If no one has read what all did or is going on down at SMU/Dallas HSs, this is a really good (and damning) write-up about it.
Go to the link to read the whole thing, it couldn't all be posted here, much more to it.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nca...d-his-star-recruit/ar-BBql6fw?ocid=spartanntp
The Tragedy of a Hall of Fame Coach and His Star Recruit
DALLAS — Word that Keith Frazier, who played on the best college team you will not see this postseason, had dropped out barely registered beyond the confines of Dallas.
Frazier, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard who was Southern Methodist’s third leading scorer, simply stopped showing up for practice in early January, with the Mustangs still undefeated. A few days later, he left the university.
As emotionally fragile as he was talented, Frazier stood at the center of an academic scandal that led the N.C.A.A. to ban S.M.U. from the postseason this year and suspend its coach, Larry Brown, who is in the basketball Hall of Fame, for nine games.
A few days after Frazier dropped out, I asked Coach Brown about the student. Brown shook his head; more than a hint of a native Brooklyn rasp lingers in his voice. “I think I invested more time in that kid than my family,” Brown said. “It’s a tragedy now in college sports, kids leave.”
That is not the tragedy.
The tragedy is that the adults in big-time high school and college basketball, despite attempts at reform and despite the presence of many fine student-athletes, exert far more energy trying to churn out wins than trying to provide an education. Young men like Frazier, who just three years ago was Brown’s top recruit, are collateral damage.
Frazier’s educational track record was pockmarked with failure. His high school grades mysteriously and quickly improved whenever his eligibility to play was at stake. He likely had too many absences and failing grades to graduate from high school. And top officials at S.M.U. ignored their own professors, who recommended that Frazier not be admitted to S.M.U., an academically tough college.
Frazier took an online summer course before enrolling in freshman classes. An S.M.U. team assistant secretly completed Frazier’s work, an N.C.A.A. report found.
Frazier’s walk up and tumble down the stairs of big-time high school and college basketball kicks open a door to the corruption and neglect that mark the educational lives of too many elite athletes. This pervasive corruption extends from Division I colleges down into the high school and amateur ranks.
There are phony addresses for players, doctored grade sheets and illegal recruiting. In one terrible case, Dallas high school coaches concocted fake addresses and stashed top basketball players in a poorly supervised home. Two teenagers, who were friends, got into a fistfight, and one died.
Frazier, thankfully, remains healthy. But no adult, not even, it appears, his own mother, seems to have demonstrated more than a passing interest in his education. As long as he stroked jumpers and took jagged, high-leaping dashes to the hoop, all was fine.
“High school athletics are a tight little club where nobody wants to question anything,” said Anita Connally, a wiry former middle-school teacher who, as the Dallas schools’ athletic compliance officer, investigated the grade-fixing and recruiting scandals surrounding Keith Frazier.
Dallas school officials later fired Connally, who was a fierce reformer. “You’d dig deep here,” she said, “and everyone just gets angry.”
This column is based on two confidential reports by the Dallas schools — which contained Frazier’s attendance records and extensive transcripts of investigative interviews with more than a dozen officials — and the N.C.A.A. sanctions report on S.M.U. I also interviewed two dozen players, teachers, investigators and coaches.
A Prize Catch
In 2013, Frazier was a McDonald’s high school all-American and perhaps the best player in Texas. Brown, an undisputed coaching genius, was newly hired at S.M.U. and looking to draw attention to a basketball team that had long been mediocre. Brown and his assistants pursued Frazier like bird dogs after a pheasant. When Frazier signed, Brown howled with glee.
“Keith changed our program,” Brown said at the time. “We’ve never been successful in recruiting inner-city kids.
“Now, everywhere I go, kids are interested in us because of Keith.”
Brown had coached college ball twice before, and twice the N.C.A.A. sanctions ax had fallen on his teams, at U.C.L.A. and Kansas. Those penalties were ridiculous, he told me. Check it out.
I did, and he was wrong. At Kansas, there was a taped phone call in which Brown admitted to illegal payments and assistants who acted as bag men. At U.C.L.A., he coached his team to the title game, only to have the N.C.A.A. toss out the tournament run because Brown had played two players who were academically ineligible.
S.M.U. knew of Brown’s college track record when it hired him. The search for a nationally ranked basketball team requires sacrifices.
And the Frazier signing appeared to pay off.
A few months later, Frazier’s friend Emmanuel Mudiay, who was the best high school point guard in America, declared that he, too, was bound for S.M.U. Unfortunately, Mudiay attended Prime Prep high school in Dallas, an academic wreck of a charter school founded by the former N.F.L. star and commentator Deion Sanders. When questions arose about Mudiay’s grades, he skipped S.M.U. and went to play in China. He now starts at point guard for the Denver Nuggets.
Frazier grew up playing basketball in Irving, a suburb west of Dallas. Like many talented athletes, he played for school teams in the winter and for Amateur Athletic Union teams each spring and summer. Adidas, Under Armour and Nike sponsor these amateur teams, which are perpetually warring duchies. To lure new players and poach stars from rivals, A.A.U. coaches hand out athletic gear and other swag to players and parents alike.
Erven Davis, known as “Big E”, a hulking man with a honey-soft voice, agreed to chat with me in the lobby of a south Dallas hotel. He has coached A.A.U. for years and is close to Frazier. He stressed that his team, Dallas Showtyme, is the vassal of no sneaker company, although he allowed that he has an “affiliation” with Under Armour.
“It gets bad, man,” he said. “People offering kids and parents all kinds of stuff — stuff that people get into trouble for.”
A Questionable Transfer
Davis had a close relationship with Royce Johnson, his cousin and the coach at Kimball High School. Kimball was on academic life support. It also was a basketball Valhalla, a perpetual contender for the state championship. Over the years, many of Davis’s best players — some of whom clearly did not live in Dallas — enrolled at Kimball. In return, according to a 2013 Dallas schools investigation, Kimball coaches allowed A.A.U. teams to use their gym without a lease and without paying rent.
A few months into Frazier’s junior year at Irving High School, his mother announced she was moving her family to an apartment near Kimball. The basketball coach at Irving protested angrily. He argued that the Kimball coach had recruited Frazier, which is forbidden under Texas athletic regulations.
Dallas pulled together a committee composed of representatives from public elementary and middle schools that feed into Kimball High School. Frazier’s mother told this committee she could no longer afford her Irving apartment. It quickly approved the midyear move.
“There were a lot of back-room deals in Dallas,” said Gil Garza, the new director of athletics for the Dallas schools who is charged with cleaning up this system. “The thinking was: ‘I’m going to vote for your kid, and you’ll vote for mine.’ ”
Brett Shipp, an investigative reporter at WFAA-TV in Dallas, discovered that Frazier’s mother had lied to the committee. Her federally subsidized rent in Irving was fixed at $505 a month and had not gone up, as she claimed. Her former landlord complained that she owed him back rent.
Irving High School, while far from perfect, had markedly better academics than Kimball High School. Frazier’s mother responded to her critics on her Twitter account: “This is a cut throat business, I’m just saying.”
Frazier and his mother did not reply to phone calls, an email or a note left at their apartment.
A Dallas schools investigation concluded that Kimball’s coach had “improperly recruited” Frazier.
Frazier proved a godsend to Kimball’s team. He averaged 21 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists per game and pushed the Knights to a second consecutive state championship in 2012.
Frazier’s academics were another matter. When he arrived at Kimball in November of his junior year, his grades bounced along a river bottom. Investigators later discovered that his grades took a mysterious upward turn in the last weeks of that semester, just enough to allow him to retain his basketball eligibility.
As a senior, the report said, he continued to skip many classes and fail many tests.
Go to the link to read the whole thing, it couldn't all be posted here, much more to it.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nca...d-his-star-recruit/ar-BBql6fw?ocid=spartanntp
The Tragedy of a Hall of Fame Coach and His Star Recruit
DALLAS — Word that Keith Frazier, who played on the best college team you will not see this postseason, had dropped out barely registered beyond the confines of Dallas.
Frazier, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard who was Southern Methodist’s third leading scorer, simply stopped showing up for practice in early January, with the Mustangs still undefeated. A few days later, he left the university.
As emotionally fragile as he was talented, Frazier stood at the center of an academic scandal that led the N.C.A.A. to ban S.M.U. from the postseason this year and suspend its coach, Larry Brown, who is in the basketball Hall of Fame, for nine games.
A few days after Frazier dropped out, I asked Coach Brown about the student. Brown shook his head; more than a hint of a native Brooklyn rasp lingers in his voice. “I think I invested more time in that kid than my family,” Brown said. “It’s a tragedy now in college sports, kids leave.”
That is not the tragedy.
The tragedy is that the adults in big-time high school and college basketball, despite attempts at reform and despite the presence of many fine student-athletes, exert far more energy trying to churn out wins than trying to provide an education. Young men like Frazier, who just three years ago was Brown’s top recruit, are collateral damage.
Frazier’s educational track record was pockmarked with failure. His high school grades mysteriously and quickly improved whenever his eligibility to play was at stake. He likely had too many absences and failing grades to graduate from high school. And top officials at S.M.U. ignored their own professors, who recommended that Frazier not be admitted to S.M.U., an academically tough college.
Frazier took an online summer course before enrolling in freshman classes. An S.M.U. team assistant secretly completed Frazier’s work, an N.C.A.A. report found.
Frazier’s walk up and tumble down the stairs of big-time high school and college basketball kicks open a door to the corruption and neglect that mark the educational lives of too many elite athletes. This pervasive corruption extends from Division I colleges down into the high school and amateur ranks.
There are phony addresses for players, doctored grade sheets and illegal recruiting. In one terrible case, Dallas high school coaches concocted fake addresses and stashed top basketball players in a poorly supervised home. Two teenagers, who were friends, got into a fistfight, and one died.
Frazier, thankfully, remains healthy. But no adult, not even, it appears, his own mother, seems to have demonstrated more than a passing interest in his education. As long as he stroked jumpers and took jagged, high-leaping dashes to the hoop, all was fine.
“High school athletics are a tight little club where nobody wants to question anything,” said Anita Connally, a wiry former middle-school teacher who, as the Dallas schools’ athletic compliance officer, investigated the grade-fixing and recruiting scandals surrounding Keith Frazier.
Dallas school officials later fired Connally, who was a fierce reformer. “You’d dig deep here,” she said, “and everyone just gets angry.”
This column is based on two confidential reports by the Dallas schools — which contained Frazier’s attendance records and extensive transcripts of investigative interviews with more than a dozen officials — and the N.C.A.A. sanctions report on S.M.U. I also interviewed two dozen players, teachers, investigators and coaches.
A Prize Catch
In 2013, Frazier was a McDonald’s high school all-American and perhaps the best player in Texas. Brown, an undisputed coaching genius, was newly hired at S.M.U. and looking to draw attention to a basketball team that had long been mediocre. Brown and his assistants pursued Frazier like bird dogs after a pheasant. When Frazier signed, Brown howled with glee.
“Keith changed our program,” Brown said at the time. “We’ve never been successful in recruiting inner-city kids.
“Now, everywhere I go, kids are interested in us because of Keith.”
Brown had coached college ball twice before, and twice the N.C.A.A. sanctions ax had fallen on his teams, at U.C.L.A. and Kansas. Those penalties were ridiculous, he told me. Check it out.
I did, and he was wrong. At Kansas, there was a taped phone call in which Brown admitted to illegal payments and assistants who acted as bag men. At U.C.L.A., he coached his team to the title game, only to have the N.C.A.A. toss out the tournament run because Brown had played two players who were academically ineligible.
S.M.U. knew of Brown’s college track record when it hired him. The search for a nationally ranked basketball team requires sacrifices.
And the Frazier signing appeared to pay off.
A few months later, Frazier’s friend Emmanuel Mudiay, who was the best high school point guard in America, declared that he, too, was bound for S.M.U. Unfortunately, Mudiay attended Prime Prep high school in Dallas, an academic wreck of a charter school founded by the former N.F.L. star and commentator Deion Sanders. When questions arose about Mudiay’s grades, he skipped S.M.U. and went to play in China. He now starts at point guard for the Denver Nuggets.
Frazier grew up playing basketball in Irving, a suburb west of Dallas. Like many talented athletes, he played for school teams in the winter and for Amateur Athletic Union teams each spring and summer. Adidas, Under Armour and Nike sponsor these amateur teams, which are perpetually warring duchies. To lure new players and poach stars from rivals, A.A.U. coaches hand out athletic gear and other swag to players and parents alike.
Erven Davis, known as “Big E”, a hulking man with a honey-soft voice, agreed to chat with me in the lobby of a south Dallas hotel. He has coached A.A.U. for years and is close to Frazier. He stressed that his team, Dallas Showtyme, is the vassal of no sneaker company, although he allowed that he has an “affiliation” with Under Armour.
“It gets bad, man,” he said. “People offering kids and parents all kinds of stuff — stuff that people get into trouble for.”
A Questionable Transfer
Davis had a close relationship with Royce Johnson, his cousin and the coach at Kimball High School. Kimball was on academic life support. It also was a basketball Valhalla, a perpetual contender for the state championship. Over the years, many of Davis’s best players — some of whom clearly did not live in Dallas — enrolled at Kimball. In return, according to a 2013 Dallas schools investigation, Kimball coaches allowed A.A.U. teams to use their gym without a lease and without paying rent.
A few months into Frazier’s junior year at Irving High School, his mother announced she was moving her family to an apartment near Kimball. The basketball coach at Irving protested angrily. He argued that the Kimball coach had recruited Frazier, which is forbidden under Texas athletic regulations.
Dallas pulled together a committee composed of representatives from public elementary and middle schools that feed into Kimball High School. Frazier’s mother told this committee she could no longer afford her Irving apartment. It quickly approved the midyear move.
“There were a lot of back-room deals in Dallas,” said Gil Garza, the new director of athletics for the Dallas schools who is charged with cleaning up this system. “The thinking was: ‘I’m going to vote for your kid, and you’ll vote for mine.’ ”
Brett Shipp, an investigative reporter at WFAA-TV in Dallas, discovered that Frazier’s mother had lied to the committee. Her federally subsidized rent in Irving was fixed at $505 a month and had not gone up, as she claimed. Her former landlord complained that she owed him back rent.
Irving High School, while far from perfect, had markedly better academics than Kimball High School. Frazier’s mother responded to her critics on her Twitter account: “This is a cut throat business, I’m just saying.”
Frazier and his mother did not reply to phone calls, an email or a note left at their apartment.
A Dallas schools investigation concluded that Kimball’s coach had “improperly recruited” Frazier.
Frazier proved a godsend to Kimball’s team. He averaged 21 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists per game and pushed the Knights to a second consecutive state championship in 2012.
Frazier’s academics were another matter. When he arrived at Kimball in November of his junior year, his grades bounced along a river bottom. Investigators later discovered that his grades took a mysterious upward turn in the last weeks of that semester, just enough to allow him to retain his basketball eligibility.
As a senior, the report said, he continued to skip many classes and fail many tests.
