m their manager or whatever it is. You wouldn’t necessarily look at that and say, ‘That’s a bad guy.’ They’re bad guys because fans are looking at a college model. And they basically are upset when a guy like that sends them to a different school, or he encourages them to go pro. Then they’re a bad guy. Well, if you look at the whole scheme of things, that’s just not right. I understand the disappointment of your team, but there’s also this thing where fans say, ‘My coach is the best for this guy.’ Well maybe he isn’t. There’s different styles of play, maybe he’s got to get away, there’s so many variables.
“As long as the AAU coach is working for the best of the player and maybe even the best professional development of the player, I have no problem. When it’s just, ‘I’m gonna send you to the wrong place because this guy’s gonna give me money,’ that’s when it’s a problem. But you can do all the ‘under-handed’ things they get criticism for and you can have the absolute best interest in mind.”
Wetzel on the “baseball rule” (an athlete can go straight to the pros out of high school but must stay three years if he goes to college) that Izzo and many others champion: “I don’t like it. I think if you can go you should go out of high school, or after one year, two year, three years. This isn’t the military. You’re not signing up for military duty. That’s all about the convenience of a coach building a roster. Well, I understand it’s inconvenient for the coach, but the coach is making his money. I mean, it is a fragile thing to make it as a pro athlete. There are 375 jobs in the NBA. If you’ve got a shot at one of those jobs, and the entire world is trying to get it, you shouldn’t have to sit there and go, ‘Geez, I had a great sophomore season but now I’ve got to come back.’ What if I hurt my knee? What if my game isn’t as good? What if my coach leaves and suddenly I’m stuck at this school, and we play slow down, or I don’t get along with (the new coach)? Only one thing can go right, everything can go wrong. And to sit there and say, ‘Well, we’ve got to have some roster stability.’ Forget it. I just don’t care enough about the coaches. They’ll build a roster. I just look at it as individual freedom.”
Izzo on the point that things went on before AAU basketball got big: “Good point. Except high school coaches always had rules. There were rules. There are no rules for the AAU coach. The rules are for the college coach. They have none and any rule that’s put in is for the college coach.”
Maurice Ager on his experience with AAU basketball: “You’re playing in tournaments every weekend, everything’s free, you’re staying in hotels. You’re playing basketball every day. It’s fun. I mean, you’d hear a bunch of stories about college coaches making deals with AAU coaches and things like that, and maybe it’s more of a meat market now than when I was in it. More of a business now. That’s unfair to the kids, but I can’t complain about my experience.”
Oden on the perception of summer ball: “The tale is bigger than the truth. A lot of it is what you might call urban legend. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just not nearly as much as some say it is. It’s kind of comical to me, but you can’t tell people that.
“I’m sure there are people that are selling kids. But you need a lot of conditions to come together. One, you have to have a kid who’s good enough and able to make money. Two, you have to have a player and a family or coach who are willing to take money. And three, you need to have someone willing to pay. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m sure it does, but how often are you going to have all three of those conditions?”
Sexton coach Carlton Valentine on the rift between some high school and AAU coaches: “Some (high school) coaches get offended and feel slighted. But to me, if you’re really and truly about helping kids, you shouldn’t feel slighted. If someone is helping my kids, that’s more important than my ego. I mean, who are we really trying to help?”
Okemos coach Dan Stolz on life before AAU basketball got big: “It seemed a lot simpler and a lot easier for families. Now they’re flying all over the country and staying in hotel rooms and playing four games in a day. I almost feel like, the kids are competitive but you lose a game and it’s, ‘Oh, we’ve got another one at 2 o’clock.’”
Stolz on handing his players off in the summer to other coaches: “You just hope it’s a competitive situation and a healthy situation. You just hope none of that crap is going on and that your players are staying level-headed and getting exposure and getting better. And that no one is saying, ‘You should go to this prep school’ or ‘You should transfer here, it’ll be better for your game.’”
Tubby Smith on now vs. then: “There’s gonna be issues with everything. There’s gonna be talk of somebody that’s a runner or somebody that’s an agent, but that’s always been there. Always. Trust me, I’ve been in this business 37 years. There’s always been someone else that you’d have to talk to. Maybe it was a minister. Maybe it was the coach in the high school. Maybe it was the mother’s boyfriend, you see what I mean?”
That changed things. Grier Luchey has a fascinating story, and he was willing to tell his side of it. For those of you who follow basketball recruiting closely and spend some time on message boards, you know him as a villain in the eyes of MSU fans. He’s been the AAU Joker to Tom Izzo’s Batman – before moving from the state, graduating to sports agent and widening his pool of detractors. For those of you who don’t, it’s time to catch up.
Here are the basics on Grier Luchey, serving as a backdrop for the summer hoops discussion.
Grier Luchey and a close friend you know well offer some defense of his character.
Fascinating Character No. 2 (Sonny Vaccaro) gives his thoughts on summer ball and Tom Izzo’s dilemma.
Coaches weigh in on what can be done to improve things.
And most would agree that one thing that must change – but probably won’t in the near future – is the short-sighted one-and-done rule.
Now back to Grier Luchey. The thing some may find interesting about his story of Famutimi and the switch to Arkansas is how much control he obviously exerts over these players (or at least, that player). Here’s the full comment (it had to be cut some to fit into the paper). It is an answer to this question: Have you ever taken money to steer a player to a particular college?
“Absolutely not. I’m gonna give you an example of one opportunity, where I tried my best to just show how I’m cut. Missouri had allegations come up that they were paying players. At the heart of that moment, I had one of the best players in the country, who lived in my home. His name was Olu Famutimi, a McDonald’s All-American. Most people had him somewhere between 8th and 15th (in the nation). Olu was going to Missouri. Pretty much had been to Missouri, wanted to go to Missouri the whole time.
“There were unique dynamics involved because Tony Harvey was assistant coach there, a Michigan guy, but Tony Harvey’s father was legal guardian for Robert Whaley, who was the best player along with Kelvin Torbert, on our team (two years earlier). Jeff Ferguson, also who lived with Tony Harvey’s dad, they both committed to Missouri. So you had Robert Whaley, you had Jeff Ferguson, both Benton Harbor kids, Tony Harvey’s dad was guardian of both of those kids. You know, Olu Famutimi wanted to go to Missouri.
“Well, when I got wind of the allegations and the things that were coming out, I forbade it. I basically told him, ‘Listen, you can go anywhere, but you’re not going to Missouri.’ I took some heat from those guys because I’m pretty close to Quin Snyder, obviously I was close to Tony Harvey because we had two kids in our program who played for us who lived in his dad’s house. So obviously we had a relationship. And he was furious at me. But I said to him, ‘Listen, you guys have allegations that you’re paying people, I’m already an AAU coach, they already think I’m taking. The last thing I need – I don’t want nothing – is for it to come out that y’all are doing something for someone else and they’re gonna assume that I’m taking. So, no. We’re going to (the) strait-laced Michigan State guy at Arkansas.’
“But yet, I get no credit. Michigan State people are, ‘Aw, Stan Heath ain’t here no more.’ But he’s a Michigan State guy. He’s the head coach at Arkansas, Olu Famutimi goes to Arkansas. Now if there was any kid that I could do something with, or if I was gonna do something crazy, naturally the opportunity would have come with the kid that lives at home with me. But I ran from the program that allegedly was doing that and sent him to Arkansas to be Stan’s first recruit.”
It’s an interesting defense, a story about forbidding a kid from attending one school and steering him to another to save yourself from being implicated in cheating. Grier Luchey has other things to defend as well, such as the move from AAU coach to agent.
A lot of people were “killing my name,” he said, when he made the switch.
“When I went over to becoming an agent, I got it from all sides,” Grier Luchey said. “I got it from some people saying, ‘He’s an AAU coach becoming an agent, he shouldn’t do it.’ Then you have some of the grass-roots people you’re on the same level with disappointed or jealous that you elevated. That’s you were given that opportunity. ‘Well, why wasn’t it me?’ I had one very prominent AAU coach come up to me and say ‘I’ve got to apologize because I was crucifying you for a few months. Because to be honest, I was jealous, I wanted that job.’”
Before that move, Grier Luchey made the move out of Norm Oden’s Michigan Mustangs program to form his own, the Michigan Hurricanes. He says he is “totally disconnected” from that program now that he’s an agent, but he also sat down with successor Will Smith and Izzo recently to smooth out issues.
Oden, unlike Grier Luchey, has a good reputation in grass-roots circles. So why did they split?
“To be quite honest, we split because I guess maybe it was two chiefs, not enough Indians,” Grier Luchey said.
“I had the best talent, I had Robert Whaley, I had Paul Davis, I had Kelvin Torbert, I had Anthony Roberson, I had Jason Richardson, I had Brent Darby – basically the best players,” Grier Luchey said of that time period, when he coached for Oden. “Everyone that played in Flint, Saginaw and a little bit Detroit, I had them. To be quite honest, I kind of dominated AAU for most of those years. So my name kind of became bigger than the team name. And so everywhere you went it was ‘Chris Grier, Chris Grier,’ and people didn’t know about Norm. It was his group. It was his team, I was just a coach, just a very successful coach.
“So to be honest, there was a college coach who said something to him. We were all at Sonny Vaccaro’s house and he said to Norm, ‘Who do you work for?’ And Norm says, ‘I’m with the Michigan Mustangs.’ And this guy says, ‘Oh, you work for Chris Grier.’ And Norm Oden was like, ‘No, Chris was one of my coaches.’ After that, there was no turning back. He didn’t want me to coach. It was like, ‘I’m the coach now, you sit back.’ And this team included Anthony Roberson, Matt Trannon, Paul Davis, this was next year’s team. That’s how I split from Norm, the same way he split from the Michigan Mavericks five years prior.”
I asked Oden about the incident. As you might expect, he had a slightly different take on things.
“I’ve got no response for anything he says,” Oden said.
According to Oden, he felt it was the right time for Grier Luchey to start his own program and the split was amicable. It wasn’t until Grier Luchey wanted to use the name “Michigan Mustangs Elite” that Oden got upset, he said.
Still, there were philosophical differences.
“He was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go in,” Oden said.
So Grier Luchey took most of Oden’s best players at the time, except for Paul Davis, who stuck with Oden.
Grier Luchey implies jealousy, particularly as it relates to then-adidas kingpin Vaccaro.
“Norm didn’t understand, my relationship with Sonny superceded his relationship, even though it was his program,” Grier Luchey said. “Me and Sonny’s relationship was personal. There was some bitterness. There was, I mean, Norm was an awesome general manager. I was an awesome coach. So together we dominated. We completely, totally dominated AAU basketball. The Family wasn’t even a program people talked about. It was irrelevant. Nobody was relevant but the Michigan Mustangs at that time.
“But that incident created the issue, the doubts or the problem Norm had with me. I wasn’t ready to go backward. I had surpassed being the 15-and-under coach. I can’t go back and be the 15-and-under coach. No. At this point I’m a director at the (adidas) camp. Sonny has me involved in the Roundball Classic. I’m now myself coaching with adidas. What are you talking about? I’m not going back to coaching 15 and under. So either you GM this thing and we coach together or I’m about to do something different.”
Oden chuckles at the suggestion of jealousy, but says he isn’t surprised by it.
“I don’t believe he actually thinks that,” Oden said. “He would say I was jealous, but you know what? I’m not mad at him. Anybody who gets involved with this, traveling with kids, keeping them off the streets and out of trouble every weekend for three months every year, is doing good work.”
Clearly, some would disagree. Grier Luchey moved quickly from MSU friend to MSU foe with the decision of Roberson. It may seem trivial now, but at the time it was a major blow to Izzo – the first significant in-state recruiting loss in a few years.
“Message boards have crucified me,” Grier Luchey said. “They made me out to be … it’s amazing. First I was a Michigan State (supporter). Mike Chappell played for me, he went to Duke, transferred back to Michigan State. Jason Richardson played for me, went to Michigan State. Charlie Bell played for the Mustangs, which I was a part of, he went to Michigan State. Kelvin Torbert played for me, he went to Michigan State. We’re talking about top-10, top-15 players.
“As soon as one player does something different, which was Anthony Roberson, who if you get him on the phone he will tell you today, he was never going to Michigan State, because he didn’t want to back up Marcus Taylor. The reason for that was, look in the history books. Anthony played against Marcus Taylor as a sophomore. Marcus was a senior. They played twice. One of those games, Anthony had a hell of a game, 23, 25 points. So his thing was, ‘Everybody is making Marcus Taylor out to be this icon, he ain’t that much better than me.’ So in his mind, ‘I’m not gonna be the guy to back up Marcus Taylor.’ Now look at irony, irony is so crazy.
“Marcus Taylor ends up declaring for the draft, but that was long after the recruiting period. That doesn’t happen until March. If the recruiting period is the same, you don’t sign until April, boom, they probably get Anthony. But because of the early signing period, Anthony is adamant (in November), ‘I’m not going to Michigan State.’
According to Grier Luchey, Roberson’s top choice was Duke, but Sean Dockery took that spot. Raymond Felton went to UNC, Daniel Horton to U-M, Dee Brown and Deron Williams to Illinois in an incredible 2002 point guard crop. Roberson visited Florida, Grier Luchey said, and he did not accompany the point guard. He said Roberson called him from there, though.
“Anthony is like, ‘Man, coach, it’s the spot. Florida’s the spot.’ I’m like, ‘Well you’ve got to get home, talk to your high school coach, talk to your grandmother (who was his guardian), talk to your mom,’” he recalled of the conversation. “He comes back home, you know, gets with his family, we’re out of touch for a couple days, he’s like, ‘Man, let’s just commit.’ He commits. Well (Saginaw High coach) Marshall Thomas at that time apparently was speaking at Michigan State’s camp.
“Apparently he and (Roberson) never talked, so when it comes out, it’s like I took him to Florida, got paid – I’ve heard every rumor – I got paid, that Michigan State Spartanmag website, it was like the most … I was horrible. From then on, they hated me. And yet Maurice Ager is on the same team and commits three months later to Michigan State. But no one talks about that, I’m just crucified. Anthony Roberson didn’t come, I’m done. I’m done. And so it honestly started an issue, because Michigan State didn’t get my best player. There was fallout because of that.”
Yes, the rumor was $200,000. When I mentioned that to Grier Luchey, he laughed loudly. He’s heard a lot of rumors, about himself and others.
“When I was coaching, the bad fish was Myron Piggie,” he said. “Everyone was comparing everything, all I heard about was Myron Piggie and his deal with Corey Maggette and all those guys, that traveling team with players from all over. That was the bad fish. We didn’t know about any other, there were no stories about who was doing what. A lot of things at that time were legal.”
The Pump brothers, for example, found ways to make money with exhibition games, a scouting service and Final Four tickets.
“When they did it, every AAU coach in the country followed behind it and did anything that was legal,” Grier Luchey said. “The NCAA didn’t have rules in that place at the time. So yes, absolutely, I would say 80 percent of AAU coaches participated in something, whether it was a scouting service or exhibition teams, something of that nature. All of those things were fine, there were no issues. People got rich, the Pumps got rich off of that. There are really only one or two groups you can talk about that really dominated that and got rich off it. They made a business off it. The Pump brothers made an incredible life off of all of those things.”
And what about the suggestion that some AAU coaches are making money off the backs of their players?
“My perspective is this,” Grier Luchey said. “The first thing you need to realize is this: For every alleged kid that is positioned into a college or whatever, all these stories I hear about, then there’s a college coach on the other side who is buying. The biggest story in the history of basketball is Myron Piggie.
“If Corey Maggette goes to Duke and Myron Piggie is taking money from everyone, surely he got money from his best player.”
Grier Luchey had more to say about the other side of the illicit deals.
“College coaches make approximately $2 million a year,” he said. “They are rewarded with shoe deals. Jordan’s kid goes to Central Florida, says ‘I’m not wearing these (adidas shoes).’ Central Florida loses its whole deal with adidas and now is a Nike school because one kid says, ‘I’m not putting those shoes on.’ There’s no comment, there’s no fallout, there’s no issues with any of that. Furthermore, the kids are locked up on a letter of intent, they’re bound to that school. It depends on the situation whether or not they’ll release a kid. But the coaches leave all the time. Just arbitrarily leave them.
“So I hear all these moral things about, ‘Who’s getting this and who’s doing that?’ but the system has said that basically the decision has already been made. The only good people are these guys and the bad people are these guys. There’s no opportunity to look at it case by case.
“It’s like this: Some people think abortion is bad. Some think abortion is necessary if a lady is raped or taken advantage of or molested or something like that. You can look at it case by case, but you have some people that have a blanket, ‘We don’t care. Abortion is just bad. That’s it. I don’t care if you were raped, I don’t care what happens, it’s just bad.’ Now I don’t have an opinion either way, that’s just an example I’m using.
“I feel like, in this case with AAU, people’s perceptions, they don’t care. They don’t care about the facts, they don’t care about the information. It’s a judgment call that they’re making regardless.
“So I don’t know. If you take advantage of a kid and the kid doesn’t know about it, I have a problem with that. But if the kid benefits and the coach or someone who developed him benefits as well, I don’t see a problem with that. That’s not different than if I go play for Michigan State and we go from the bottom of the Big Ten to first place, that coach is gonna get a raise. Did that coach get a raise because he was so great or did he recruit good? What got him that? It was those kids. If those kids don’t go out there and perform, that coach isn’t gonna get that raise. I don’t see the difference.”
The difference, of course, would be the NCAA rules.
“I mean, I’m all for the rules,” Grier Luchey said. “I’m not for breaking the rules. But what I’m saying is, prior to two or three years ago, the college coaches would hire an AAU coach or a high school coach. This started with Danny Manning, I think they hired his dad at Kansas for him to come there. So it started with a high school coach, it didn’t start with an AAU coach. Most of these trends started with high school coaches.
“It was OK to hire a coach for a kid to come there, then the NCAA makes a rule up and says ‘OK, you can’t do that.’ But that doesn’t make it morally correct or incorrect just because the NCAA comes out with a rule and says, ‘OK, now you can’t do that.’ That’s all I’m saying. But I’m all for following the rules, but the NCAA can arbitrarily … it’s their business.”
Finally, there’s the issue of Grier Luchey and Izzo. Grier Luchey is an MSU grad, a guy who lived with Shawn Respert and spent a lot of time at the Breslin Center cheering on the Spartans, and he says that bias influenced him to push MSU to his players. When that changed, he said, so did his relationship with Izzo.
“Izzo has known me since I was 18 years old,” Grier Luchey said. “He knows what I’m about. Yes, we’ve had our ups and downs because of, obviously he wanted to get every player. But it worked out good for a lot of kids. To be honest with you, the first time it hit me in the face where I had to at least, I owed it to the kids to let them look at other schools, was (when) Mike Chappell and Jason Richardson were both at Michigan State. Jason Richardson was considering not going to Michigan State because Mike Chappell had just decided he was gonna transfer there. Now remember, he was leaving Duke as a stud.
“Jason’s thing was, ‘I’m not about to sit behind Mike Chappell and Charlie Bell. I ain’t going.’ And Mike Chappell sent word to Jason Richardson, ‘Hey man, I just want to win. Come on young fella, it’s all good.’ They had a relationship because of me, I coached Mike Chappell in high school, I coached Jason Richardson in AAU. I used to have this little intrasquad scrimmage where my ex-high school players would play against my AAU guys. So they knew each other and Mike was dominant at that time, Jason wasn’t on his level.
“Well, their careers obviously went opposite. Jason had tremendous success. Mike had decent success, but obviously Jason dominated and became a pro. Mike had a European career. Well, when those two would come out of the locker room (at MSU), one of them would be highly excited, the other one would have his head down. They were both my kids, and I’m still close to both them. One of them is becoming a star, one of them is in his senior year and he’s not even playing.
“So that was difficult for me to swallow as a coach, because I’m close to both of them. That’s when I realized, ‘I can’t make kids go to Michigan State, that may or may not be the best spot for them.’
“If you speak to Izzo, he will probably say to you, if he’s honest and I’m sure he will be, that he kind of had the home cooking with me. And it was disappointing when I would allow other teams to recruit those kids. But he will also say to you that I’m an honest guy, that no malice involved and that I care deeply about my kids.”
Izzo didn’t have a lot to say about Grier Luchey, but he did say in the linked main story that they’ve set aside their differences. Those differences lasted a while.
“A lot of years,” Grier Luchey said. “We actually met (in May), because Will Smith runs my former program. And they’ve had their own dealings back and forth, Eric Devendorf, this kid, that kid, so on and so forth. So I wanted to, we had kind of a meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page, that the relationship is positive. We’ve been pretty good for about three or four years. We’ve been really good over the last year. You know, BG is down here with me at Georgia Tech. I’m very close with Brian Gregory, very close with Stan Heath. Still close with coach Izz, Tom Crean I don’t see as much at Indiana, but when I do get a chance I sit down with him, we’re still close as well.”
Is it simply a matter of time healing wounds?
“It does,” Grier Luchey said. “It does and it took time for both of us to see the other person’s perspective. Tom and I took a moment and sat down and talked, and just listened to each other. Let each other explain, and what happened is there was a lot of fluff on situations. For instance, ‘I heard this.’ ‘Well no, Tom, that’s not true, what happened was this.’ ‘Oh.’ And I would say to him, ‘Well I heard this.’ ‘Well no, that’s not true. What I said was this.’ And so it was a lot of, to be quite honest, one of the biggest issues was, I was a dominating program, he was a dominating program. You get jealous (people) that want to divide and conquer. So you have AAU teams that want to be in that position with Michigan State. And you have colleges that are upset about that relationship that I had with Michigan State. So you’ve got a little bit of divide and conquer coming from AAU coaches to Izzo and colleges to me.
“Joe Blow College Coach would say to me, ‘Tom said you were (a jerk). Screwed him out of Roberson.’ Joe Blow AAU Coach would say to Tom, ‘Yeah man, Chris, he was screwing you the whole time on the Roberson deal. He was planning on doing X, Y and Z.’ So that (increased) the pain of the fact you didn’t get this kid, or the pain of me feeling like Izzo has it out for me. So it was kind of like jabbing into a wound, continuously. And when we finally talked ourselves, there was so much fluff and BS and so many stories that we had both gotten, that really our issues were very simple. You know, he didn’t get a kid or two and was disappointed. I was disappointed in how he responded. But ultimately, our relationship, we have been good to each other and have the utmost respect for each other.”
So there you have it, Grier Luchey’s story, for the first time. Do with it what you will. And we’re not done. Today’s cutting room floor is awfully cluttered.
Vaccaro on Grier Luchey’s move to agent: “When Chris Grier started AAU, he did not do anything that other guys did not do in that era. That was the time period of the ‘90s, OK? That’s when AAU really started to blossom. That’s when I left Nike and went to adidas. When I did that, more money opened up and more teams were being sponsored. Norm Oden was and is and will always be a friend who ran a very good program. He had an offspring, which was Chris Grier. Chris Grier did everything that everyone else in AAU did. They try to get players to be on their teams to get sponsorships. That part of that story is true, and it’s nothing. Chris Grier worked as hard and put together as good a program as there was in America. It was one of the top programs. He did it under the guise of what AAU basketball is, getting sponsorship. And the problem with the American public and the nation is, they don’t want these guys to get sponsorships.
“So going back to the original breakup, I knew them both. Norm is a different personality. Chris then ventured off recently, last five or six years. That is the one area that Chris has to be accountable. … Now, is that a catchy problem? Yes, absolutely. That’s a problem … that’s a taboo. You can’t be the coach of a nonprofit and be an agent. That’s something you can’t do. What usually happens is, a lot of times during the years, a lot of people made alliances (with agents) and did it, but they never were their own boss. Chris is his own boss now. He changed his name or something, right? So that’s a touchy subject.”
Vaccaro on the reputation of summer basketball: “For the public to be misled by the concept that most people in summer basketball – because that’s what the word of mouth is – are illicit children, and give free pass to high school coaches is beyond my comprehension. Because I go back before there was summer basketball in the sense that we have it. Every scandal in the ‘80s preceding the first ABCD camp and the sponsorships. Go back to that. Do you want to talk about the high school coaches back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and ‘80s? See, the trouble with me is I’ve lived too long. That’s why people like you call me.
“What they do today is, high school coaches are lionized. Summer league coaches are bastardized. That’s as far from the truth as some of these politicians we vote for. It’s not right. They picked and chose -- they being the NCAA and the small group of individuals who agree with them – they picked and chose who the bad people were. That’s not right. I’ve been opposed to that from day one. And for that, I get dragged into everything they want to (say) negative.”
Vaccaro on reform: “If they really want to right this wrong – put this in your article in East Lansing – give these kids a four-year scholarship. Say they’ve got to stay the whole four years, unless you’re kicked out for beating up someone or flunking. Give them a four-year scholarship, not the one and done. Why aren’t you guys asking that question?”
More from Vaccaro: “My point has always been, if anyone ever thought I was illicit, and the shoe companies I worked with over the years, then they were just as illicit. They took our money. They never turned down the shoe company money. I did start it. Absolutely. They can’t rewrite history. Now it’s like to my benefit when you say, ‘This kid from Pittsburgh, 99 years ago thought of something no one in the world thought of at the time.’ In the present world that would be like one of these Google kids, in a different atmosphere.”
Vaccaro on his claim (to Dan Wetzel a few years ago) that Bobby Knight is one of three or four coaches who have never been accused by anyone of cheating: “I’ll stand by that. He asked me if I ever thought anybody could do this without cheating. And I said in my own opinion, there were three people and probably a fourth guy, that I never even heard a bad thing. And I certainly never witnessed it. I could not say that for anybody else, on some level. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean cash. He asked me about cheating, someone getting a test done, whatever you want to talk about. And in the world I lived in, I always heard a coach call and say, ‘Boy, such and such is cheating.’ They all squeal on each other eventually, you know that don’t you? They all talk about each other. Little do they know, the same guys they’re talking about are talking about them. That’s how I eliminated Knight and the other guys.
“I can go to my grave saying I never heard one kid, or one coach or one person say that they ever did a deal with Indiana or Bobby Knight or the other guys.”
Vaccaro, asked if Bobby Knight stands alone: “I didn’t want to give the other names because everyone would assume I’m protecting Jimmy and Joe and Billy too. But Bobby, in my mind, because I’ve been around Bobby, when I wasn’t even in the shoe business he was coaching at my camps when he was a kid at West Point coaching. So I can say that on the mountaintop. And I couldn’t say that, especially now 45 years later because it’s impossible to say that. They all talk about each other. And somebody gets somebody, then you cheated to get the guy that they were cheating to get in the first place. Stretching the envelope. Let’s not say cheating because then they think it’s a million dollars or something. Stretching the envelope, I call it.”
Vaccaro on the perception of Izzo: “My feeling, I can’t speak for others, I knew him when he was with Jud. I have nothing but respect for him. I think he may be the last of the breed that coaches the way the old-timers did. I would say that recruiting and coaching today are two different elements. Tommy, because of who Tommy is and what a great coach he is and what greatness he’s achieved, the way he’s done it, it’s moving past that level now. I don’t think you can do what Tom Izzo’s done – get kids from Michigan and win national championships anymore. He’s so stern and so hard, he would be one of those people – and I don’t want to use a name in this of the three or four (I mentioned) – it’s be very easy for me to say he was one of those three or four people I never thought would have cheated. But on another level, he would be one of the people now, as the game is where it has progressed today where you’ve got South Florida getting help, and all these other schools rising out of the ashes, that you almost have to do something to do something anymore. Coaches like Tommy in today’s world, it’s harder to be successful for them.
“As good as they are, it’s almost impossible to imagine any of those guys being All Stars in the NBA, and the only guy recently I think would be Jason Richardson. I mean good good. So to be that good, to win as many and to win championships and to go to Final Fours, he is an enigma. It’s almost not possible to do what Tommy’s done, in my opinion. I think that’s why he drives himself, he’s got to be intense, crazy – I don’t want to say crazy because people will interpret it wrong – but the guy’s intense. And I don’t think that fits in today’s world. I don’t.”
More from Vaccaro on Izzo: “Your biggest story here, as far as I’m concerned, is the Tom Izzo story. Because Tom Izzo is obviously one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game. And he’s tried everything in his life to do it ‘the right way.’ And I would believe that he has, OK? But it’s harder and harder. And what happens? You see transfers now that you never saw before. I have no idea, but I’m betting you there’s more transfers at Michigan State the last four or five years than in his first 15 years. That’s what happens. So here he is, this guy could have signed for 9 zillion dollars last year in Cleveland. He didn’t do it. And it’s hard for people like Tom Izzo and Michigan State to do this and win. It’s really hard. And I think the coach is the one that changes. Then there are problems that never existed before that are existing.”
Wetzel, author of a book on summer basketball called “Sole Influence,” in defense of AAU coaches: “Let me say this: It takes work to shepherd a talented 13-year-old between 13 and 19 when he goes pro. Especially if he comes from a dysfunctional place. So let’s say these guys are making money off the kids. It’s not that they don’t necessarily earn it. People say, ‘Well, they’re just leeches.’ OK, well maybe, but somebody’s got to get the kid there. Again, everything can go wrong and there’s a service to what they do. Maybe my position has softened over the years, but the AAU coach is vilified because of the NCAA rules. But if you just look at it, it’s a guy in the community who takes talented young people and … let’s look at boxing for a minute. Look at a different sport.
“Say I’m at Kronk Gym in Detroit and I find these 13-year-olds and I get them in my gym and I feed them and I train them and I work on them. And then they turn pro. I get them through school, all the different things to show support. And when they turn pro I get some kind of kickback, or I’m their manager or whatever it is. You wouldn’t necessarily look at that and say, ‘That’s a bad guy.’ They’re bad guys because fans are looking at a college model. And they basically are upset when a guy like that sends them to a different school, or he encourages them to go pro. Then they’re a bad guy. Well, if you look at the whole scheme of things, that’s just not right. I understand the disappointment of your team, but there’s also this thing where fans say, ‘My coach is the best for this guy.’ Well maybe he isn’t. There’s different styles of play, maybe he’s got to get away, there’s so many variables.
“As long as the AAU coach is working for the best of the player and maybe even the best professional development of the player, I have no problem. When it’s just, ‘I’m gonna send you to the wrong place because this guy’s gonna give me money,’ that’s when it’s a problem. But you can do all the ‘under-handed’ things they get criticism for and you can have the absolute best interest in mind.”
Wetzel on the “baseball rule” (an athlete can go straight to the pros out of high school but must stay three years if he goes to college) that Izzo and many others champion: “I don’t like it. I think if you can go you should go out of high school, or after one year, two year, three years. This isn’t the military. You’re not signing up for military duty. That’s all about the convenience of a coach building a roster. Well, I understand it’s inconvenient for the coach, but the coach is making his money. I mean, it is a fragile thing to make it as a pro athlete. There are 375 jobs in the NBA. If you’ve got a shot at one of those jobs, and the entire world is trying to get it, you shouldn’t have to sit there and go, ‘Geez, I had a great sophomore season but now I’ve got to come back.’ What if I hurt my knee? What if my game isn’t as good? What if my coach leaves and suddenly I’m stuck at this school, and we play slow down, or I don’t get along with (the new coach)? Only one thing can go right, everything can go wrong. And to sit there and say, ‘Well, we’ve got to have some roster stability.’ Forget it. I just don’t care enough about the coaches. They’ll build a roster. I just look at it as individual freedom.”
Izzo on the point that things went on before AAU basketball got big: “Good point. Except high school coaches always had rules. There were rules. There are no rules for the AAU coach. The rules are for the college coach. They have none and any rule that’s put in is for the college coach.”
Maurice Ager on his experience with AAU basketball: “You’re playing in tournaments every weekend, everything’s free, you’re staying in hotels. You’re playing basketball every day. It’s fun. I mean, you’d hear a bunch of stories about college coaches making deals with AAU coaches and things like that, and maybe it’s more of a meat market now than when I was in it. More of a business now. That’s unfair to the kids, but I can’t complain about my experience.”
Oden on the perception of summer ball: “The tale is bigger than the truth. A lot of it is what you might call urban legend. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just not nearly as much as some say it is. It’s kind of comical to me, but you can’t tell people that.
“I’m sure there are people that are selling kids. But you need a lot of conditions to come together. One, you have to have a kid who’s good enough and able to make money. Two, you have to have a player and a family or coach who are willing to take money. And three, you need to have someone willing to pay. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m sure it does, but how often are you going to have all three of those conditions?”
Sexton coach Carlton Valentine on the rift between some high school and AAU coaches: “Some (high school) coaches get offended and feel slighted. But to me, if you’re really and truly about helping kids, you shouldn’t feel slighted. If someone is helping my kids, that’s more important than my ego. I mean, who are we really trying to help?”
Okemos coach Dan Stolz on life before AAU basketball got big: “It seemed a lot simpler and a lot easier for families. Now they’re flying all over the country and staying in hotel rooms and playing four games in a day. I almost feel like, the kids are competitive but you lose a game and it’s, ‘Oh, we’ve got another one at 2 o’clock.’”
Stolz on handing his players off in the summer to other coaches: “You just hope it’s a competitive situation and a healthy situation. You just hope none of that crap is going on and that your players are staying level-headed and getting exposure and getting better. And that no one is saying, ‘You should go to this prep school’ or ‘You should transfer here, it’ll be better for your game.’”
Tubby Smith on now vs. then: “There’s gonna be issues with everything. There’s gonna be talk of somebody that’s a runner or somebody that’s an agent, but that’s always been there. Always. Trust me, I’ve been in this business 37 years. There’s always been someone else that you’d have to talk to. Maybe it was a minister. Maybe it was the coach in the high school. Maybe it was the mother’s boyfriend, you see what I mean?”
