NCAA Basketball is a Dirty Business

ESPN.com's Dana O'Neil wrote a fascinating article on what coaches like, dislike and think about recruiting in the NCAA. 20 coaches were interviewed under anonymity and gave brutally honest answers to some very tough questions. The complete article is here but I will highlight some important points:

• Coaches hate spending time at the summer high school basketball camps because it keeps them away from their own players and the campus. One coach was quoted as saying, "You walk into a living room and promise a mother that you'll be there for her son and as soon as they get to campus you're gone."


• The consensus thoughts on the NCAA rule book is that it is garbage and needs to be "thrown out" or completely revamped. There are too many rules, there is no way to enforce all of them and coaches sometimes don't even know if they are breaking any rules.


• Most of the coaches have little to no trust in their peers. They are paranoid when it comes to recruiting and strategy.


• Most coaches feel that the majority of Division 1 programs are not knowingly breaking any rules. Most rules are broken unknowingly and without malicious intent.


• The Big 10 is considered to be the cleanest league while the SEC and the Big East are tied as the dirtiest. One coach had this to say about the SEC, "Everyone says the SEC but that is because of the football thing."


• 12 of the 20 coaches have had players, parents or agents ask for things directly and all of them knows it happens. It seems that most ask for jobs. Remember when Rick Pitino gave a job to Marquis Teague's AAU coach? Yeah, stuff like that. One coach remarked, "It happened to me this morning. I had a guy hand me a resume, get him a job." Another coach added, "I almost cringe when I have a job opening. Here it comes. I used to get calls from other coaches. Now it's AAU coaches trying to place their guys."


• All coaches said that the biggest problem concerning the game is agents.


• 15 of 20 coaches feel the game is on the way to improvement.

Wow. What an eye opening read. College coaches are under a tremendous amount of pressure to win, recruit, keep grades up, produce graduates, keep the stands filled, and do it all clean. A college basketball coach has to be one of the top 5 most stressful jobs in America. This sheds some light on what John Calipari and Rick Pitino go through on a daily basis. And Rick Pitino also has a sex trial to worry about. No wonder his season was terrible and his recruiting suffered.