College coaches really need to do their background checks on recruits - exhibit A
Michigan
Posts: 4,942 ✭
in Sports Talk
Detroit Free Press:
Rich Rodriguez said Monday that he had no idea former Michigan football player Justin Feagin had dealt drugs in high school, as Feagin admitted to police in July. He also said he didn't know Feagin had been arrested twice in high school, as Feagin told police.
Rodriguez said "as soon as we found out" that Feagin had apparently brokered a cocaine deal in his first semester on campus, he dismissed him. "That instant," Rodriguez said.
I will take Rodriguez at his word. But other questions need to be asked, starting with this:
Should he have known?
Feagin was a late addition to Rodriguez's first recruiting class. There is a perception that coaches rushed to fill positions and didn't do their due diligence on every player, and that is how Feagin slipped through.
Rodriguez has not said that, and for good reason: It's isn't true.
The fact is Rodriguez had been recruiting Justin Feagin for several months. He did not just discover him in late January 2008 and sign him in early February.
Rodriguez and his quarterbacks coach, Rod Smith, originally wanted Feagin to join them at West Virginia. Willie Bueno, Feagin's high school coach, said Monday that Rodriguez and Smith had offered Feagin a scholarship to West Virginia. Bueno said the Mountaineers' staff recruited Feagin for several months.
Should Rodriguez have known about Feagin's transgressions? Well, Bueno said Monday that he didn't know. But frankly that raises questions about Bueno, and it shows the importance of relationships for college coaches. They have to really know the communities where they recruit, and they must be sure that coaches and administrators are informed and honest with them.
The fact that Rodriguez was recruiting Feagin to West Virginia is telling because Rodriguez took considerable heat for some of his recruiting choices in Morgantown. Most noteworthy: Rodriguez signed linebacker Pat Lazear to a letter of intent even though Lazear had been accused of orchestrating an armed robbery of a Smoothie King store.
"That was a situation that was cleared up before he left high school," Rodriguez said Monday.
Well, that depends on your definition of "cleared up." Lazear pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and received a 10-year suspended sentence for his part in the robbery. He also was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and 150 hours of community service. And in a previous incident, Lazear had been found guilty of using a stolen credit card.
I guess you could say his situation was "cleared up."
Now back to Feagin. His cohort in the coke deal, T.J. Burke, told police it was "common knowledge that Feagin sold marijuana." And Feagin said he had been in a fight in Studio 4 in Ann Arbor and that police were called.
Yet Rodriguez said that "there was no negatives until that recent thing" -- in other words, he never heard about trouble involving Feagin until July.
No coach knows everything. But it is part of the coach's job to know as much as he possibly can. And after the Lazear and Feagin incidents, people are going to ask questions.
Rodriguez said something else Monday that I found interesting:
"Trust me, no coach in America is going to want to take a guy that has baggage or that they think he is bad guy."
Sorry, but that is laughably untrue. If you have followed college sports at all, you know that plenty of coaches will take guys with baggage if they think it will help them win.
Rich Rodriguez says he isn't one of them. In time, we'll find out if that's true.
Rich Rodriguez said Monday that he had no idea former Michigan football player Justin Feagin had dealt drugs in high school, as Feagin admitted to police in July. He also said he didn't know Feagin had been arrested twice in high school, as Feagin told police.
Rodriguez said "as soon as we found out" that Feagin had apparently brokered a cocaine deal in his first semester on campus, he dismissed him. "That instant," Rodriguez said.
I will take Rodriguez at his word. But other questions need to be asked, starting with this:
Should he have known?
Feagin was a late addition to Rodriguez's first recruiting class. There is a perception that coaches rushed to fill positions and didn't do their due diligence on every player, and that is how Feagin slipped through.
Rodriguez has not said that, and for good reason: It's isn't true.
The fact is Rodriguez had been recruiting Justin Feagin for several months. He did not just discover him in late January 2008 and sign him in early February.
Rodriguez and his quarterbacks coach, Rod Smith, originally wanted Feagin to join them at West Virginia. Willie Bueno, Feagin's high school coach, said Monday that Rodriguez and Smith had offered Feagin a scholarship to West Virginia. Bueno said the Mountaineers' staff recruited Feagin for several months.
Should Rodriguez have known about Feagin's transgressions? Well, Bueno said Monday that he didn't know. But frankly that raises questions about Bueno, and it shows the importance of relationships for college coaches. They have to really know the communities where they recruit, and they must be sure that coaches and administrators are informed and honest with them.
The fact that Rodriguez was recruiting Feagin to West Virginia is telling because Rodriguez took considerable heat for some of his recruiting choices in Morgantown. Most noteworthy: Rodriguez signed linebacker Pat Lazear to a letter of intent even though Lazear had been accused of orchestrating an armed robbery of a Smoothie King store.
"That was a situation that was cleared up before he left high school," Rodriguez said Monday.
Well, that depends on your definition of "cleared up." Lazear pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and received a 10-year suspended sentence for his part in the robbery. He also was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and 150 hours of community service. And in a previous incident, Lazear had been found guilty of using a stolen credit card.
I guess you could say his situation was "cleared up."
Now back to Feagin. His cohort in the coke deal, T.J. Burke, told police it was "common knowledge that Feagin sold marijuana." And Feagin said he had been in a fight in Studio 4 in Ann Arbor and that police were called.
Yet Rodriguez said that "there was no negatives until that recent thing" -- in other words, he never heard about trouble involving Feagin until July.
No coach knows everything. But it is part of the coach's job to know as much as he possibly can. And after the Lazear and Feagin incidents, people are going to ask questions.
Rodriguez said something else Monday that I found interesting:
"Trust me, no coach in America is going to want to take a guy that has baggage or that they think he is bad guy."
Sorry, but that is laughably untrue. If you have followed college sports at all, you know that plenty of coaches will take guys with baggage if they think it will help them win.
Rich Rodriguez says he isn't one of them. In time, we'll find out if that's true.
0
Comments
What do we do we blame the NCAA when we should be blaming ourselves. We have forsaken integrity, responsibility, and common good just for the sake of arguing who has the better college team. We belittle these programs from all angles including appearance of the coach to lengths of times they have competed for top bowl games but turn a blind eye to the whoring of recruiting. Shows you where are values are when major programs can't even graduate 50% of their football players and maybe 20% of their BB players. Unfortunately for every Tim Tebow on the FL team there are a dozen lawbreakersor more who have been booted out of Gatorland, but we celebrate them as the model of what to do. There are dozens of other programs that reflect the same kind of twisted thinking.
Edited to add: Rich Rod is just another example of how universities have sold what they stood for to achieve a winning program. Sadly his kind is the wave of the future.
Coincidence? .... perish the thought
I don't know if that will involve playing time or not.
<< <i>The MSU coach says the player will have some conditions placed on him after returning,
I don't know if that will involve playing time or not. >>
The conditions are as long as he continues to earn the starting job, he wont be benched. LOL