flyingswoosh Wrote:

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:It makes a huge difference when in said commercial you're pretending to be an angel sent from high for all misguided youths in basketball.

To use a southern phrase...

Seeing Coach K preach his set of high moral values makes my *** want to suck a lemon.

:mad: i'm not talking about how he's acting. will you keep to the argument here? everyone here is pissed off because this is "an unfair recruiting tool for Duke." what i'm trying to say is, your team's coach (whichever team that may be) would do the same thing in K's position.

BTW, in the commercial he is acting like he does in real life (off the court). i take it you haven't met him?

I never said that. My argument is one of him being two faced... the pope on camera, Satan in a more intimate environment, or when a call doesn't go his way, or when a non-starter makes a mistake.

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:Satan in a more intimate environment, or when a call doesn't go his way, or when a non-starter makes a mistake.

I'd like you to find one Duke graduate who played under Coach K who doesn't believe he helped them prepare for life out of college. Or find refs who don't respect him, or even another coach.

The only people who disapprove of K are fans who's teams have been beaten by him, and can't find anything wrong with his program (academic, recruiting violations, etc), so they have to attack his character because he gets active in the games and does what a coach is suppose to do.

T-Monay820 Wrote:The only people who disapprove of K are fans who's teams have been beaten by him, and can't find anything wrong with his program (academic, recruiting violations, etc), so they have to attack his character because he gets active in the games and does what a coach is suppose to do.

You go boy.

Quote:and can't find anything wrong with his program (academic, recruiting violations, etc),

Man, I dont have enough time right now but lets just go with Myron and rape. :roflol: , Chrissy not being yanked from a game when he stomps on a kids chest, Jj smoking pot.................take off the dark blue shades please. You ought to check out the Poop sheet where they talk to a number of refs who have left the ACC. Their biggest complaint is how K is allowed to constantly break the rules in his behavior. This is IN PRINT WITH QUOTES FROM REFS WHO HAVE LEFT THE ACC!!

SWEET RIDE

The NCAA prohibits colleges athletes from using their status to gain 'extra benefits' -- such as the use of a car or jobs for family members -- but it's not always easy to determine what the rules allow

Thursday April 03, 2003

By Josh Peter
Staff writer


When he's driving the black 2000 Nissan Altima across campus, Duke point guard Chris Duhon is easy to spot. A dead giveaway is the personalized license plate: C DOO 21.

Duhon wears jersey No. 21, and he directs Duke's offense with the same steadiness he showed at Salmen High School in Slidell, but the car might surprise the people from his hometown. After all, in high school Duhon didn't have a car, and had to hitch rides with friends or borrow his mother's 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, a former Salmen teammate said.

But things have changed since 2000, when Duhon enrolled at Duke and his mother, Vivian Harper, moved to Durham, N.C., to be close to her oldest son. Harper, who got a job at a company run by a Duke basketball supporter, now owns a 1993 Jeep Cherokee. She also owns the Altima, according to North Carolina motor vehicle records.

More conspicuous than Duhon's Altima is the black 1998 Mercedes SUV with gray trim being driven by Brandon Bass, a high school All-American from Baton Rouge who has committed to play basketball at LSU. Then there's the white 2002 Cadillac Escalade being driven by Anthony Johnson, a senior guard at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

While the recent academic scandals at Georgia, Fresno State and St. Bonaventure constitute alleged NCAA rules violations, less clear are examples such as those involving Duhon, Bass and Johnson. NCAA rules prohibit college athletes from using their athletic status or future earning potential to receive 'extra benefits,' defined by NCAA rules as 'any special arrangement by an institutional employee or a representative of the institution's athletics interests to provide a student-athlete or the student-athlete's relative or friend a benefit not expressly authorized by the NCAA legislation.'

A three-month investigation by The Times-Picayune found:

-- Duhon's mother, Vivian Harper, landed a job working for a Duke booster; co-workers say the job opening was never posted and that Harper was overpaid and lacked qualifications. When a manager at the company asked why Harper was moving from Louisiana, supervisors informed him that her son, one of the nation's top recruits, had signed to play at Duke.

......

Mom in charge

There was no room for advisers in the recruitment of Chris Duhon. From the start, it was clear who was in charge -- his mother.

Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and the dozens of other college coaches recruiting Duhon had to go through Vivian Harper. At the time, she and her two sons were living in a modest house in Slidell. It was a house Harper nearly lost in June 1999, according to court documents.

Trustmark National Bank filed court papers to seize the house after Harper allegedly failed to make mortgage payments for more than six months. Foreclosure never took place. Though court documents offer no details as to how the situation was resolved, Harper remained the owner. Privacy laws prohibit Trustmark from disclosing information about the matter, said Rob Armour, the bank's assistant marketing director.

At the time, family friends said, Harper was running a child-care business out of the home. It was a home Duhon was prepared to leave, but not without his mother.

In September 1999, during a team barbecue in Krzyzewski's back yard held during Duhon's official visit to Duke, Duhon committed to the Blue Devils. He also asked his mother to join him.

The next summer, Harper rented out her house in Slidell and headed for a two-bedroom apartment in Durham, N.C. There she found a job at NCM Capital Management Group, a billion-dollar money management firm owned by Maceo Sloan, who displays in his office the basketball he received as a gift from Duke's 1991 national championship team.

How Harper learned of the NCM job is unclear, because the full-time position she got in its operations department was never posted, according to several former employees. No details were available from Harper, who initially offered to provide her resume to prove her qualifications for the position. When contacted later, she said, 'I'm not interested in talking to you.' Attempts to reach Duhon were unsuccessful.

Robert Sinclair, former manager of operations at the NCM, said Harper was the only candidate for the position. He also said when his supervisors gave him Harper's resume and he questioned her move from Louisiana to Durham, his supervisors explained, 'Her son is going to play at Duke.'

Sinclair said he recalls Harper having some banking experience, but lacking a Series 7 General Securities license, which allows agents to sell stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles.

Sinclair stressed that Harper quickly learned all facets of the accounting job and 'earned her keep,' but also said, 'the (hiring) process may not have been the ideal process for everyone involved.'

Regarding Harper's hire, Sinclair said, 'I don't know if anybody pulled strings. How she got wind of the position? For that you're going to have to go higher.'

Sinclair said he got Harper's resume from two supervisors: Ben Blakney, then the company chief operating officer and president, and Debra Lane, who was Sinclair's immediate supervisor. Blakney, no longer with the company, declined comment. Lane, also no longer with the company, said Harper was 'more than qualified to do any job,' but refused further comment.

Justin Beckett, a former Duke football player who represented former Duke basketball stars Christian Laettner and Brian Davis when the players turned pro, was the company's No. 2 executive when Harper was hired. Beckett did not return several phone messages.

Sloan, NCM's multimillionaire owner and past member of the board of directors of Duke's Center for International Studies, did not return phone messages left with his secretary.

Sinclair and two other former employees said Harper started at a higher salary than other account specialists and got a significant raise in her first few months on the job. Sinclair declined to provide details, other than to say, 'She didn't make entry level.'

Kaye Wrenn, a former employee who filed a sexual harassment complaint when she left the company in 2001, claims she saw documents showing Harper got a raise of $10,000 to $14,000 within four months of Harper's arrival that increased her salary to at least $42,000. Wrenn and other former employees said entry-level salary for account specialists was about $28,000 a year.

Cindy Mandel, the company's payroll and benefits administrator when Harper arrived but who no longer is with the company, said, 'I know she was making more than me, and I was making $35,000.'

Some time after joining NCM, Harper upgraded the family transportation. Told about the Jeep Cherokee and Nissan Altima, Wrenn said, 'Moving up in the world, huh?'

But Sinclair said he can't understand why anyone would question the arrangement, which he said happens all the time. He offered another example in former Duke star Carlos Boozer, whose family moved from Alaska to Durham after Boozer's freshman year in 2000.

Three months after moving to Durham, according to Boozer's wife, Renee, Carlos Boozer Sr. was jobless. He finally found one at GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical company then run by Robert Ingram, a close friend of Krzyzewski.

'And I'm proud of it,' Ingram said of his friendship with Duke's coach.

Boozer approached Ingram at a Duke game and asked if he knew of any job openings at GlaxoSmithKline, according to Ingram.

'Bob is a great friend of mine,' Boozer Sr. said. 'We still talk and get along well. . . . Bob loves Duke.'

But Ingram said he simply gave Boozer contact information for the company's human resources department and had no influence on Boozer getting a job in the research and development division.

'I shouldn't do that,' Ingram said, adding that he never discussed the matter with Krzyzewski.

Boozer initially said he worked as a programmer and made $125,000 per year. But when told former co-workers said he was an administrative assistant, Boozer recanted, saying he earned about $40,000 annually doing administrative work. He said he lost the job because the company merged and his division was moved to Philadelphia. His departure came about six months after Carlos Boozer Jr. left Duke for the NBA. In addition, Ingram had retired as GlaxoSmithKline's CEO and president of U.S. operations.

'Duke had nothing to do with me getting that job,' said Boozer, who works as a car salesman at Michael Jordan Nissan in Durham.

Ingram said Boozer was a 'valued employee. We shouldn't discriminate whether it has to do with race, gender or if someone has a son playing basketball at Duke.'

Krzyzewski on Tuesday left town for a week and was likely unavailable for comment, said John Jackson, Duke's sports information director. He referred questions to Chris Kennedy, Duke's senior associate athletics director in charge of compliance with NCAA rules.

'Of Duke parents, Vivian (Harper) has been the most diligent about checking every little thing with me,' Kennedy said of Duhon's mother. 'She's very, very nervous about NCAA violations.'

Though Kennedy said he thinks Harper and Boozer obtained jobs while complying with NCAA rules, he also said Duke and other schools remain vulnerable to the actions of boosters.

'The same way you're vulnerable with agents,' he said. 'It's impossible to know everything that's going on out there.'

Kennedy acknowledged that Harper and Boozer obtaining jobs in Durham from boosters could create perception problems. But he added, 'If Vivian had come in with a list of companies she was interested in working for, the odds are in this area a high percentage of them are going to be associated with Duke people. . . . I didn't think I could tell Vivian, 'You can't apply for jobs with these companies because Duke people are in charge.' As long as she does the work and she gets paid pretty much what she's supposed to get paid for that job, I don't have a problem with that.'

<a href='http://cbs.sportsline.com/b/page/pressbox/0,1328,5384713,00.html' target='_blank'>Of course then you have the Myron Piggey deal.......ask the head cheer sheet folks about him. </a>

By Bob Ryan, Globe Staff, 4/6/2003

EW ORLEANS -- The Thursday morning New Orleans Times-Picayune provided us with a juicy and sobering reminder that beneath the pomp and ceremony of the NCAA men's Final Four there is a sausage factory of deceit, hypocrisy, and Lord knows what else. Big-time college basketball is not always a pretty enterprise.



The embarrassed coach wasn't one of the known rogues. We would not have been surprised if Coach X or Coach Y had been caught with hand in cookie jar. But when the alleged culprit is Mike Krzyzewski, eyebrows are raised.

According to the Times-Picayune's Josh Peter, in the summer of 2000 Vivian Harper, mother of Duke incoming freshman point guard Chris Duhon, moved from her home in Slidell, La., to a two-bedroom apartment in Durham, N.C. She was given a job at a firm called NCM Capital Management Company, a billion-dollar money management firm owned by a man named Maceo Sloan, among whose possessions is an autographed basketball signed by the 1991 Duke championship team, Coach K's first title squad. Workers at the firm say the job was never posted. They also allege that Walker was given a substantial raise within four months.

There's more. Peters also reports that Carlos Boozer Sr., the then-unemployed father of former Duke star Carlos Boozer, was given a job at GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical company owned by Robert Ingram, who is a close friend of Coach K's. In order to take the job, the elder Boozer relocated from Alaska.

Coach K? Say it isn't so!

But this is not the first time Coach K's image has taken a little beating. He made a very big mistake in recruiting Corey Maggette, who played his AAU ball for the infamous (and aptly named) Myron Piggie in Kansas City. Maggette bolted for the NBA after his freshman year, but not before admitting he had accepted the kind of favors from Mr. Piggie that would have rendered him ineligible to play college ball in the first place. Coach K was contrite at the time, saying he had learned his lesson and would never mess around with that kind of kid again. So now he, or someone representing Duke's basketball interests, appears to be in the parental-job-placement business.

Duke always wants you to think it takes the highest road possible. Remember when Coach K refused to hang an early championship banner in Cameron because Phil Henderson and Alaa Abdelnaby had left school without degrees? Seems like a long time ago.

The rule of thumb is that you don't want to know how these teams got here. Hey, for all I know, Kansas, Marquette, Syracuse, and Texas are squeaky-clean. If so, great. But once this competition is concluded, don't throw away your ticket. There is always a chance the stewards may wind up conducting an inquiry.

We in New England know how it works, don't we? Officially, the 1996 run to the Final Four by the University of Massachusetts never happened. Marcus Camby was dirty, having accepted money and gifts from a prospective agent. The NCAA Men's Final Four Tournament Records book lists UMass as having ''vacated'' its participation.

This is not exactly an uncommon occurrence. Since 1961, when third-place St. Joseph's was so listed in the aftermath of a point-shaving scandal (those being the days of a consolation game, this particular one being the Hawks' epic 127-120 four-overtime conquest of Utah), 50 teams have been declared to have ''vacated'' their participation in a given NCAA tournament. The most recent naughty lads were Arizona and UCLA in 1999.

Maintaining a high-level basketball program is very difficult, but it is somewhat easier if you are willing to scale down your academic and ethical standards. The biggest problem nowadays is that the athletes in the recruiting pool have a completely different background from the athletes of yore. The basic world view of the average player is a bit more sophisticated than the outlook belonging to his father or grandfather.

Recruiting at the highest level was never easy, but now it is exponentially worse. For one thing, it is endless. There used to be such a thing as quiet recruiting years. If, for example, a coach had very good junior and sophomore classes, he could kind of take a year off and simply concentrate on seeing what's out there among high school juniors or even sophomores. But since almost every top-flight college player leaves after either his freshman or sophomore year, a coach must constantly restock.

Coach K was the last major coaching notable to have early defections, but once the epidemic spread to Duke, it hit in a major way. Twice in the last four years, he lost three players to the pros. At least two of these decisions were utterly foolish. Neither William Avery nor Mike Dunleavy had any reason to rush out. Dunleavy's departure was particularly perplexing since he doesn't need the money. It is safe to say that his father, Mike Sr., has millions (plural) in the bank.

The world has changed, and Mike Krzyzewski has been forced to react by lowering his standards. Every kid Krzyzewski goes after now is just one more spoiled AAU pup with a ridiculous entitlement mentality. He'll never see another Grant Hill or Shane Battier if he lives to be 500. But Coach K likes to win, and so does his Duke constituency. He's not Tom Brennan up there in Burlington, Vt., happy with his lifestyle and able to sleep well at night with a 17-year graduation rate of 95 percent, just praying for an occasional trip to the tournament. The demands are a little different at Duke.

A lot goes into assembling teams such as Kansas, Marquette, Syracuse, and Texas. I will take the liberty of speaking for you, if, like me, you have the operating philosphy that what we don't know can't hurt us.

But no matter what transpires here, don't forget that one or more of these four eventually having its participation ''vacated'' is a sadly real possibility.

This story ran on page D10 of the Boston Globe on 4/6/2003.

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January 30, 2002
Upon further review: Winning should not always come first
by Paul Doran

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Paul Doran
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I heard about the Shelden Williams incident late the other night, and the next morning, at the advice of a few people, I looked to see what contributors to the message board on the Duke Basketball Report were saying.
The first post I found was simply "relevant excerpts" from The Oklahoman story.

However, the second message, posted under the name "ervim" reads as follows: "Assuming this is true, that might have a huge impact on next year.... We will not have a big bruiser type on the team."

For those of you not familiar with the DBR, stop reading now--finding out about this crazed website where Duke fans can idolize their team, whine on the message board and bash UNC 24 hours a day seven days a week, will only corrupt your mind.

Quick aside: If you can't tell from my last paragraph, I normally try to stay as far away from the DBR as George W. Bush does from being President. I only look at it to see if they're bashing one of my columns (you've got plenty of time guys, I won't be up until noon today), discussing an issue or finding a link about a new story I haven't seen.

But alas, I digress. The main point is this: I'm not a big DBR fan, usually I'm pretty apathetic towards it, but this time, the fans on the beloved Duke Basketball Report rubbed me the wrong way.

You see, my first reaction when I heard about this Shelden Williams thing was something along the lines of "that poor girl" or "Oh my God, I can't believe what those @$!* did," not a "we might not have a "big bruiser type next year."

My initial reaction is, of course, wrong as well. As the son of a lawyer, I should have remembered Williams has yet to be charged and even if he is, he's innocent until proven guilty.

As a matter of fact, I'm a strong advocate of still admitting Williams into Duke unless he is convicted. No one should ever be denied something because they were named or charged. That logic is McCarthy-esque.

However, as many legal problems as my logic has, thinking only of Duke basketball, even in the face of rape, is absurd.

To my extreme satisfaction, the voice of reason appeared and the next two posts echoed my point. One even went as far to say that, "If it is true, then I feel sorry for the young woman and hope the perpetrators rot in hell."

That is the right reaction.

As quickly as reason appeared it was gone, and by the end of the posts, people were simply debating whether a buffed-up Mike Dunleavy or Michael Thompson would be able to fill the void Williams' absence might leave.

Granted it was far less because there was no crime involved, but this same type of logic is the one that pervaded when the media found out Sean Dockery did not yet have the grades to play in college, but had been offered a scholarship to a school that continually ranks in the top 10 in the country academically.

I know that not all players are like Dockery. As a matter of fact, most, I think, aren't. Jason Williams had a 3.5 grade point average last semester. But coach Mike Krzyzewski has become such a god in the college basketball world that he could get pretty much any player he wants. I know this too.

Despite that fact, with the case of Dockery it became quite clear to me through DBR posts and The Chronicle's letter to the editors that we were far more concerned about winning college basketball games than maintaining academic integrity.

The general feeling is that we would like 1,500 smart students with 12 great basketball players to win their games for them.

If that's true, fine, I don't agree, but so be it. Let's just stop masking it in this "great mix of academics and athletics" malarkey that schools use as one of their selling points.

This is not the way this fourth generation Dukie grew up viewing his favorite team, nor is it the thing about which Dick Vitale continually boasts every chance he gets.

But, it seems like the fans and possibly the administration, at least in one incident, have come to view the basketball team not as the scholar-athlete program admitting only students that could handle the pressures of a top-ranked academic school, but rather a win-at-all-costs team.

If Williams is exonerated and Dockery gets the grades--then what? Well, good for them, I don't think our recruits should even be mixed up in stuff like this, but, hey, maybe it was all coincidental and a big misunderstanding--I definitely make no promises of eating crow.

However, the populace's reaction is still the problem. The underlying theme in all this is that college basketball, as great of a sport as it may be, is not the be all end all of Duke's existence and never should be.

The game is fun and the players that play the game enjoy it, but when someone or something is violated by an athlete, the first concern should not be for the team--it should be for the victim. College basketball is just that, a game, and there are more important things, like forced sexual conduct that transcend the game.

If not, then it may be time for a priority check.


Paul Doran is a Trinity junior and sports managing editor of The Chronicle.

Quote:I'd like you to find one Duke graduate who played under Coach K who doesn't believe he helped them prepare for life out of college. Or find refs who don't respect him, or even another coach.

How about the Averys, Burgess's and the Randolphs?

I'm sorry, but guys are going to eat your words when Roy does his "priceless" Mastercard commercial...

You know it's coming...

News flash, every university does things like that to get around the restrictions. they give jobs to family members, they let the players lease cars for like a dollar a day, they give them jobs to make sure there's no seaweed growing on the sidewalks. to single coach K out, for doing those things, is ridculous.

Horse crap. If you read Dean's book you will see he was approached many times to do commercials. His response was that they did not approach any Professors to do commercials so he felt he should not be approached just because he was a basketball coach. If K had just come on and said he used AMEX whenever he bought cheese I would have no problem with it. What he did was promote his program, plain and simple. Dont give me that bs that he did not write it. If you believe he had no imput as to the content you are more naive that I ever could have imagined. Duke university basketball was promoted. I DO have a problem with that.

jrhessey Wrote:I'm sorry, but guys are going to eat your words when Roy does his "priceless" Mastercard commercial...

You know it's coming...

I doubt Roy will be on TV pimping anything. Just look at how he handled being approached by the Lakers. Did he make a big dog and pony show of it? Hell no. Cant say that about K. Ethical standards my ***. :laugh:

K didn't make a show of the whole Lakers thing. that was the media. he just stated a deadline for his decision, and announced said decision when the deadline was up.

If you would like to believe that, be my guest. K does nothing without a great deal of thought as to how it will be perceived. Look at his hair. :laugh:

The point is that NO coach should be doing product advertising. It gives the coaches whose ads are nationally televised an advantage over those coaches (for example from the smaller schools who don't have huge shoe contracts etc) due to pure face time & name recognition. If the college sport is supposed to be amateur, then even the coaches should have to refrain from receiving benefits due to their position. If the athletes themselves can't get paid, the coaches should not be able to feed off the success of the athletes they coach.

A truly ethical person would have said "thanks, but no thanks" when AMEX and the rest came calling. Or said if I do a commercial then my fellow coaches at the other 300+ Division I-A schools must also each do one & you must agree to give them all equal time.

rickheel Wrote:

Quote:I'd like you to find one Duke graduate who played under Coach K who doesn't believe he helped them prepare for life out of college. Or find refs who don't respect him, or even another coach.

How about the Averys, Burgess's and the Randolphs?

Read.

I'm with GTS. How can you act like a great guy thats helping people one time, then get a Technical foul because he threw in 5,000,000 F-bombs in one sentence while trying to argue a good call against his team?

That's two-faced in my book. I have a problem with that. I would rather him be like Bob Knight and be the same person, and not be a fake.