Prep School Problems

[Wolf]

NCAA needs to get handle -- quickly -- on proliferating preps
Oct. 2, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

Troubling stories about prep schools are circulating among college coaches. Some prep "schools" are little more than one room, one teacher (who happens to be the coach) and 10 or 12 players who sleep on a floor. Some schools have made deplorable coaching hires. And other schools -- too many schools -- are known as grade factories where players get eligible whether they deserve it or not.

Every year brings another handful of prep schools, and another handful of troubling stories. Scary stories. But for the shadiest prep schools -- and you know who you are -- here's something even scarier: The NCAA has multiple eyes on you.

"NCAA legislative and policy oversight groups are examining the situation," NCAA spokeswoman Jennifer Kearns told CBS SportsLine.com, referring to the growing number of prep schools. "But no determination has yet been made."

Coaches of reputable prep schools can't wait.

"I wish the NCAA would hurry up," says Winchendon (Mass.) School's Mike Byrnes. "Kids at our place are busting their humps to get a B-minus. In other places, you've got guys who were flunking out of their old high school getting A's in seven classes. All these prep schools are popping up, and some of them are just giving grades away."

Some of them. Not all of them. Which of them? That's a question for the NCAA to address, and for coaches in the New England Prep School Advisory Council, it's a question the NCAA can't address quickly enough.

The NEPSAC is a confederation of almost 160 schools. Along with a handful of other respected preps -- the Virginian military academies come to mind -- the NEPSAC has the most to lose if the NCAA swipes at prep schools with an indiscriminate brush.

Byrnes has heard the NCAA is considering removing prep schools from the GPA equation. Under that scenario, a player academically ineligible for Division I competition out of high school could attend prep school to work on his SAT score. But for a student needing to raise his GPA through more core classes, it would be junior college or bust.

"I hope the NCAA doesn't take all prep schools and say (we) don't count anymore," says New Hampton (N.H.) School coach Jamie Arsenault. "I (hope) they don't overreact and go to the extreme, because it's these fly-by-nighters the NCAA has to look at. There's a huge difference between (them and) traditional prep schools. What the NCAA needs to do is look at prep schools and say which ones are legitimate, and which ones aren't."

But which are which? A two-week investigation by CBS SportsLine.com tried to answer that question -- and failed miserably. Federal privacy laws protect rogue schools from having to reveal how their weakest students lift their GPA to meet NCAA-approved standards.

The typical scenario is this: A high school player with poor grades reaches his junior or senior year and realizes two things: He's good enough to earn a college scholarship but hopelessly below NCAA qualifying standards. He withdraws from high school and materializes at a prep school, where he loads up on core courses to lift his GPA. Sometimes he earns his college eligibility. And sometimes, college coaches say, his eligibility is given to him like a free lunch.

"The pressure to get these kids eligible -- and I mean the pressure from colleges -- can be unbearable on schools," says Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy coach Fletcher Arritt. "That's where a (prep) school, especially a new school that probably had no idea how difficult the academic part was going to be, is tempted to cut corners. If your players don't get eligible, it's hard to get more (players) in the future."

There's no bigger student-athlete advocate than Alabama attorney Donald Jackson, who fought the NCAA for the eligibility of Mike Williams, Marvin Stone and Mario Austin. But Jackson says he'd have a hard time representing players from certain prep schools.

"Some of these schools, I question their mission," Jackson says. "You've got schools getting famous for basketball -- they're winning 40 games and getting into USA Today -- and they're sending players to college with third-grade functionality."

CBS SportsLine.com's investigation turned up a number of disturbing items.

Two Division I head coaches told SportsLine.com they were asked for cash by a Stoneridge (Calif.) Prep staffer to recruit his players, whom the coaches said slept on the floor of a small house. The coach at Stoneridge, Ron Slater, was fired last month by principal Maria Arnold after what she told SportsLine.com were ethical lapses. Slater told SportsLine.com he has committed no NCAA violations.

Cincinnati's Harmony Prep is the newest national powerhouse thanks to first-year coach Travis McAvene, who brought a Nike deal and multiple Division I players -- and one ugly bit of baggage. McAvene left his previous two coaching stops, in Indiana and Cincinnati, after those schools learned he had fathered the child of a high school student. McAvene told SportsLine.com that Harmony officials "are aware of that situation."

Mount Zion Christian in Durham, N.C., which went from fame to notoriety under ex-coach Joel Hopkins, has a new $3 million facility but the same old complaints of academic indifference. Ex-Mount Zion player Xavier Crawford told SportsLine.com: "If we did go to school, we slept in class. A lot of side things were happening outside of school that were taken into school. A lot of chaos." Mount Zion headmaster Donald Fozard questioned McCray's motives, noting he left after losing his scholarship. "Xavier was not a top-notch basketball player anyway," Fozard says. "He should thank God he got a scholarship."

Three-year-old Florida Prep in Lake Suzy, Fla., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year but remains afloat, thanks in part to seed money from Adidas believed to be worth $75,000 annually. After adding a post-grad team this year, Florida Prep tried to hire Babacar Sy, a junior college assistant from College of Southern Idaho, but that fell through. Florida Prep principal Steve Rodriguez, a former assistant coach in the Miami Tropics AAU program, says his school "caters to kids that have ADD or ADHD. That's kind of our thing, and we've just got a knack for getting kids qualified." Kids like South Florida freshman guard Chris Howard, who attended multiple high schools but didn't play last season at Florida Prep -- he just went there to get eligible.

Memphis placed recruit Hashim Bailey at Winchendon this summer but then pulled him out after his GPA in core classes went down, not up. Memphis then placed Bailey at The Patterson (N.C.) School, coached by Chris Chaney, who had just moved from Laurinburg (N.C.) Prep -- where in 2003 and '04, his school helped five current Memphis players (Joey Dorsey, Kareem Cooper, Robert Dozier, Shawne Williams and Antonio Anderson) get eligible. Chaney says the Memphis staff trusts him with players, to help them get eligible and to make sure they don't renege on their verbal commitment. Arsenault, the New Hampton coach, was speaking of Laurinburg when he said: "The biggest bonus the NCAA could do is look at these schools that are sending 15 Division I players to schools and getting (them) eight core courses. That's the part I don't understand: How they can tell me it's a legit school when you've got (academically struggling) kids taking six or eight core classes and getting A's and B's."

The NCAA needs to get moving, because new schools keep popping up. Two years ago, Canadian hoops power broker Ro Russell founded the Toronto Area Prep School. Genesis One in Mendenhall, Miss., is entering its second season with a roster dominated by New York City players. Boys To Men Academy, a players-only school founded by former Chicago Julian coach Loren Jackson, opened this fall in Chicago. Former Coastal Christian (Va.) coach Walter Webb resurfaced this fall at Cornerstone Christian in San Antonio. And after being fired by Stoneridge, Slater told SportsLine.com that he would take his players, including USC recruit Taj Gibson, and start over at Calvary Baptist Christian, also in California.

"If I wanted to start a school, and I put in the paperwork for core courses, I could get it," says New Hampton's Arsenault. "But all these new schools, I can't say for sure (which ones) are legit."

That's for the NCAA to say. So say it, NCAA. And please hurry.

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/8920432

[Big D]

This is a very interesting story, especially since we have started to find more players at prep schools. Coach B has brought in 5 prep school players so far: Boyd, Spencer, Munroe, Eldridge, and Craft. We have also recruited at least another dozen prep school players that I can remember. I don't think we have anything to worry about. All of our players have come out of well established prep schools.

[BasketBallJones]

Cincinnati's Harmony Prep is the newest national powerhouse thanks to first-year coach Travis McAvene, who brought a Nike deal and multiple Division I players -- and one ugly bit of baggage. McAvene left his previous two coaching stops, in Indiana and Cincinnati, after those schools learned he had fathered the child of a high school student. McAvene told SportsLine.com that Harmony officials "are aware of that situation."

McAvene is the guy who was Everett Spencer's coach at New Creations prep school in Richmond, Indiana. I think Robert Eldridge came from New Creations also, but I don't know if McAvene was coaching there last year.

[Wolf]

McAvene is the guy who was Everett Spencer's coach at New Creations prep school in Richmond, Indiana. I think Robert Eldridge came from New Creations also, but I don't know if McAvene was coaching there last year.

Robert Eldridge's coach at New Creations was Andy Bain.

[Wolf]

Prep school jettisons coach -- so players disappear
Oct. 5, 2005
By Gregg Doyel

The young marriage between Babacar Sy and Florida Prep School has ended in divorce -- fascinatingly, if not amicably.

Sy, a former assistant at College of Southern Idaho, and Florida Prep are the leading characters of this story, but the supporting cast is equally intriguing. It includes nine vanished international players, an NBA agent and U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris -- the same Katherine Harris who rose to prominence during the 2000 presidential election as Florida's secretary of state.

The international players, including Connecticut recruiting target Hamady N'Diaye, came to Florida Prep this summer to play for Sy, who runs a basketball school in his native Senegal. Once it became apparent he wasn't going to be their coach, all nine players were taken to a local airport by Sy's personal assistant late Monday night.

Tuesday morning, school officials discovered empty rooms where there were once nearly 7-foot-tall teenagers. Empty closets. Empty dressers.

"We feel sort of betrayed and shafted," says Florida Prep principal Steve Rodriguez. "I'm not self-righteous, and I'm not pious. I'm a get-it-done kind of guy. But the nature of what took place here is bizarro world."

The players are expected to re-emerge in the coming weeks at another prep school, perhaps to be coached by Sy after all. Sy was unavailable for comment because he is in Senegal. His agent, Darren Weiner, said Sy will return to the United States soon, after he accepts one of three coaching positions he has been offered.

Sy won't be coaching at Florida Prep, but it's difficult to ascertain exactly why. The two sides have a polar-opposite version of what happened.

Rodriguez said he fired Sy for a number of reasons, including: Sy's lengthy stay in Senegal this summer rather than being on campus to prepare for the 2005-06 school year; his request for non-negotiated recruiting money; and his desire to decide which of his players would be on the prep school team, which would be on the high school team, and where they would live.

Weiner says Sy was stranded in Senegal because Florida Prep didn't file the necessary visa paperwork, and that Sy couldn't return to the United States without an employment contract. While that was going on, Weiner says, communication breakdowns between the school and his client left Sy unsure he still wanted to coach at Florida Prep.

By late last week, Sy and Florida Prep had parted ways. His nine international recruits continued to attend school and practice, but on Tuesday morning they were gone.

"We couldn't tell you where they are, even though they're (in the United States) on our visa," Rodriguez said. "I called Katherine Harris at our local congressional office, told them the deal, and asked, 'What do you suggest?' They suggested I call customs and the border patrol. We're just flabbergasted."

In hindsight, Rodriguez said, Florida Prep's antennae were raised when Sy had Weiner negotiate his contract. Weiner is a registered NBA agent, though he says his connection to Sy isn't an effort to one day represent the players Sy brings overseas.

"Babacar has been a friend of mine for a few years," Weiner said. "I've been to Africa a number of times, and I met him at an NBA camp over there. As far as this (Florida Prep) situation is concerned, he told me about it and said, 'Look, I haven't been down this road before as far as putting a deal together. Will you help me?' I said sure."

Sy had spent 2003-04 and '04-05 at College of Southern Idaho as an assistant to Gib Arnold. In that time two of Sy's best players, Mamadou Diene from his school in Senegal and Mohamed Kone from CSI, signed with Baylor coach Scott Drew. When Kone didn't get eligible at Baylor he went to Valparaiso, coached by Drew's father, Homer.

After Arnold left CSI this spring to become an assistant at Southern California, Sy was in need of a job. At the same time, Florida Prep was about to add a prep school to its high school team and in need of a coach.

Rodriguez, who founded Florida Prep and has served as its high school coach, says the Baylor staff recommended Sy. Along with UConn, Baylor also is recruiting N'Diaye, a 6-11 senior center.

Until Sy and his players reappear at another prep school, this is a story missing its ending. And Weiner says it's a story worthy of publication.

"One day it will all come out," Weiner says. "It'll be a book."

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/8930536

[Wolf]

Coach says Florida Prep officials forged his name
Oct. 10, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

The bizarre story of Florida Prep and coach Babacar Sy has taken one more unfathomable turn.

After parting ways with the school last month and taking with him the eight international players under his care, Sy is accusing Florida Prep of forging his name on a public document -- the same document that cost Florida Prep its 2005-06 standing with the Florida high school association.

"There are grounds to press criminal charges," Sy's agent, Darren Weiner, told CBS SportsLine.com on Monday. "I've been on the phone with local authorities about how Babacar can file criminal charges from out of the country."

Sy has been in his native Senegal, where his inability to obtain a work visa fractured his relationship with Florida Prep, which tried to hire him this summer. The school and Sy parted ways last month, each pointing fingers at the other, and last week Sy orchestrated the withdrawal of eight international players from Florida Prep, including coveted 6-foot-11 center Hamady N'Diaye.

Those players -- and Sy -- could end up at Stoneridge Prep in Simi Valley, Calif., which needs a coach and players. Last month, Ron Slater resigned from Stoneridge to start a program at another private school in California, taking his players with him.

Sy's accusation of forgery is one more black eye for three-year-old Florida Prep, which has become a basketball powerhouse but has made a series of missteps in recent months. The worst stumble came on May 13 when Florida Prep, the Class 1A runner-up in Florida, submitted its renewal application to the Florida High School Activities Association -- an application that had been falsified.

Florida Prep founder Steve Rodriguez had forged the name of principal Ann Brandenburger. Not only was her name misspelled (it's Brandenberger); she wasn't (and still isn't) the school's principal, though she had discussed the position months earlier with Rodriguez.

The forging led the FHSAA to ban Florida Prep from competing against FHSAA schools in all sports in 2005-06, making it the second school under Rodriguez's watch in three years to draw the ire of the FHSAA. Previously Rodriguez was headmaster and boys basketball coach of Heritage Christian in Englewood, Fla., which in 2002 was placed on two years of probation by the FHSAA for recruiting and eligibility violations. Shortly after that, Rodriguez founded Florida Prep, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004 but has stayed open.

(Because of the FHSAA ban, the school was planning a exclusively national schedule for the upcoming basketball season.)

Rodriguez wouldn't comment on the accusation that Sy's name also was forged on that May 13 document -- Sy was spelled "Sye" -- but a Florida Prep official said Sy had given the school his permission to sign his name.

"No way," says Weiner.

Last week, Rodriguez told SportsLine.com that he was turned off by Sy's decision to be represented by his longtime friend Weiner, a registered NBA agent. On Monday, Weiner said Sy was only looking out for himself.

"Babacar wanted an agent involved because of this sort of stuff," Weiner said. "This goes well beyond (eight) kids leaving a school or me representing my client or my client not going to work at that school (Florida Prep). This goes well beyond a forged document. And when people realize and find out what the facts of this situation are, they're going to be mind-blown -- because I was."

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/8949270

[Wolf]

Players burned by prep school's cash-for-transcript policy

Oct. 25, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

Rainier Rickards went to Redemption Christian Academy in upstate New York to get an education and play basketball. He didn't go there to haggle over his high school transcript. He didn't go there to bake cookies.

"Cookies, pies, bread, banana nut loaf -- you name it," Rickards said. "And if you weren't baking that stuff, you were selling it. I'd be outside at Wal-Mart from nine in the morning to six at night."

With prep schools popping up all over the country, drawing increasingly skeptical interest from the NCAA, 26-year-old Redemption Christian rates among the most peculiar, the most controversial and -- several people told CBS SportsLine.com -- the most damaging. Coaches from five schools in the Big East and Atlantic 10 told SportsLine.com that they refuse to recruit players from Redemption.

"I'd love for someone to expose those guys," said Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) High athletics director Pete Sheehan. "It's criminal what they're doing to kids."

Ex-Redemption players describe the RCA basketball program as a thinly veiled fund-raising arm of the school, with players having to cook, package and sell bakery goods -- usually outdoors, sometimes door-to-door.

Players told SportsLine.com they had a sales quota -- ranging from $200 to $400 a week -- and at the end of the year were charged the difference before getting their transcript. No money? No transcript. And for a college basketball prospect, a transcript is gold. Without one, the player cannot prove to the NCAA that he earned the credits necessary to qualify. Without one, it's like the year at Redemption never happened.

Rickards told SportsLine.com that he could have graduated in June but, because he couldn't afford to pay for his transcript, he has to attend another prep school this year. He has committed to play for St. Francis (N.Y.) in the Northeast Conference.

"I could be in college right now, but my mom didn't have the money for my transcript," he said. "I don't feel I should be giving them money anyway. I made money all year (selling cookies and cakes). My quota was $400 a week, but I didn't do good in the middle of the year. I'm anemic and diabetic, so some weeks I could only sell $200 and they got mad at me. I couldn't take it, so I left."

Rickards says he was charged $1,500 for his transcript, and he apparently got off easy. The mother of ex-UConn recruit Will Harris says she was asked for $7,000 for his transcript. The guardian of Yamar Diene, who went on to play for Rice, says he was asked for $5,000.

The founder, principal and coach at RCA, Elder John Massey Jr., doesn't dispute the main facts. Yes, he says, players spend hours each week cooking and/or selling baked goods. Yes, they have a quota. Yes, transcripts are withheld until students fulfill their financial obligations. But he says RCA is doing nothing illegal. The cost of tuition is $15,000, Massey said, and all RCA students "have to earn their way here."

"We don't ask or recruit kids to come to our school," Massey said. "They come to us. They sign a statement of agreement, and their parents agree. They're not coerced."

Coerced, no. Confused? Possibly. RCA thrives on students from third-world countries or from poor, inner-city families. It's possible, and even likely, that some students and parents lack the sophistication to understand their Faustian agreement with Redemption.

Harris' mother, Veronica, said she knew about the fundraising her son would have to do at RCA, but only in general terms. The same goes for the financial "obligation" she would have to meet when it came time to get his transcript.

"Of course (Massey) is going to mention the contract, but it wasn't until Will got to school that it was obvious what fundraising meant," she said. "They're out there for hours on end. Long hours. You don't send children out into the cold. You just don't do it. Will wanted to leave after his first year there (in 2002-03), but we were told he couldn't get his transcript. So he went back for another year. And then when we tried to get his transcript, we were told he hadn't met his quota and we owed $7,000."

Diene, a native of Senegal who came to the United States in the late 1990s, described his Redemption "ordeal" for SportsLine.com.

"I unfortunately attended Redemption," Diene wrote in an e-mail from France, where he is playing professionally. "For my ordeal, I was first offered a scholarship ... but soon did I find out that being at school over there meant a whole lot of manual labor which they like to call 'work study.' Students including myself had to go frequently outside -- usually at Wal-Marts and other stores -- to sell cookies in the freezing cold for long hours.

"If a student decides that he wants to leave the school, (Redemption) just holds their transcript and asks for a ridiculous amount of money, making it almost impossible for someone to graduate on time and go to college. They did it to me and I had to pay thousands of dollars to get my transcript."

After Diene transferred to Poughkeepsie High in 1999, his guardian and AAU coach, Jim Hart of the Albany City Rocks, says Redemption asked for $5,000 for Diene's transcript. Hart complained to the state board of education but was told that Redemption, a private school, was outside its jurisdiction. Sheehan eventually raised $3,000 from school boosters and made Redemption a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

"I went to Redemption and said, 'That's all I've got. Is that enough?' And it was," Sheehan said. "They took my money and gave me the transcript."

Massey said Diene was charged for his transcript because he left school early and owed the balance of his tuition. He also said Diene was "a thief (who) had to be de-wormed (and) broke school rules by pilfering money."

Hart was outraged by that accusation.

"He said what? Let me tell you something," Hart said. "I've coached more than 50 Division I players in eight years, and we've had more than 500 players in our program, and in that time I'd put Yamar's morals above everyone else we've ever had. And everyone else would agree. This is a great, great kid. That school is a sham."

Massey had harsh words for Rickards and Will Harris, too. He said Rickards, now at Florida Prep, "has to be brainwashed" to have said he quit Redemption because he was tired of selling baked goods. And Massey said Harris, now at Brewster (N.H.) Academy, was "disruptive and disrespectful ... he was a nobody before he came to Redemption."

In a hour-long interview Monday with SportsLine.com, Massey repeatedly responded to allegations with dismissive laughter and rhetorical questions. He noted that Harris and Rickards played for the same club coach in New York City, Nate Blue, who has been critical of Redemption in the past.

"The reason I'm laughing is, you have no idea how silly this is," Massey said. "I could go on and on. It's silly. Nate Blue says we've always been controversial? Wait minute -- are you stupid? Why put your kids in a situation where you know they're being exploited? Rainier came after Will. If we did Will Harris so wrong, why did (Blue) send Rain here? I want you to ask Nate that."

SportsLine.com did.

"That's an easy answer," Blue said. "Will was there when Rain went there for the summer, and then Will decided not to go back when school started in September (2004). By then Rain was already there, and he couldn't leave and keep his transcript from that summer. Rain told me, 'I can do one year here and go somewhere.' But he couldn't make it. He had to get out of there.

"Now," said Blue, "I laugh at kids (on my team). I tell them, 'You keep doing bad, I'll send you to Redemption.'"

RCA continues to get the occasional marquee player. Past students include NBA vets Mike James and Lamar Odom, as well as eventual college players like Avery Queen (Michigan), Rodney Epperson (St. John's) and most recently Texas Tech recruit Charlie Burgess, Rickards and Harris, who is being recruited by Top 25 programs.

Massey notes that wealthy athletes have sent relatives to RCA.

"Does the fact that Evander Holyfield's kid went here mean anything? Bruce Smith's nephew?" Massey said. "Are they people of any status? Are they silly, ignorant, dumb? They can't make judgments? Do you know they have the money to place their kids anywhere? Why do they choose us?"

Will Harris' mother wonders the same thing. Rainier Rickards wonders. Yamar Diene wonders.

Sheehan, the Poughkeepsie athletics director who bartered for Diene's transcript years ago, remembers the last words he heard as he left Redemption:

"As I was walking out the door, they said, 'If you ever have any kids at Poughkeepsie that would like to go Redemption, send them here,'" Sheehan said. "And I was thinking, 'This is the last place I'll ever send a player.'"


www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9003583

[Wolf]

NCAA stumbles in its first steps against diploma mills
June 11, 2006
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

A good prep school is a good thing, but a bad prep school is beyond bad. It's fraudulent, it's shady, it's exploitive. It's dishonest. It's illegal.

So the NCAA is to be commended for pinching its nose, pulling on protective gloves and plunging into bad prep schools, one school at a time.

A bad prep school is an academic Laundromat, taking in a student with bad grades and sending him to college -- by means of magic or some other hocus-pocus -- with an NCAA-eligible transcript. Bad prep schools are dishonest, the athletes they serve are undeserving and unprepared, and the college coaches who recruit them are abetting the crime.

Good for the NCAA.

Well done, NCAA? Well, no. Not so far.

This is the NCAA, which means the process isn't going to go smoothly. Sad to say, but the NCAA is taking this no-lose proposition and flirting with a loss.

Understand, NCAA vs. Prep Schools should be a mismatch. The NCAA is right. Bad prep schools are wrong. It's a blowout. It's you against a housefly, and you've got a flyswatter -- you know it could take some time, and it could leave a stain, but ultimately you know how the story ends.

Here, the NCAA is chasing a housefly with a sledgehammer. Years from now, yes, the flies could be gone. But we'll miss the table and chairs and fine china that also got smashed to smithereens.

The NCAA's attack on prep schools started badly last week and will get worse. It began with the first list of schools whose transcripts the NCAA will no longer accept. Most of the 15 schools -- they made the list because they didn't respond to the NCAA inquiry -- didn't field sports teams. One was for adults only. Some were already closed, and hadn't fielded sports teams when they were open.

NCAA vice president Kevin Lennon says its membership was clamoring for names of banned schools, hence the highly anticipated, highly anticlimactic first list. Even so, it was a bad first step: If the NCAA is so indiscriminate as to publicly flog prep schools that weren't involved in college athletics in the first place, how many more mistakes from arrogance or ignorance will the NCAA make?

Plenty more. And you can already see them coming.

Over the next several weeks the NCAA will announce more banned prep schools. Lennon's task force is taking a hard look at religious-oriented schools, and with reason. Some of the most notorious prep schools in America include words like "Christian" or "Lutheran" or "Baptist." Please don't argue that point. It's not opinion. It's fact.

However, by creating the impression that it is singling out prep schools with religious curriculum -- and that is the impression -- the NCAA is treading onto unholy ground. Imagine a public school like Georgia denying a recruit his scholarship because his Christian prep school didn't pass the NCAA's muster. A state judge would get squeamish over that one, so the NCAA must avoid any hint of religious overtones. A hunt for bad prep schools is admirable. A witch hunt? Indefensible.

But that's nothing compared to the NCAA's biggest blunder: taking immediate action against graduates of banned prep schools. When a school makes the banned list, its graduates are immediately denied their college eligibility because their transcripts are immediately trashed. The NCAA will grandfather in past graduates of banned schools, but members of the class of 2006 will be ineligible. As far as the NCAA is concerned, those kids might as well have spent the past year on the street or in jail.

Lennon says there is an appeals process, that individual students from banned schools can earn their eligibility for the 2006-07 season, "If they've shown academic progress prior to enrolling at that school, and if they have legitimate test scores."

However, Lennon says, students from irredeemable prep schools will have no chance.

"If they attended a school where there's been no real learning and instruction going on, or they've been allowed to take 10 classes in five weeks, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens when the light of day gets shined on those situations," he said.

Sounds clear, but it's not. While the NCAA is sure to find some bogus prep schools -- and hallelujah for that -- there will be others whose fate will come down to the NCAA's discretion. Asked if the NCAA would ban schools that insist they're legitimate, Lennon said, "That may in fact happen, yes."

Then slow down. If the NCAA thinks a school is bogus, ban it. But ban it going forward. Let recruits know if they attend This Banned School next year, they won't be able to sign a scholarship for 2007-08. But banning them now, and making scores of 2006 high school graduates ineligible, is reckless and worse -- undermining a noble cause.

Immediate ineligibility would open the NCAA to a massive class-action lawsuit. Imagine the NCAA banning 20 more prep schools this summer. Imagine those 20 prep schools having a combined 100 graduates from the class of 2006 who have earned 100 Division I scholarships. Invalid scholarships, now.

Imagine the lawsuit. And let's put a face on the lawsuit. Shooting guard Verice Cloyd of Genesis One in Mendenhall, Miss., has signed with Alabama. He's bounced from one suspect prep school (now-defunct Southern Maryland Christian) to another, Genesis One, which is among those being examined by the NCAA. If the NCAA wants to look at Verice Cloyd's academic background, well, he's given the NCAA reason.

You should know, however, that Verice Cloyd is married. His wife had a daughter last week. He has a scholarship to Alabama. Imagine Cloyd and his family in a courtroom. This is the sort of thing the NCAA never takes into account, the large portion of gray in these seemingly black-and-white issues.

Now imagine Cloyd's attorney, longtime NCAA nemesis Don Jackson, asking Kevin Lennon why the NCAA nullified Cloyd's two years at Genesis One -- and his ensuing scholarship to Alabama -- without having warned Cloyd ahead of time of that risk.

Former Washington football coach Rick Neuheisel won $2.5 million from the NCAA last year. How much would Cloyd and 99 co-defendants get from the NCAA after having their education taken from them with no warning?

Imagine NCAA president Myles Brand standing on the street with a cup of pencils. Imagine Verice Cloyd driving past in a new car, splashing Brand with mud.

Imagine me saying I told you so. Don't imagine me being happy about it.

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9492760

[Raider Country]

Transcripts from 16 more schools disallowed by NCAA
July 5, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports

INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA on Wednesday added 16 nontraditional high schools, seven of them in Santa Ana, Calif., to a list of those whose transcripts will no longer be accepted because of questionable academic credentials.

Five schools were removed from an original list of 15 released last month after a review by the NCAA. Other schools are still being investigated and could face similar sanctions in the association's attempt to crack down on so-called "diploma mills" whose graduates seek athletic scholarships to college.

"The vast majority of high schools in the country, public and private, do a fine job of educating their students," NCAA vice president Kevin Lennon said. "But we will continue to be vigilant to ferret out those schools that are providing miraculous academic recoveries for students in a short amount of time and with little-to-no instruction. Hardly anyone would claim that legitimate education takes place under those kinds of conditions."

In April, the NCAA board of directors gave the association authority to look into the schools' standards, including the examination of individual transcripts. When the initial list of 15 was released last month, Lennon said some cases involved abuse and even fraud in their academic standards.

About 100 schools have been reviewed so far, based on irregularities in academic records, their nontraditional course content or their requests for approval from the NCAA clearinghouse, Lennon said. Those that did not meet NCAA standards or did not adequately respond to requests for information were placed on the list.

NCAA President Myles Brand said there already have been positive results.

"Several 'storefront' schools have closed their doors," he said. "We have discouraged other similar schools from beginning operation, and college and university admissions offices are paying closer attention to transcripts from students who attend nontraditional high schools."

Those removed from the original list of 15 schools were: Hawaii Electronic, Honolulu; Martinez Adult Education, Martinez, Calif.; Ranch Academy, Canton, Texas; Tazewell (Va.) City Career and Tech Center; and Virginia Beach (Va.) Central Academy.

The 16 added Wednesday include Access, Horizon, Joplin, Los Pinos, Lyon, Otto A. Fischer and Rio Contiguo, all of Santa Ana. The NCAA said 22 others have been cleared for only those graduates entering college this fall and are subject to review.

Five other schools have applied to the NCAA clearinghouse, but no decision has been made on their status for initial eligibility. They are Educational Consultants, Midlothian, Va.; God's Academy, Grand Prairie, Texas; Mill Creek Baptist School, Youngstown, Ohio; New Life Academy, Salt Lake City; and Progressive Christian Academy, Camp Springs, Md.

The NCAA listing is not retroactive, meaning it won't affect any athletes already enrolled in college.

AP NEWS

www.sportsline.com/general/story/9541581

[Raider Country]

Prep players aren't wavering as NCAA eyes 'diploma mills'
July 7, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports


INDIANAPOLIS -- Julian Vaughn stands 6-foot-8, boasts a high GPA and is ready to enter one of America's most prestigious basketball factories -- Virginia's Oak Hill Academy.

Nobody, not even the NCAA, can convince Vaughn he's making a mistake.

Two days after Oak Hill was placed on the list of 22 schools which will have its academic standards under review by the NCAA, Vaughn still intends to enroll there this fall.

"Even if it was on the list of offenders, I'd still want to go," he said. "I have a 3.7 GPA, so I'm really just going there to get my last few credits."

Of course, there's the added attraction of playing basketball for an institution that annually produces some of college basketball's premier prospects. Vaughn and Jeff Allen, a future teammate, both hope to carry on Oak Hill's legacy after they finish playing at this week's Nike All-America Camp.

The questions being asked now, though, are more about academics than talent.

Ever since the New York Times exposed University High in Miami, a correspondence school that offered diplomas to students despite having no classes or instructors and operating almost without supervision, the NCAA has been scrutinizing the standards of nontraditional high schools to identify "diploma mills."

The NCAA has been looking for irregularities such as one-year students, dramatic academic improvements or uncharacteristic classwork patterns.

The risk: Students attending listed schools could lose their freshman eligibility.

NCAA vice president Kevin Lennon said transcripts will continue to be evaluated individually and that students at the listed schools could retain their eligibility if their records show a pattern of academic achievement.

By publicizing the lists, NCAA officials hoped some athletes would reconsider their choices. The early returns are not encouraging.

On Wednesday, 16 schools were added to the list of offenders -- seven of them from Santa Ana, Calif. Twenty-two others, including Oak Hill, face more review over the next year.

And when Vaughn arrived at camp Thursday, he wasn't even aware Oak Hill made the list.

"I didn't hear about it, no," he said. "People can say whatever they want to say, but I've not heard anything bad about their academics. I know a lot of people hate the fact they have a rich basketball tradition, so they'll say whatever they want."

Vaughn isn't the only one with concerns.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, winner of the 2003 national championship and a prominent member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, is questioning the process.

He wondered why one school, which he declined to identify, made the list even though it has an enrollment of 300, a principal and a faculty. He also believes the NCAA's new mission poses a dangerous potential for expansion.

"The next thing they're going to do is look at inner-city schools, and we're not supposed to take those kids because it's a bad high school," he said. "Where are we going with this?"

Lennon insisted that would not happen.

Instead, he said the NCAA is looking more closely at schools that do not fall under state oversight, and that if investigators found irregularities at public institutions, the NCAA would notify that state's regulating body.

"Every student will have his records reviewed by the clearinghouse," Lennon said. "What we're trying to do is pick out kids who have miraculous recoveries in their last year. That's the kid that needs to be concerned."

The schools that have been identified span the continent, from North Atlantic Regional in Lewiston, Maine, to Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma, Calif.

Some administrators were surprised to learn of their inclusion. Lt. Gen. John E. Jackson Jr., president of Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia, said NCAA officials have neither visited the campus nor expressed specific concerns about the curriculum.

But one common factor is the number of prep schools and Christian schools listed.

"One of the reasons for that is that they are not regulated by state agencies," Lennon said. "You don't see any public schools on the list because they are regulated, so when you have Christian schools or prep schools that aren't regulated, they're more likely to make the list."

Regardless, the risk of losing a year of eligibility does not appear to be changing minds yet.

"I heard a rumor that a lot of kids go down there to qualify, but I don't really know how the academics are there," Vaughn said. "I know the teachers live on campus, like in a dorm, and they give you extra help. I think if a teacher is right there, it would help you a lot."

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9544732

[Wolf]

S. Carolina denies recruit's admission
Posted: Thursday July 20, 2006

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- A basketball recruit from a Florida prep school that has been under scrutiny by the NCAA has been denied admission to the University of South Carolina.

University President Andrew Sorensen said Chad Gray, of Florida Preparatory Academy in Port Charlotte, Fla., does not meet the school's admission requirements.

Gray said he had been cleared academically by the NCAA with a 2.5 grade-point average and an 820 on the SAT.

"When coach (Dave) Odom called me with the news explaining I would not be able to attend USC on a basketball scholarship it seemed as if my world was coming to an end," Gray said in a statement released by South Carolina on Thursday. "I took a deep breath, said a prayer, gathered my thoughts and I sat down with my family to discuss the matter."

The Florida school is one of 22 high schools whose academic standards are being reviewed by the NCAA.

Three Southeastern Conference schools have accepted recruits who graduated from schools on the list. Alabama and Arkansas accepted players from Genesis One Christian Academy in Mendenhall, Mass., and Georgia accepted a player from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.

Sorensen said he was not aware of the other schools' decisions or of the NCAA's decision to clear Gray.

"The NCAA has what I regard as absolutely minimal requirements," Sorensen told The Greenville News. "So the fact that the NCAA has cleared him doesn't mean he's eligible for admission to the University of South Carolina because our standards of admission are higher than the NCAA minimum."

Sorensen said he would bring up the matter when the conference presidents meet.

Odom said he felt bad for Gray.

"It's my belief that he worked extremely hard and did everything he did over the past two years because he wanted to be a Gamecock," Odom said.

Gray had committed to play football at Florida State as a junior, but changed his mind and decided to play basketball for South Carolina.

"I am a fully qualified. I have been cleared by NCAA Clearinghouse," Gray told The Greenville News. "Other players that went to Florida Prep this year are enrolled in other SEC schools and universities. This is not right."

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/ncaa/07/20/bc.bkc.recruitdenied.ap/index.html

[Wolf]

Oak Hill, Fork Union cleared in NCAA 'diploma mill' investigation
July 21, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports

RICHMOND, Va. -- The NCAA's investigation of possible "diploma mills" no longer includes Oak Hill Academy and Fork Union Military Academy, the organization said Friday.

After visiting the two Virginia campuses, NCAA officials determined that the schools' grades and course work will continue to be used in determining athletic eligibility for students moving on to college.

Oak Hill Academy, a perennial basketball powerhouse with Carmelo Anthony and Jerry Stackhouse among its alums, and Fork Union Military Academy, which has helped produce more than 70 NFL players, including Vinny Testaverde, were among dozens of nontraditional high schools whose academic standards were targeted for review by the NCAA.

The schools were placed on the list because of "irregularities in some of the academic information submitted to the NCAA for student-athletes," Kevin C. Lennon, NCAA vice president for membership services, said in a written statement.

In particular, the NCAA was concerned about irregular course work and grade patterns at the two schools, Lennon said. The use of course work to rectify NCAA academic deficiencies also was identified as an issue at Fork Union, he said.

Information provided by the two schools alleviated the NCAA's concerns, said Lennon, who emphasized that neither school was ever placed on the "not cleared" list.

AP NEWS
www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9565634

[keithfromxenia]

i think fork union is where the great eddie george went before he joined the buckeyes and won the heisman. GO RAIDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fastbreak]

NCAA's crusade against prep schools should include due process
Sep. 15, 2006
By Gary Parrish
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

I have no way of knowing what the NCAA is up to next week. I couldn't begin to guess. They didn't return a call. But if our friends in Indianapolis aren't too busy and are looking for a way to spend a few days, I have a suggestion. They should just follow these steps.

Step 1: Go to Expedia.com.
Step 2: Find a flight from Indianapolis to Charlotte.
Step 3. Book that flight.
Step 4: Board that flight.
Step 5: Land in Charlotte.
Step 6: Exit the plane.
Step 7: Go to baggage claim.
Step 8: Look for Colin Stevens.

"They don't even have to get a rental car; I'll meet them in Charlotte, pick them up and drive them back to our campus," said Stevens, headmaster of the Patterson School, located about 80 miles north of Charlotte. "I welcome them. I want them to come and visit us. We have nothing to hide."

If Stevens sounds frustrated, that's because he is. The Englishman has been in education for 33 years, even spending some time representing the British government in the Caribbean and Canada. Now, he's running Patterson, an institution that happens to have a top-tier prep basketball program, which these days is akin to being a muscle-head slugging home runs at an astonishing rate. Even if everything is on the level, people can't help but be suspicious.

So when the NCAA released, in July, a list of 22 prep schools it planned to further review as part of its well-documented crackdown on "diploma mills," it was no surprise that Patterson was on it. Stevens wasn't even that upset. He figured it just went with the territory, was merely the cost of having elite players, and that the NCAA would send a representative some time soon, check things out and subsequently remove his school from this list.

Then came August.

Now it's September.

The NCAA is yet to visit.

So the label remains.

And it's costly.

Sure, Patterson will still field a nice team this season. It has Tennessee pledge Cameron Tatum, Seton Hall pledge Jeremy Hazell and Rutgers pledge Earl Pettis, plus one of the top juniors (James Tyler) and sophomores (Karron Johnson) in the nation.

But, according to coach Chris Chaney, things could have been better. Patterson was close to landing Rivals.com's No. 1 player in the Class of 2007 (Michael Beasley) and No. 14 player in the Class of 2008 (Devin Ebanks). However, with the NCAA's list essentially warning that attending Patterson could leave prospects in a situation where their core work won't be recognized next fall, each prospect opted to enroll elsewhere.

"That's two McDonald's All-Americans, probably two pros," Chaney said. "We're still going to be fine. But we won't have the team we could've had."

What NCAA president Myles Brand is trying to do is good. Let's be clear about that. Over the past few years, one fraudulent prep school after another popped up across the country, and many of them were more irresponsible than that ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11. Something needed to be done. It was time for a crackdown. Far as I'm concerned, the more phony institutions the NCAA exposes, the better.

Along the same lines, if Patterson is a sham it should be shut down, too. Make no mistake, this is not a column vouching for Patterson. Rather, it's a column about due process, and the fact that Patterson should not be left under a cloud of suspicion for months -- well into the semester, now -- without the NCAA making a genuine effort to find out whatever it is it intends to find out.

So far, according to Patterson officials, everything the NCAA has requested has been provided. First, there was a questionnaire. It was filled out and returned. Then months passed with no response before the NCAA suddenly asked for text books. So Stevens overnighted three boxes of text books. Next they asked for yearbooks. So Stevens overnighted four different yearbooks.

The office of Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina has even called the NCAA, pleading on the school's behalf. That has happened three times, Stevens said.

Still, there has been no change in status.

Still, Patterson remains on the list.

"I thought this country carried a similar philosophy to Britain, that you are innocent until proven guilty. But that is obviously not true," Stevens said. "I have no problem with them doing anything they can to make sure everybody is providing our young people with the best standard of education. I welcome it because it makes us stronger and weeds out the bad prep schools. But they need to come see us and take us off that list."

If, and when, the NCAA ever does accept Stevens' offer, what they'll find might be surprising because Patterson is not some fly-by-night factory run by a former AAU coach in a one-room building. Quite the opposite, actually.

The school was founded in 1909. Today, it sits on a campus of 1,438 acres featuring trees, streams and -- no kidding -- a mountain range. There are three dormitories, a state-of-the-art computer lab, a cafeteria with a commercial kitchen, an outdoor pool and 49 acres of pasture where 18 horses graze.

Why horses?

Because Patterson has an equestrian team, too. See, it's not just about basketball at this place. There are some great basketball players. No one is disputing that. But there's also this girl who is a first chair violinist, and these two guys who are taking a math class designed specifically for them because calculus was just too easy.

All 16 teachers at Patterson have bachelor's degrees, Stevens said. He added that two of the coaches have master's degrees. There are students from Mongolia, Vietnam and Croatia. There's a German class. There's an American Sign Language class. I could go on forever, but surely you get the point.

"We even have Saturday school," Chaney said. "Who else has school on Saturday?"

The Breakfast Club? Beyond that, I'm not sure.

Even if you want to disregard all this as an elaborate cover-up, there's still one bit of information that seems to suggest Patterson isn't the "diploma mill" the NCAA claims to be after. Consider that last year there were 15 seniors on Chaney's team, but only nine actually graduated.

That's six non-graduates.

So if Patterson is really a diploma mill, somebody should fix the mill.

"If we were a diploma mill, those players would've been straight A students," Stevens said. "But they didn't walk across the stage, and some of them didn't even make it through the year because they couldn't live up to the Patterson demands. So they left, or at the end of the year they didn't receive their diploma because they didn't fulfill the criteria. End of story."

You'd think so. In reality, this story has no end in sight.

Consequently, Patterson officials are forced to sit and wait and wonder, perhaps even mull a lawsuit and proceed with legal action. But all they really want is something much simpler -- for the NCAA to catch a plane from Indianapolis to Charlotte, ride 80 miles north and give them their so-called day in court.

"We just want them to come here because once they see this place it will be a no-brainer," Chaney said. "They might not even have to get out of the car."

www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/9662400

[Retired Coach]

NCAA makes another move to weed out 'diploma mills'
May 1, 2007
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports


INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA approved a rule that limits recruits from adding only one core course toward their college eligibility after they have graduated from high school.

Current rules require incoming freshman to complete 14 core courses in high school. That number will increase to 16 next year.

It was the latest move by the NCAA to weed out the "diploma mills," nontraditional schools that sometimes do not meet accreditation standards. The NCAA has placed those schools under greater scrutiny since learning about University High School in Miami, a correspondence school that offered diplomas to students despite having no classes or instructors and operating almost without supervision. That case was first reported by the New York Times.

But the new rule could dramatically affect prep schools, which have become a more common avenue to athletes who have struggled in the classroom. Some recruits choose to attend prep schools to improve their academic standing, as well as play against stronger competition, before enrolling in college.

The NCAA believes there is a difference between attaining eligibility requirements at those schools and preparing to improve test scores or become a stronger student in college.

There will also be a waiver process in place that would allow the NCAA to consider each case individually.

www.sportsline.com/general/story/10161187