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This could be really interesting. ESPN is reporting the NCAA has permanently assigned 3 of its 20 investigators to follow basketball recruiting fulltime. They've never done this before assigned people to one specific sport. They will be at AAU events, shoe camps, summer events they will be there specifically to try and clean up recruiting and the stuff Mayo was involved in with agents.
Mayo in some ways may become a pariah to other players who find it's going to be a lot harder to get paid and pass amateur status checks. But in the long run he may be the best thing to happen to amateur basketball in ages, by Mayo getting caught maybe now they'll actually clean up the sport?
Of course Mayo personally won't suffer much other than maybe some lost endorsements.
Well the parties continue to point the finger at each other. Yesterday BDA said they can prove they had nothing to do with this and that Rodney Guillory acted on his own. BIll Duffy stated that Guillory mortgaged his house to get the funds to "take care of OJ Mayo."
Mayo in an LA Times story today says that he hasn't spoken to Guillory since the story broke and that he wants to keep the relationship "distant" until he finds out what Guillory may have done. He insisted he personally had done nothing wrong but that he can't speak for what Guillory may have done. He was aware of Guillory's past and looked to see signs of that with him(Mayo) but never saw it.
So we now have Johnson throwing BDA, Guillory and mayo under the bus, BDA and Mayo throwing Guillory under the bus. At some point you would assume Guillory will throw someone under the bus.
And the guy everyone wants to get to speak on record is Dwaine Barnes Mayos ex AAU coach who he used to call his grandfather, the guy who hasn't been on speaking terms with OJ since he was told that Mayo was going to SC and not Kansas State where Barnes wanted him(before Huggins was canned).
Pretty much everyone assumes that Barnes has all sorts of information.
Couple of interesting columns/blogs in the Cincy enquirer from 2 guys who covered Mayo for 3 years of HS. Tom Groeschen pointed out that the NCAA was so concerned about all the rumors about Mayo that they spent special investigators to NOrth College Hill highschool this past summer to investigate Mayo before the Clearinghouse approved him. They found no proof of payoffs and the coach there said he never saw any indication Mayo was getting money. He never mentioned how they explained who paid the rent on Mayo's apartment those 3 years he was living alone in Cincy but I gotta assume they looked at that and were satisified. Apparently they did the same thing in Huntington special investigators.
Starting to build a pretty good denial for USC, according to Groeschen Mayo was the only incoming freshman in the country the NCAA did that to, they obviously suspected something was wrong, but they found no proof, so how could they now hold SC responsible for not finding something they missed themselves?
The other writer Devin something said he recalls a conversation with Dwaine Barnes where he said he is really concerned with Guillory because everytime he's in town with Mayo, he treats Mayo "lavishly." He said he was concerned that Guillory might get OJ in trouble like he did 2 others before. Same writer said he interviewed Mayo once after talking to Guillory who introduced himself as Mayo's "manager." When he asked about guillory's past, guillory ended the interview and he never got another interview with mayo. When he asked Barnes what he thought of Mayo committing to SC Barnes got so mad he ended the interview and has never granted him another interview.
The NCH principal also flatly denies rumors printed by SI's Seth Davis originally in 2006 that said several people connected to the story told him that Dwaine Barnes was being paid a percentage of the attendance charges for North College Hill games and that he routinely pushed the school to get opponents to reschedule road games in bigger venues so he could get a percentage of the gate.
All this smoke and the NCAA found no proof in the Summer?
This will be really interesting to see how the NCAA handles a case where everyone including them thought Mayo was dirty but couldn't prove it.
Scott Wolf's USC blog is claiming that Guillory first offered Mayo to UCLA but UCLA said no because Kevin Love vetoed it. Now Love hadn't commited yet but Wolf says UCLA "knew Love was coming and asked for his input."
This is semi consistent wtih the long rumor on UCLA boards that was Guillory offered Mayo to UCLA first, UCLA investigated Mayo and said no thanks, so they then picked SC.
The difference is Wolf is implying Love said no dice, not UCLA, in other words implying UCLA was willing to take Mayo if Love was ok with it.
I don't care who vetoed the idea I'm just glad someone did.
I don't understand the NBA role in this that Donovan is asking for. If colleges won't control themselves, why is it the NBA's responsibility? Maybe Billy thinks that if schools have different levels of self discipline, the "kids" will stay away from the ones with ethics.
Quote:
Donovan: NBA needs to step up
Florida men's basketball coach would like to see league do a better job of protecting college athletes
BY DAVID JONES • FLORIDA TODAY • May 21, 2008
Florida coach Billy Donovan recruited O.J. Mayo early in the process and almost landed his high school teammate, Patrick Patterson out of Huntington, W.Va.
Mayo went to Southern Cal, which is currently involved in the controversy of potential dealings with an agent both while Mayo was in high school and in college. Patterson went on to Kentucky.
So Donovan got a pretty good idea of the whirlwind that surrounded Mayo. He decided to stop recruiting him when it became obvious Mayo would only play one year of college before heading off to the NBA.
"O.J. Mayo, in his situation, was a sad story in the fact that I know O.J. because of Patrick Patterson and him playing at the same high school," Donovan said on Tuesday. "And I saw a lot of the stuff that was going on around him, and to hear that he had to deal with that since he's been at the end of his ninth-grade year with people trying to position themselves around him is an unfortunate thing."
Donovan said he had no knowledge of money being involved, but heard a lot through the coaching grapevine about the tug of war going on around Mayo, who he called, "a good kid."
"You just hear different things, and I don't know all the people that were around O.J.," Donovan said. "But certainly in the rumor mill in college basketball . . . sometimes these guys can be targets a little bit. And I saw it with (Joakim) Noah, (Al) Horford and (Corey) Brewer, Mike Miller and guys like that, guys try to position themselves to represent somebody."
Noah, Horford and Brewer all returned after UF won the 2006 national title to repeat the following season. All ended up being high NBA draft picks as juniors. UF has had several other high draft picks in the past. So Donovan had his own problems with agents.
"There have been players here that have come to me and said, 'Coach this guy will not stop calling me and this guy will not leave me alone, will you make a phone call?' " Donovan said. "When they tell me to do that, that's generally when I pick up the phone and say, 'Listen, OK, you need to stop. The kid's coming to me . . . and I'd appreciate you stopping it."'
NBA agent rules do not apply to high school or college players. The NCAA has very strict rules about how college coaches can recruit high school players, limiting contact.
"There's no rules on the agents," Donovan said. "They can make contact, they can come around, they can live here in Gainesville, Florida. If they want to, they can talk to these kids any time they want. They can go meet with their families, They can do all these sorts of things, and I think there needs to be a situation where the (NBA) Players Association is looking to put some type of rules and regulations on when they can be contacted, how often they can be contacted to let these kids at least do what they need to do in getting better in school and in getting better as basketball players. And you know what? At the end of the day, if they are ready to go and play (in the NBA), they could play. But I think so many of these kids now are being targeted at a young age."
Donovan said the possible problems from the Mayo case are a perfect example.
"When those situations happen people are immediately looking to point fingers and cast blame," he said. "Who is at fault? Is USC at fault, is O.J. Mayo at fault, is the system at fault? I just think the system, in my opinion, could be a lot better and could protect college institutions and could protect the players a little bit better."
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I don't understand the NBA role in this that Donovan is asking for. If colleges won't control themselves, why is it the NBA's responsibility? Maybe Billy thinks that if schools have different levels of self discipline, the "kids" will stay away from the ones with ethics.
I have a few issues with this story. First off, Donovan just admitted that he was recruiting Mayo after he verbally committed to USC which while not a violation of any rule is a violation of the "gentleman's agreement" all coaches have that once a kid verbals you don't recruit him. Mayo verballed to SC when he was still playing at North College HIll in Ohio, he didn't become Patrick Patterson's teammate until the school year for his senior year started he actually attended NCH for one day before transferring to Huntington High for his senior year. Since Donovan said he recruited Patterson and got to know Mayo that way, it proves he was recruiting Mayo during his senior year if I understand this correctly? Florida did recruit Mayo that was well known, but it supposedly stopped well before Mayo committed to USC, Donovan is implying here that's not true.
My understanding is the NBAPA already has a rule against agents contacting kids and trying to induce them with gifts. OBviously the NBA could make the rule stronger by saying any agent caught doing that will lose his license to be an agent in the NBA, but I think the current rule is fairly strong.
Donovan knows all about agents his former player Mike Miller got caught dealing with agent Andy Miller who has been caught breaking the rule 3 times now. Mike Miller, Erick Barkley, and then he's the guy who signed Telfair when he was playing his senior year of HS, it's in the book The Jump the author literally saw it happen. Rather than beat around the bush Donovan should have just said look I had a player get caught up in this and get suspended. It's well known that the reason most schools didn't recruit Mayo was all the rumors Donovan talks about, everyone knew what happens to a kid who's on the take if he gets caught, he's suspended or ruled ineligible.
I agree agents have to be held accountable, but I get so tired of people saying this isn't Mayo's fault this isn't SC's fault this is the agents fault. It's the fault of all of them, if there weren't kids willing to play one agent against another for financial gain, this stuff wouldn't happen. Mayo got paid via Dwaine Barnes for years, then Guillory got involved and started paying Mayo and eventually convinced Mayo his deal was better so Mayo dropped Barnes.
This blurb is from a Cincy Enquirer reporters blog, it was written in February 2008, 3 months before Mayo got caught. Most of the stuff he's referencing happened during Mayo's junior year of HS. By then USC was well involved in his recruitment they knew the rumors they just chose to ignore them and hope they would never be proven true.
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Guillory, you might recall, has long been a Southern California-based confidant of Mayo's. He was often present at the D1 Greyhounds' hotel when they traveled the country as an AAU team and would introduce Mayo to celebrities and such. When Mayo was a junior, I tried to set up and interview with him and got a call back from Guillory (who up to that point, I had never met in person or via phone) who told me he was O.J.'s manager. That didn't go over well with Dwaine Barnes, Mayo's "guardian" who complained to me -- back when he still spoke to me -- a few times about Guillory's influence over Mayo because of the way Guillory seemed to lavish Mayo whenever Guillory was at the same tournament as the Greyhounds.
I'm a little suprised then that Guillory's presence in Mayo's life since Mayo became a big-time hoops star hasn't come under more scrutiny at USC. Guillory, as it is well known in hoops circles, is a former "runner." By that, I mean he cost former Fresno State player Tito Maddox eight games in 2000-01 because Guillory, who was indirectly representing the Las Vegas sports agency Franchise Sports, paid for Maddox' plane ticket to Las Vegas while he still played for Fresno. Maddox later estimated to receiving a total of about $30,000. Guillory was only directly implicated in the one plane ticket, but he was friends with the Franchise Sports crew.
Guillory stopped return my calls two summers ago when I started asking him what his interest in Mayo was. Mayo listed him at the time as "the most impressive person he'd ever met," in a progam for an international event in San Diego. Barnes said that was another power play of Guillory's, designed to make the shoe companies take notice that if they wanted access to Mayo, they'd have to go through Guillory first.
I'm not saying that Mayo did anything or accepted anything to compromise his collegiate eligibility. I don't know that for a fact. But I do know that the presence of Rodney Guillory -- who the Times reports is a regular around the USC locker room -- raises questions that someday the NCAA might want answered.
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That guy says for the last 2 years Barnes, Guillory and Mayo have refused to take his calls or do interviews ever since he wrote a story that said Guillory has replaced Barnes as the controlling power in Mayo's career. It's frankly amazing it took this long for someone to get mad and spill the beans, in this case Louis Johnson. Mayo's just lucky it wasn't Barnes.
1. The NBA's self-imposed rule created the one-and-done problem, exascerbating the underlying existing festering sore that many inner city kids, who are the best young basketball players, don't have the academic tools or motivation to succeed in college classes.
2. The "kids" (like Mayo) have been treated as being special since a young age and willingly work the system to their advantage. These spoiled punks feel entitled and are loyal to no one, taking no responsibilty nor blame when caught and show no remorse.
3. The coaches and colleges care nothing about the players and educating them. The kids are simply used by the agents, coaches and schools as rainmakers.
All are to blame and no meaningful reform is possible or likely. Those schools who wish to cheat will. Those who don't won't.
1. The NBA's self-imposed rule created the one-and-done problem, exascerbating the underlying existing festering sore that many inner city kids, who are the best young basketball players, don't have the academic tools or motivation to succeed in college classes.
2. The "kids" (like Mayo) have been treated as being special since a young age and willingly work the system to their advantage. These spoiled punks feel entitled and are loyal to no one, taking no responsibilty nor blame when caught and show no remorse.
3. The coaches and colleges care nothing about the players and educating them. The kids are simply used by the agents, coaches and schools as rainmakers.
All are to blame and no meaningful reform is possible or likely. Those schools who wish to cheat will. Those who don't won't.
Yes it's a systemic problem it's not Mayo or Guillory or SC it's the entire system.
When Mayo started taking cash there was no rule forcing him to go to college for a year, by the time he was a senior in HS, the rule was in place and he'd long since violated amateur status. The simple thing to do was go play overseas for a year but he didn't. If you go back and look you'll see story after story where a writer predicted Mayo would do just that it wasn't because they thought Mayo wanted to play overseas it's because everyone thought he wouldn't be allowed to play in college so he'd just skip the whole thing and go overseas.
Seriously when Bob Huggins says no I don't want to touch that kid you know there's truth to the allegations ESPN is making.
1. The NBA's self-imposed rule created the one-and-done problem, exascerbating the underlying existing festering sore that many inner city kids, who are the best young basketball players, don't have the academic tools or motivation to succeed in college classes.
2. The "kids" (like Mayo) have been treated as being special since a young age and willingly work the system to their advantage. These spoiled punks feel entitled and are loyal to no one, taking no responsibilty nor blame when caught and show no remorse.
3. The coaches and colleges care nothing about the players and educating them. The kids are simply used by the agents, coaches and schools as rainmakers.
All are to blame and no meaningful reform is possible or likely. Those schools who wish to cheat will. Those who don't won't.
Spot on. Imagine being a GM that will be dealing with these types. Not for me.
__________________
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The moment you think you got it figured...you're wrong." Mr. Rate
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