my first post here, but thought this was an interesting New York Times article on the growth of youth basketball and recruiting which includes appearances from Tyus Battle, Tom Izzo, et al…
Nice first post!
i think this is the paragraph i found most interesting, especially as we debate/speculate about how Beilein recruits:
“I can get paid for a lot of things,” Gary said. “But Tyus Battle’s not one of them.” For those who do wish to be paid, the money could be significant. The largest figure I heard being offered in exchange for one top prospect spending a year in college was $125,000, paid by a combination of an athletic department’s boosters and a sneaker-company sponsor. The money is nearly impossible to trace: A recruit’s mother might receive a box in the mail filled with $250 American Express debit cards; a father accompanying his son to a Las Vegas tournament might find a stack of chips on his bed. “Most college coaches were also players, so it’s in their blood to be competitive, and unfortunately, sometimes they compromise their values and ethics,” Rick Evrard, a lawyer who has handled N.C.A.A. investigations for more than 20 years, told me. “This is not going to stop.”
Finally got around to reading the article… A lot to digest. Parts of it are definitely over-dramatized a bit, but an interesting take on grassroots hoops as it stands today.