A Season Inside (7 page)

What Smith was doing was fairly obvious. Sensing that he had no chance to get Mustaf, he was trying to deflect him to Thompson who was a good friend and, just as important, not in the ACC. The strategy failed. “There was a time when I was almost sure I would play for North Carolina,” Jerrod Mustaf said. “But to tell you the truth, the system there is almost exactly like DeMatha. I had four years at DeMatha. I felt like it was enough. I was ready for something new.”

Five schools were out, three were left. Except Howard really never had a chance and Georgia Tech was a long ways off. Sharr Mustaf had told Wootten he wanted his son close to home. During Wade’s visit, Chancellor John Slaughter took part in a conference telephone call, telling the Mustafs all the things he was doing for blacks at Maryland. Slaughter would resign as chancellor before the school year was out, but the Mustafs had no way of knowing this.

After the home visits, Jerrod Mustaf made two of his five official visits: to Maryland and to Howard. He briefly saw the Georgia Tech campus during a clinic in November but he never officially visited there or anywhere else. In December, he announced he had narrowed his list to Maryland, Howard, and Georgia Tech. No one in college basketball had any doubt about who would win that battle.

“We’re not even working the kid,” Georgia Tech assistant Perry Clark said. “The decision’s been made.” And no one in college basketball, fairly or unfairly, believed that Jerrod Mustaf had made that
decision. It would be March before an announcement, though. In the meantime, Jerrod Mustaf would lead DeMatha to the city title and his father would go to work as an employee of the state of Maryland, working as a bailiff in the Prince George’s County courthouse.

The 1987 recruiting season, while important to every coach in the country, was absolutely essential to Gary Williams. Entering his second season at Ohio State, Williams had earned a reputation as a coach who could get the most out of his talent. The question was, could he recruit big-time talent to get the most out of?

In four years at American and four at Boston College, he had been one of those coaches who won more games per season than he was supposed to. He had done the same thing in the 1987 season at Ohio State: He took a 14–14 (regular season) team in 1986 that then lost its leading scorer to the NBA, and coached them to a 19–12 record. That mark earned an NCAA bid, and the Buckeyes had beaten Kentucky in the first round before narrowly missing what would have been a stunning upset against Georgetown.

The 1987–88 Ohio State team would not be as good. Dennis Hopson, who had emerged as a star in his senior season under Williams, was gone, the first-round draft pick of the New Jersey Nets. Three impressive freshmen had been signed, but two of them were victims of Proposition 48, the two-year-old NCAA rule that required minimum academic standards for a player to be eligible. They could not play until they were sophomores.

That meant Williams had one good recruiting class—with an asterisk. Because he had taken two Prop 48s his first year, he could not afford to take any more in his second. It was impractical and it wasn’t good for the school’s image to start loading up on academic question marks.

Put simply, Williams had to prove himself as a recruiter this fall. There were four excellent seniors in Ohio. More than anything, Williams’s predecessor, Eldon Miller, had been hurt by his inability to keep top Ohio players in the state. Williams had to reverse that trend and prove he could bring in at least one key player a year from out of state.

Ohio State is not an easy coaching job. It is a school that once was one of the dominant powers in the game, reaching three straight NCAA championship games from 1960 to 1962 (winning the title in 1960) with players like Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Mel Noell, Larry Siegfried, and a foul-prone bench warmer named Bob Knight.

But the Buckeyes have not won a Big Ten championship since 1970. Miller had some excellent teams, reaching five straight NCAA Tournaments at one point. But he never won the league and never got past the round of sixteen. One bad year and he was gone, fired at midseason.

Williams knew as he began his second season that 20–13 the first year was okay, especially because it exceeded expectations. He knew that a less-than-great second year could be survived too. But after that, the honeymoon was over. He had to have a top recruiting class to go with the first one. One good class is never enough.

There were four Ohio players Williams was focusing on: Bill Robinson, a seven-foot center from the Akron area, whose height and excellent grades made him a must; Eric Riley, a 6–11 forward from Cleveland who came from the same high school as Treg Lee, one of the two Prop 48s sitting out; Mark Baker, a 6–1 jet from Dayton, the kind of point guard Williams craved; and Jeff Hall, a 6–6 country kid who could shoot the ball. The key out-of-state recruit was Chris Jent, a 6–7 shooter from Sparta, New Jersey. Jent was a kamikaze-type player. His attitude reminded Williams a little bit of Larry Bird.

For Williams this would be a difficult fall. He is a man who has lived and breathed basketball for as long as he can remember. He was a good player at Maryland in the 1960s, a coach-on-the-floor type who still brags about holding the school record for most consecutive field goals—eight.

He began coaching straight out of college and quickly worked his way up the coaching ladder from high school to college assistant to head coach at American at the age of thirty-two. For years he has been hailed as one of the bright young coaches in the country. Now, he knew, it was time to take the next step.

“It’s nice when people say we do a good job getting the most out of our talent,” he said. “But I want to get to the point where if we do that, we win all the time. I want to attack people and not worry about it.”

Williams’s coaching style is an attacking one, pressing all over the floor, fast-breaking at every opportunity. It fits his personality. He is as intense as anyone in the sport. He coaches every possession as if it is his last one. Fortunately, he has the kind of sense of humor where he can laugh at himself when the game is over—though not always right away. He is the same way about recruiting.

Williams’s two full-time assistants—his recruiters—are about as different as two men can be—which is ideal. Randy Ayers played at Ohio
State. He is 6–5, black, and has the dignified air of a judge. He is quiet, but articulate, someone who makes an excellent first impression and then builds on it.

Fran Fraschilla is a compact bundle of energy, a talker, someone who leaves few thoughts unspoken. He came to Ohio State in 1987 from Ohio University and he knows every nook and cranny of the state.

On September 23, Williams, Ayers, and Fraschilla visited Eric Riley. The basics of a recruiting visit in this day and age are almost always the same: set up a date and time. Try to know who will be there. If the parents are divorced or separated, find out if the parent the player doesn’t live with will be there. Get good directions to the house so as not to get lost. Leave early in case you do get lost.

The three Ohio State coaches left Columbus at 3:30
P.M.
for the two-hour drive to Cleveland. The visit was scheduled for 7:30. One of the advantages Ohio State has is being smack in the middle of the state. Almost every place in-state can be reached in two hours.

Williams’s mood was good. He felt the school was in very good position with Robinson and Baker. Riley could go either way. The presence of Treg Lee would seem to be an advantage but Williams was concerned that, having played in Lee’s shadow in high school, Riley might be worried about doing that again in college.

Still, he felt they had a shot at Riley. Both he and Ayers felt the mother, Beulah Riley, liked them; and they felt that she would play a major role in Eric’s decision.

More often than not, a recruiting visit is the culmination of more than a year of work. Initial contact with a player starts early in the junior year—at the latest—and by the time a player is in his senior year the schools that are serious about recruiting him have written and phoned on several dozen occasions. In Riley’s case, he and his mother had received thirty-one letters and three telegrams from Ohio State dating back to the summer of 1986. Between the time of the visit in September and the day he made his decision in November, there would be nineteen more letters and one more telegram. Those figures are about average for a good, but not great player.

In the car, the coaches reviewed the points they wanted to make: the education Riley would get—they knew that was very important to his mother. Playing time—it was there for him. And, how important it would be to have gone to Ohio State if he settled in Ohio after graduation.

Williams made one other point to the coaches: “Let’s stay off the subject of Treg (Lee) unless they bring it up.”

Once in Cleveland, the coaches went straight to the Riley house. They found it by 5:45, well before the scheduled visit. This is part of the recruiting manual: find the house first, then go look for something to eat. Almost always, dinner is the first fast food place that shows up. This night, it was McDonald’s.

At 7:25, five minutes early, the coaches were back at the Rileys’. Eric and his mother lived in a middle class neighborhood which, on a warm early fall evening, was full of children playing in the street. Eric Riley was a slender youngster with a baby face and an easy smile. He looked Williams in the eye as they shook hands. Williams liked that.

Once everyone was seated, Fraschilla took out the tape that had been made especially for this visit. This is a new thing in recruiting, a creation of the age of VCRs. Almost every coach in the country brings a tape with him into a recruit’s home. Some even bring portable VCRs in case the family doesn’t have one. Rarely is the portable needed.

Most of the tapes are similar. They recount the virtues of the school, the coach, the players, the conference. There are prominent former players talking about how lucky they were to attend the good old alma mater.

The Ohio State twist is the start of the tape. In this case, the tape began with a shot of St. John Arena, Ohio State’s home court. It is empty. Into it walks the narrator who is saying, “St. John Arena. Many of the greatest names in basketball began their careers here. Players like Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, Clark Kellogg, and Eric Riley.”

There is a pause to give the recruit and his family a chance to drink in the last name. And then: “Well, maybe not yet, Eric, but you could very easily join those great names
if
you choose Ohio State.”

This is a fairly simple thing to do and Ohio State certainly isn’t unique in using this tactic. At N.C. State, Valvano plays recruits a dummy radio tape in which they score the winning basket in a crucial game.

Even so, people notice. It shows them that extra time was taken. Just as important, it is a good ice-breaker at the start of a visit when everyone is a little nervous. As the tape finishes, Fraschilla says, “I’m ready to sign.”

Everyone laughs. Beulah Riley has a number of questions for the coaches. She is a tall, dignified woman who has an older son, Jerome,
playing at Kentucky State. Ayers, who has known the family longest, calls her Beulah. Williams and Fraschilla call her “Mrs. Riley.”

Ohio State has been in the news recently because of the controversy over football player Cris Carter, who had signed illegally with an agent and lost his eligibility. Beulah Riley is concerned about this. Could Eric lose his scholarship while at Ohio State?

“If he signed with an agent, yes,” Williams answers. “Or if he cheated in school or flunked out.”

Eric Riley is confused. “Coach,” he asks, “do I have to get an agent?”

For a moment, Williams is stunned. Coaches often forget in recruiting they are dealing with teenagers. Some are street-smart beyond their years. Others, like Riley, are just kids.

“Eric, you can’t have an agent under any circumstances while you’re in college,” Williams says. “It doesn’t matter where you go. If you ever take anything from an agent, you’ll never play in college again and you’ll lose your scholarship.”

Beulah Riley is nodding. “We understand, right, Eric?”

Her son nods. “Now I do.”

That hurdle cleared, things begin to loosen up. Suddenly, there is a knock on the back door. Eric answers it. A middle-aged man walks into the room with him. Beulah Riley looks up, sees him, then stares at the floor without saying a word.

“This is my father,” Eric Riley says softly.

The coaches jump to their feet. There are handshakes all around. Beulah Riley never moves. Benny Riley sits down on the couch next to his son. The mood has gone from relaxed to awkward. Williams speaks first.

“We were just sort of answering any questions that you all might have about Ohio State, Mr. Riley. If you’ve got anything you want to add or ask, please go ahead because that’s what we’re here for.”

Benny Riley nods. “Wherever he goes, I want him to get a degree,” he says. Everyone agrees that is of paramount importance. The rest of the visit goes by without any problems, though Beulah Riley is very quiet. She and her husband never exchange a look or a word.

Finally, shortly after nine, the coaches leave. “We’ll see you at school October thirtieth,” Williams says, a reference to Riley’s official visit.

Once in the car, all of them—even Ayers—are talking at once. The back-door arrival of Benny Riley, both literally and figuratively, is just
the kind of thing recruiters hate. What does it mean? What is his role? They have been dealing with Beulah Riley all along. Has someone else gotten to the father? Dark thoughts cross a recruiter’s mind late at night.

“For the moment,” Williams says, “let’s pretend it didn’t happen. Keep dealing with Beulah because we don’t want to upset her. She and the father obviously don’t get along. But you guys keep your ears open and see if you can find out anything about Benny.”

Williams leans back in his seat. “I hate surprises,” he says, knowing he is smack in the middle of a game that is full of them. Tonight is just another example.

The key out-of-state recruit for Williams was Chris Jent, who is from Williams’s home state—New Jersey. Jent was exactly the kind of player Williams felt he had to get—in addition to the Ohio players—because there was such impressive competition to get him.