Interesting article regarding Bob Huggins and OJ Mayo

[Guest JJBrickface]

May 23, 2008 12:00 AM

Huggins kept K-State out of Mayo's mess

Ned Seaton nseaton@themercury.com

If it weren't for Bob Huggins' homework, Kansas State — rather than Southern Cal — could be in the middle of a major scandal involving O.J. Mayo, according to a K-State assistant coach.

 

Brad Underwood told the Konza Rotary Club this morning that Mayo was on the phone with Huggins, "begging to come here" around the time of national letter-of-intent signing day a year ago. Huggins told him no, Underwood said, because he thought Mayo would get in trouble because of money funneled to him and a friend prior to enrolling in college.

 

That's the center of the scandal now surrounding Mayo, who played one year as a guard at USC and is now headed to the NBA. The NCAA is investigating.

 

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Mayo, originally from Huntington, W.Va., was among the top recruits in the nation at the time. Huggins, also originally from West Virginia, had been recruiting him for years and appeared to have a good shot at bringing him to K-State. Publicly, Mayo said he chose USC over K-State.

 

But Underwood today indicated that Mayo was saying up to the last minute that he wanted to come to K-State to be with Huggins because of their long ties. Huggins, though, said, "We're not going to take you. You'll never pass," in reference to NCAA amateur clearinghouse rules.

 

"So it's no surprise that this is coming out now," Underwood said of the scandal. "We knew it."

 

The irony is that "nothing's going to happen to O.J. Mayo," Underwood said. "It's becoming Southern Cal's problem."

 

Underwood didn't blame USC; the phenomenon of money being funneled through agents to players in their youth is "impossible to control," he said.

 

But he did credit Huggins, who left K-State after one year to coach at West Virginia, with keeping the Wildcats out of the mess now enveloping USC. "It's a credit to Huggs that he did his due diligence."

 

Underwood, who just finished his first year as an assistant to Frank Martin after serving a year as Huggins' director of basketball operations here, had several other newsworthy updates:

 

 

http://www.themercury.com/k-statesports/article.aspx?articleId=4296e0c2f9ab4295a6efafc1060f98e2

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

A lot of coaches knew of Mayo's baggage and issues, why do you think none of the big dogs of college basketball seriously recruited him? There should be a huge red flag when a kid is as talented and good as Mayo and none of the top basketball schools seriously recruit the him...

[GetMoney55 11]

The only reason most schools knew of Mayo's less than excellent behavior was because he had been in the spotlight since he was 12 years old. Ever since Lebron James got out of high school, OJ had been considered the best player at the high school level, regardless of class, therefore attention and scrutiny came with it. Im sure if every other recruit had the eyes on him as OJ did, coaches would find out a lot more about their talented players.

 

Also, seeing as how Huggins is known for recruiting players with an extensive criminal record, I find it hard to believe that he denied the best player in the country to come to his university just because of some slight tarnishes to his record. Also, I find it hard to believe that OJ Mayo begged anyone for the chance to attend their school. OJ was offered by K-State early in his high school career and it was between them and USC when it all came down to it, ending in OJ going to USC's head coach personally and telling him that he would be attending Southern Cal. I highly, highly doubt that OJ called anyone and begged to play basketball there.

[stubbycurrence 10]

Huggins got to now Mayo well, when he was still at Cincy. Mayo played outside Cincy with Bill Walker who Huggins was recruiting and landed with him at K State, when he was declared ineligible his last year in high school. It was in the Cincinnati Enquirer that Mayo and Walker wanted to play together in College.

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

[ QUOTE ]

The only reason most schools knew of Mayo's less than excellent behavior was because he had been in the spotlight since he was 12 years old.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

The reason they were aware of his "baggage" was because it's their job to know. Recruits represent whatever university they choose to play for and nowadays universities have to do as much research into a kid’s background as they do his athletic talents. Many of the elite coaches do a thorough "background check" on potential recruits before they even consider recruiting them. If you're high school player being recruited to play a sport at any university then your background is going to be delved into by the schools and coaches recruiting you.

 

A prime example is current senior and 2008 Memphis freshman Tyreke Evans. Evans loved North Carolina growing up and stated many times in the past four years that he wanted to play at Carolina and only Carolina. Roy Williams recruited him as a freshman and sophomore. However, the kid began to get too many "handlers" around him, too many people trying to get their hand in the so-called pot. As such, Carolina stopped recruiting him. I'm not saying that Evans has done anything illegal, but during his final two years of high school he surrounded himself with some individuals whose motives were questionable.

[GetMoney55 11]

I understand that and I agree with what youre implying, but what I am saying is that if recruits were put under as big a spotlight as OJ was, you'd see a whole lot more recruits dropped from big time program's lists.

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

[ QUOTE ]

I understand that and I agree with what youre implying, but what I am saying is that if recruits were put under as big a spotlight as OJ was, you'd see a whole lot more recruits dropped from big time program's lists.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

Having followed recruiting as closely as I have for the past nine years I absolutely disagree. The point is EVERY recruit's background is thoroughly investigated by coaches before they recruit them, especially the big-time, elite prospects. Every recruit a school seriously pursues is under a spotlight from that school and its coach.

[Guest JJBrickface]

I wouldn't doubt that he begged. Like stubby said, he would have wanted to play with Bill Walker. Also her personally called USC as well.

[Guest BEAVERTAIL]

from an article I read recently, OJ told USC not to call him, he would call them when he wanted to. He also stopped giving out his phone number sometime during High School i believe...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/sports...amp;oref=slogin

[GetMoney55 11]

I see where youre coming from Rules and I agree with you. Now back to this idiot coach, I just cant believe what he is saying...especially the fact that it deals with Huggins claiming that he would deny the best player in high school because of a few slip ups. Like I said earlier, Huggins is known for recruiting players with extensive records of bad behavior, so why would a few minor problems make him order OJ Mayo to not attend KSU? Also, OJ is not the kind of player or person to beg. Any interview, write up, anything shows that OJ is the kind of person who likes to be in command and control of everything. To see this coach say that OJ was begging for Huggins approval to play at K-State makes me laugh.

[Guest JJBrickface]

[ QUOTE ]

I see where youre coming from Rules and I agree with you. Now back to this idiot coach, I just cant believe what he is saying...especially the fact that it deals with Huggins claiming that he would deny the best player in high school because of a few slip ups. Like I said earlier, Huggins is known for recruiting players with extensive records of bad behavior, so why would a few minor problems make him order OJ Mayo to not attend KSU? Also, OJ is not the kind of player or person to beg. Any interview, write up, anything shows that OJ is the kind of person who likes to be in command and control of everything. To see this coach say that OJ was begging for Huggins approval to play at K-State makes me laugh.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

Hmm well why would you recruit a player if you knew for sure that your team would be disciplined? Huggins isn't a stupid guy.

[GetMoney55 11]

Once more, Huggins is WELL KNOWN for recruiting players with behavioral problems. It hasnt stopped him before and didnt stop him from getting one inked his way last week. For this guy to claim that he denied OJ to come to K-State is absurd.

[Guest JJBrickface]

[ QUOTE ]

Once more, Huggins is WELL KNOWN for recruiting players with behavioral problems. It hasnt stopped him before and didnt stop him from getting one inked his way last week. For this guy to claim that he denied OJ to come to K-State is absurd.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

How do you know?

[GetMoney55 11]

Everyone knows. It shows in the players he recruits, their criminal records, their graduation rates, and their GPAs.

[Guest JJBrickface]

no how do YOU know that they didn't deny him? Are you an insider?

[Guest JJBrickface]

Another article to show that Huggins is a horrible man...

 

http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/stories/052708acb.html

 

By JOSH KATZOWITZ

 

 

Corie Blount didn't finish high school. After his senior year of basketball was complete, he had no desire to earn his high school degree. This June, though, Blount -- 15 years after playing his final game at UC -- will earn his college diploma.

 

It's been a long trip for Blount. Journeys in and around the Los Angeles gang scene, a three-year stay at Santa Ana (Calif.) College after earning his GED, a Final Four appearance at UC, 11 years in the NBA, and a three-month span coaching the Bearcats.

 

All of it adds up to a 39-year-old with a multitude of business ideas and goals. And pretty soon, a degree in criminal justice from the university he says changed his life.

"My wife graduated from the University of Cincinnati, and she was like, `You need to go back. You're going to tell your kids that they're going to have to go to school, and you speak at these camps and you're stressing education. You don't even have your degree,'" Blount said. "She had a point. I had a lot of people pushing on me.

 

"It really hit me when I started doing my basketball camps in my hometown when I was in the NBA. When I saw the kids getting in trouble, and you hear people saying you need to get your degree. But you don't really feel it until you look at the kids who are out there and how the community is going now. There's got to be a better way. Education is the key."

 

It seems that's the motto for Blount these days.

 

Aside from co-owning The Garage, a sports bar and grill in Cincinnati, and involving himself in a real estate venture in California, his next project is inspired by education.

 

Along with partner Ron Watson -- a friend of his since Blount's rookie year playing for the Chicago Bulls -- they are in the process of introducing a clothing line called "Had To," which celebrates graduating from the college you attend.

 

"I went and looked at all the clothing lines, and there's no clothing line geared toward graduates," Blount said. "Nothing says education. We came up with this concept. It's just to promote graduation. For those like me, who want to come back or have some kind of mission of getting it done, this is a chance to represent that. I plan on taking this to every Division I school, every D-II school, even high schools. I'm planning on trying to build a brand with this."

 

Blount cites brands like and1 and Under Armour, which are popular but don't have an underlying message to those who wear their clothes. He wants this brand to mean something -- to promote the idea of education and graduation.

 

For a guy who didn't complete high school, the last few years have been quite a paradigm shift. Even when he was playing in the NBA -- Blount suited up for a total of seven teams -- education wasn't in the forefront of his mind.

 

Although he only needed 23 credits to earn a degree at UC, he never thought hard about re-enrolling.

 

"It wasn't really something I always thought about, because I was living that NBA life at the time," said Blount, who, after his NBA career was complete, was hired as an interim assistant coach for the latter portion of the 2005-06 Bearcats season. "But it hit me once I got finished and I got a chance to coach with those kids that year. With my influence, I thought it was something I could achieve. I knew in order for me to do it right, I'd have to go back and get my degree. My wife was on me; coach (Bob Huggins) has always been on me. They stayed on me, so I just said, `You know what? I'm not going to do anything else but go to school.' And I did it."

 

And once he finished his report on the impact of the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Ohio for his state history class, the last one of his collegiate academic career, Blount hardly could contain himself.

 

"I never cried before in my life -- not when I won a state championship, when I got married, when I got drafted," Blount said. "I'm just not that type. But this meant so much -- because of the importance of it -- that I just broke down."

 

The next step for Blount, aside from the Had To clothing line he's excited about, is finding a way into college coaching.

 

Earning a degree, then, was vital to taking that first step.

 

Already, Blount has begun immersing himself in the college coaching culture. During the weekend of the Final Four, he traveled to San Antonio to visit perhaps the biggest basketball coaching job fair of the year. He met up with Huggins, former UC and current Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, Kansas State coach Frank Martin and current Bearcats coach Mick Cronin.

 

A bachelor's degree only will help.

 

"Here's a guy who was 11 years in the NBA and came back and finishes his degree, and it is never going to show up on a statistic," Huggins said last month. "But we know, and I think that's what's important. He wants to coach. He will be able to go on and coach."

 

Blount says he knows where he wants to begin his coaching career -- and he doesn't want to move away from his adopted city to do it.

 

"I really want to get back here -- this is my city as far as basketball," Blount said. "I wouldn't rather coach anywhere else. I don't want to work anywhere else. If I had an option, I'd rather it be at the university. I owe everything I have to basketball, and I also owe it to the University of Cincinnati. It gave me a chance to display my talents, so I could make it to the NBA. I owe my gratitude to the university."

 

He says this while sitting in his sports bar and sporting a West Virginia sweatsuit. He loves his university but he also loves the man who coached him there. So, if Huggins is coaching at West Virginia, Blount will honor him by wearing Mountaineers gear.

 

Still, he doesn't find it difficult to maintain a balance between his love of UC and his love of Huggins.

 

"It's not hard for me," Blount said. "My head is with Huggs, but my heart is with UC. I owe everything to UC, but I came because of Huggs."

 

In fact, Blount says, he was lucky to escape his hometown of Monrovia, Calif., near Los Angeles. He and his siblings were raised by their great grandmother -- Blount's mother sporadically remained in his life then, and he still keeps in contact with her today -- but he had to live in a part of the city in which gang activity could swallow you alive and leave you for dead.

 

"I was involved with it," said Blount, whose neighborhood was affiliated with the Crips. "But I was blessed, that's all I can say. When it was time to make a decision to do something, sometimes I got out of it by the hair of my chin. Sometimes I was able to avoid a lot of it. I've been shot at. I did some of the stuff everybody else did. It just hit me. When I had the opportunity to go to school, there was no looking back for me."

 

Blount did that by playing at Santa Ana College and UC before the Bulls drafted him in the first round of the 1993 NBA Draft.

 

Now, Blount wants to give back by imparting his knowledge on college players who need his help. He realized how much he enjoyed that process in 2005-06. Even if he wasn't quite sure that he wanted to take the job.

 

"At first, I didn't want to do it," Blount said. "You know, I'm a Huggs guy and I was upset like everybody else. But he told me, `Corie, I want you to do this for me. I want you to do it for my kids and my guys who are still there. I know you can still help them.' And he said if you want to get into coaching, this will let you know if you want do it."

 

So, Blount sat down with Kennedy, the interim coach that season, and Kennedy told him how much he could fit in and how much the players on the squad would respect him. Blount remembers attending the Memphis game -- a contest the Bearcats lost 91-81 -- and ultimately decided to take over the coaching spot vacated by Keith LeGree.

 

"After the game, I said that I didn't see a bad team," Blount said. "I just saw a team that wasn't together yet. I talked to A.K. The next day, I saw all the old players and said I wanted them to come talk to these kids. I called Anthony Buford, Terry Nelson, Tarrance Gibson, and we told them what it meant to be a Bearcat. It hit hard with them. I guess, coming from us, it made a difference."

 

Now, Blount is back to where he was 15 years ago. Except he's older, has five kids and has banked a little more money. But he's also about to receive his college degree. He'll be the first in his family to earn that distinction.

 

"It speaks a lot about Corie's character and what he's all about as a person," said Cronin, who counts Blount as a close friend. "Just to put a backpack on and walk around campus as a retired 11-year NBA player and set an example -- not only for his own children but for our players, who he has spoken to about academics. Quite frankly, he's conveyed to them that he wishes he would have finished when he was at Cincinnati the first time. It speaks a lot to the depth of his character. He's just a great role model."

[Guest BEAVERTAIL]

Im on the fence with Huggins... he has some good and bad points, both sides have valid arguments,that could be disputed,but i guess only time will tell...

[Pirate1 10]

While I'm not a fan of Huggins recruiting tactics in general, there is a difference between bringing in a guy with a low GPA, or a criminal record. And a guy like OJ whose baggage is going to get you in trouble with the NCAA.

 

My take on it is that if OJ had just had grade problems, or a bit of a criminal background, Huggs would've taken him in a heartbeat. But since the baggage that OJ was carrying had the potential for big NCAA violations, that's why he didn't want him.

[GetMoney55 11]

Dear JJ, pardon for me for not bowing down and kissing the feet of someone associated with WVU. I know it's what truly pleases you, and it's the only thing that you can agree with, so I will make an effort to never present facts again that support a fault with WVU or its associates. Granted Huggins does have a history of recruiting faulty players, and granted I just said that I "highly doubt" and never assured of anything or said that I knew of this for fact that OJ hadnt begged, however, you apparently wanted people to praise Bob Huggins for a hardly believable story.

 

Please forgive me,

Young Mula

[Guest JJBrickface]

[ QUOTE ]

Dear JJ, pardon for me for not bowing down and kissing the feet of someone associated with WVU. I know it's what truly pleases you, and it's the only thing that you can agree with, so I will make an effort to never present facts again that support a fault with WVU or its associates. Granted Huggins does have a history of recruiting faulty players, and granted I just said that I "highly doubt" and never assured of anything or said that I knew of this for fact that OJ hadnt begged, however, you apparently wanted people to praise Bob Huggins for a hardly believable story.

 

Please forgive me,

Young Mula

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

I don't get it...

[alltheway 10]

If you have coached kids before....please stand up! As early as middle school? If you have ever worked with kids, you know it's a huge challeng. Sometimes sports is their only outlet for lots of things. You would know that you cannot control their prior lives, but you can control thier future in some aspect. You would also learn to appreciate what this man has done for many men who had little hope or futures without basketball and Bob Huggins. Go ahead and knock him. I am sure we can find tons of things wrong with a lot of coaches. Sure Huggins doesn't have a high grad rate. I really think that has to do with the number of kids he has recruited that has tons of talent yet little guidance growing up. How do you tell a kid who grew up dodging bullets and had nothing to not go pro when the chance is there? I grew up and didn't need things and I would go for the money if it was there. Most people would. If anything, Huggins has taken people that would have been gang members or someone who would have been a boil on the ass of society and made them into men. People who will work for a living. People who appreciate what has been given to them. People who give back to their communities. Maybe these kids have questionable characters coming in, but the question is, do they change while being around Huggs? It seems that is the case. If so, then he is doing his job there and doing a hell of a job doing it.