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UM probing alleged recruiting violation
Assistant football coach accused of offering money to Gilman defensive standout, according to sources; Abiamiri, teammate Wooden said to have decided to attend Notre Dame
By Jon Morgan, Lem Satterfield and Christian Ewell
Sun Staff
Originally published February 3, 2003, 1:42 PM EST

The University of Maryland is investigating an allegation that one of its assistant coaches improperly offered money to a hotly recruited football player from Baltimore.

In a statement released this morning, the university said a review of a possible recruiting violation is in process and that the National Collegiate Athletic Association -- the governing body of college sports -- has been notified.

The university would not confirm details of the alleged infraction. But sources familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said an assistant to coach Ralph Friedgen offered the recruit more than $300.

The player, Victor Abiamiri, a defensive lineman for the Gilman School, has decided to attend the University of Notre Dame, according to several sources close to the youth. Abiamiri declined the money and is not under investigation, the sources said.

David B. Irwin, an attorney for Abiamiri, would not comment on whether he was offered money.

"We will cooperate with any investigation," he said.

The coach did not respond to requests for comment.

Officials at Gilman, a private school in north Baltimore, had no immediate comment.

"Based on the information that has been collected and shared with the NCAA, we believe that the alleged violation is secondary in nature and that there would be no institutional ramifications arising from this review," the university said in its statement. "Additional comment will be forthcoming when the review is complete in about two weeks."

Said Monica Lunderman, a spokeswoman for the NCAA: "Until an investigation is complete we would not comment."

NCAA rules prohibit school officials from providing gifts or cash to recruits.

A teammate of Abiamiri, Gilman quarterback Ambrose Wooden, has also decided to attend Notre Dame, spurning overtures from Maryland, according to sources.

Abiamiri, one of the top collegiate prospects in the nation, was ranked among the top four high school defensive linemen.

 

 

Maryland Probes Potential Recruiting Violation
By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 3, 2003; 5:45 PM

The University of Maryland is investigating its football program after one of its assistant coaches allegedly gave several hundred dollars as an enticement to sway one of the top high school players in the nation to accept a scholarship offer, sources familiar with the university's investigation said today.

Maryland athletic department officials today confirmed that a review is under way and that the NCAA has been notified.

Sources said that Maryland assistant coach Rod Sharpless allegedly gave between $300 to $400 to defensive end prospect Victor Abiamiri, a senior at Gilman School in Baltimore. The money was delivered in multiple payments, sources said.

Sources said that after learning of the alleged payments, Maryland ceased its recruiting of Abiamiri, the player returned the money and Sharpless resigned under pressure.

Maryland has retained the Overland Park, Kan., law firm of Bond, Schoenick and King to investigate the allegations. Representatives of the firm flew to the area and have started their review, sources said, which centers on whether other players or coaches were involved.

Sources said Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen learned of the payments last week from people close to Abiamiri.

Maryland officials, including Friedgen and Athletic Director Debbie Yow, declined to comment.

Sharpless, 53, who has 26 years of coaching experience including the past two at Maryland, also declined to comment.

Attorney David B. Irwin, a family friend of Abiamiri, said the player and his family would not comment.

"There are been lots of rumors flying around," Irwin said. "They are not going to confirm or deny any of this . . . They're looking forward to Wednesday when Victor is going to announce where he is going to go."

Sources said that Abiamiri now will accept a scholarship offer from Notre Dame, where he is expected to be joined by his high school teammate Ambrose Wooden.
 

 

 

What's wrong with UVa? Who knows
By Andrew Joyner  / Daily Progress staff writer
February 2, 2003

 

At some point the discussion and harping on Virginia’s road woes becomes pointless.
With Virginia dropping its ninth straight ACC road contest at Georgia Tech 80-60 on Saturday, there is a sense that a Virginia road win would be the unlikely scenario.
Perhaps when UVa coach Pete Gillen and his players talk “about stealing one on the road” it should be taken very literally.
Entering Saturday’s play, road teams have won just five of 28 games and Virginia’s own tribulations away from home are more the norm.
Yet, a close examination of that stat yields something very telling.
Maryland, the league’s top team, owns two of those five victories. If Virginia needs an example for what separates good teams from great teams, that’s it.
Yes, winning on the road in the ACC is tough. It’s not easy and when the league’s coaches speak ad nauseam about that fact, it’s not as if people would disagree. But in today’s college basketball landscape, it is the measuring stick.
Winning conference games on the road is something the nation’s elite teams manage to do more often. The ACC has produced the past two national champions and not surprisingly, neither Duke (2001) nor Maryland (2002) finished with fewer than 13 league wins. That translates into winning 50 percent or better of your games away from home.
Saturday’s game was example No. 1 of the home-court dominance in the ACC this season. Georgia Tech entered the game 9-0 at home and 0-2 (0-6 overall) in ACC road games and conversely, Virginia came in 0-3 (1-5 overall) in ACC road games and 9-0 at home.
Again, the margin might have been surprising but the result should not have been.
Still, there are theories on Virginia’s particular road problems. Gillen focused on 19 turnovers that led to 25 Georgia Tech points and poor ballhandling has continually hampered Virginia away from U-Hall. Gillen’s players offered their own opinions.
“Playing on the road just takes you out of your comfort zone. You are staying in a hotel. At least 8,000 people are screaming against you. The ball is a little different. The rims are different. The whole surrounding is different,” said junior guard Todd Billet, who had 19 against the Yellow Jackets. “Other than that though, it’s the same thing. … It’s tough to win on the road. For a lot of guys whether it’s youth and inexperience or whatever, it’s just tough to play well on the road.”
Consistently, Billet has been on of UVa’s better players away from home. Except for a subpar performance at Virginia Tech, the Rutgers transfer has been able to shake the road weariness that plagues his teammates. Virginia has four players in its regular rotation — Devin Smith, Derrick Byars, Billet and Nick Vander Laan — that are experiencing their first tour of the ACC and the others are mostly sophomores with the exception of senior forward Travis Watson.
Billet said Saturday that his productive performances on the road might have to do with the fact that he experienced some hostile Big East crowds while at Rutgers.
“Having been through it, you know the subtleties that exist on the road. You just have to block everything else out. If the home team makes a run, you have to go right back at them,” Billet said. “It’s the same game but the environment is a little different.”
According to junior Majestic Mapp, it’s Billet’s philosophy that the Cavaliers need to adopt.
“For the most part, I just think that we have to get better on the road. There’s not much more that needs to be said besides that,” Mapp stated. “In my opinion, we just have to mature. … We have to be more patient and realize that we can’t rush when we are on the road.”

 

 

Cavs get two LBs, one a surprise

Virginia was hoping for a football commitment today from a nationally acclaimed outside linebacker and got two of them.

Although an announcement from 6-2, 215-pound Jermaine Dias from Hackensack, N.J., had received most of the buildup, a commitment from 6-7, 240-pound Vincent Redd from Elizabethton, Tenn., could have a similar impact.

Redd, rated the No. 13 outside linebacker in the country by rivals.com, picked the Cavaliers after taking visits to Virginia Tech, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Dias' visits were to UVa, North Carolina, Maryland and Boston College. He was rated 74th among the nation's top 100 prospects by SuperPrep, which had him as the No. 8 linebacker.

UVa has commitments from 21 players, one of whom, linebacker Ahmad Brooks, enrolled after the first semester and will count toward the Cavaliers' 2001 scholarship quota.

Virginia and Virginia Tech are among the finalists for safety-wide receiver Chase Anastasio, from Robinson High School in Fairfax. Anastasio, also considering Notre Dame, has called a news conference for Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., when he will announce his choice.
 

 

 

James got what he deserved
JOHN MARKON
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Feb 03, 2003
Contact John Markon at (804) 649-6892 or jmarkon@timesdispatch.com

Call me insensitive, but I just can't work up too much sympathy for LeBron James, the 18-year-old Ohio basketball phenom whose prep career may have come to a premature end over the weekend when he was ruled ineligible by his state high school athletic association.

James, who's only a few months away from the NBA draft and a multimillion dollar contract, was undone when he accepted $845 worth of clothing. Now, he can accept all the gifts he likes. Beyond that, he can start cashing in on his ability. If his mother wants to buy him a $70,000 customized military assault vehicle - or if James wants to buy his mother a $500,000 house - there's no problem.

If James wants to lead a posse of 20 close personal friends into a store and walk out with some free shirts while his entourage buys at steep discounts, it would only be his business and the store's.

The only thing standing between James and the lifestyle he wants to enjoy was his insistence on being a varsity basketball player at his high school, St. Vincent's-St. Mary's of Akron.

James already has played on two Ohio state championship teams and one state runner-up. Does anyone think the pro scouts and the shoe company reps calling the shots on James' future gave even half a rip over how he fared in this year's regionals? The kid could have torn an ACL or something. Hasn't he ever heard of Willis McGahee?

James, of course, is on record as calling his SVSM teammates his "brothers" and saying he wants to lead his team to not only a state but a national championship, even though there is no credible or recognized national championship for high school boys.

When SVSM traveled to Los Angeles for a shoe company-sponsored tournament, however, there was a chauffeured limo waiting at the airport for James while his coaches and his "brothers" took a bus. James' dedication to his championship goal didn't include having the patience to wait until after the basketball season to collect his Humvee or his free gear.

At SVSM, the team was James and James was the team. Watching him on television, he seemed like a talented, selfish player who was barely aware of what his four teammates on the court were doing, as long as they prioritized getting him the ball. Why did he need another month or two of that?

People are ripping his school in the same way private high schools tend to get ripped when they indulge in recruiting and scholarship athletics. SVSM did make some coin on LeBron James, which ought to be plowed back into providing academic opportunities for other youngsters from the projects.

An even easier target is his mother, who apparently had a habit of dancing in the stands and yelling things like "Payday!" when her son would make a particularly deft move to the basket.

Other convenient blame magnets are the shoe companies and ESPN, now in need of alternative Friday night programming without its biweekly LBJ games. Now that he's "openly pro," James can drop all pretenses and negotiate his own shoe deal and ration his own tube time.

We're talking, remember, about a guy who would have been an NBA lottery pick had he entered the draft in 2002, following the 11th freaking grade. He's been bigger than the high school game for at least that long.

I have no problem with James standing up as a young man and saying "I want what's mine." He deserves it. The only price tag attached to this gesture is leaving schoolboys and their games behind.

 

 

Doherty doubters: Your coach isn't going anywhere
TOM SORENSEN
 

No. 17 WAKE FOREST AT NORTH CAROLINA

5:30 p.m., Fox Sports South

Some North Carolina fans are like villagers with torches in their hands and anger in their hearts as they storm the Dean Dome castle to demand the expulsion of Matt Doherty, their 6-foot-7 Frankenstein.

The villagers turn every game Doherty coaches into a referendum. Today's game against Wake Forest is a referendum, as was the last against Georgia Tech, as is the next against Duke.

Prove yourself today, Matt Doherty, or else you ... you what? Although Doherty has made numerous mistakes, he's not going anywhere. The only way the school could justify dumping him is if his top three freshmen -- Rashad McCants, Raymond Felton and the injured Sean May -- transfer.

If Doherty's relationship with the freshmen is so contentious and their loyalty to him so fragile that they go -- not to the NBA but to another college -- then maybe North Carolina needs to start over. Otherwise, Doherty is entitled to a fourth season.

Knowledgeable fans suspected that the Tar Heels, who are 11-8 overall, 2-4 in the ACC and have lost three straight, would struggle. They start McCants and Felton and usually a third less-heralded freshman and have no inside presence. Any team that starts three freshmen is likely to struggle, and any team that starts three freshmen and predicates its offense on three-point shooting is guaranteed to.

Knowledgeable fans suspected that the coach would struggle, too. When the Tar Heels hired Doherty, he had been a head coach for only one season. North Carolina didn't go after Doherty. After failing to lure Roy Williams away from Kansas, it settled for him.

He made an immediate mistake by failing to retain assistant coach Phil Ford, one of the most beloved college basketball players in this state and a visible link to Dean Smith's glory decades.

Doherty made another mistake Wednesday when, after a 20-point loss to Georgia Tech, he talked about going back to the drawing board. By Jan. 29, coach, the drawing board has been put away for so long that nobody would know where to find it.

Yet, there is hope. The Tar Heels have beaten Kansas, Connecticut and Stanford. Doherty is a tireless recruiter, and he and his staff are as adept at attracting players 6-8 and under as anybody in the country. What they need is a big man and another season.

But why should Doherty get another season when he does not comport himself the same way Dean Smith did?

Smith coached as if he should be wearing a pinstripe suit. Doherty coaches as if he should be wearing a jersey. Bill Guthridge, who filled the three seasons between Smith and Doherty, coached as if he should be wearing a bathrobe.

Replacing a legend is tough, and so is replacing the man who filled in for the legend. Yet the anti-Doherty faction is not as pervasive as you think. Don't confuse numbers and noise.

There are three groups of North Carolina fans. Students and alumni make up the first.

Folks who did not attend the school, but grew up with the Tar Heels the way other fans grow up with a pro football team, make up the second.

The third group happened to be in Wal-Mart the day the assistant manager announced a Tar Heels blue-light special on Aisle 12. These fans paid for their cap and T-shirt and they want their money's worth and they want it now.

And they better get it, because there was a sale that day on torches, too.

 

 

James doesn't appeal, still ineligible
Monday, February 3, 2003
By TOM WITHERS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLEVELAND (AP) - LeBron James has yet to appeal his banishment from playing high school basketball, keeping the 18-year-old superstar off the court.

James had been expected to appeal the decision Monday, but OHSAA spokesman Bob Goldring said the organization did not hear from him or his lawyer by late afternoon.

"Everything is status quo," Goldring said. "We have not heard anything about an appeal or any legal action."

James' attorney, Fred Nance, did not return phone messages.

James, regarded as the nation's top player and the next No. 1 NBA draft pick, was ruled ineligible on Friday by the Ohio High School Athletic Association for accepting two free sports jerseys worth a combined $845 from a clothing store.

As of late Monday afternoon, Nance had not filed for a temporary restraining order with Summit County Common Pleas Court, which would block the order so James could continue playing.

If James plans to appeal the decision by the OHSAA, he must do so to the agency in writing. The appeal would be heard by a state panel on Feb. 13 in Columbus.

James sat out the first game of his career Sunday, and his Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary teammates barely won without him, beating Canton McKinley 63-62.

Afterward, University of Akron police and James' own security personnel kept reporters away from him. He agreed to an exclusive interview with former NFL star Deion Sanders for CBS News' "The Early Show."

In the interview, scheduled to air Tuesday morning, James expresses remorse for accepting the trendy retro jerseys.

"If I had known I was violating anything, I would've never done it," James told Sanders. "I would've never jeopardized my eligibility. I would've never jeopardized my team."

"When I went in (the store), you know, I was just going in there as being, you know, another player, and they was trying to reward me for my good grades," added James, who has said he has a 3.5 grade-point average.

The OHSAA found that the Cleveland store gave James the Gale Sayers and Wes Unseld jerseys for free, in exchange for James posing for pictures to be displayed on the walls.

In addition to ruling James ineligible, OHSAA commissioner Clair Muscaro ordered his school to forfeit its Jan. 26 win over Akron Buchtel.

The Fighting Irish (14-1) entered Monday ranked No. 1 by USA Today but could drop in Tuesday's rankings because of the forfeit and James' ineligibility.

James' team is scheduled to play Saturday night at the Isles Prime Time Shootout in Trenton, N.J., a charity tournament featuring 11 of the top 25 high school teams nationally.

Martin Johnson, president of the Isles, Inc., a nonprofit community development group, said he expects James to not only appeal his punishment but win.

"I'm optimistic about the chances of LeBron playing here this weekend," Johnson said.
 

 

 

Virginia's Keith Jenifer Suspended Indefinitely
Sophomore guard Keith Jenifer is suspended indefinitely from the Virginia men's basketball team.
Feb. 3, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE - University of Virginia men's head basketball coach Pete Gillen has announced that sophomore guard Keith Jenifer is suspended indefinitely for conduct detrimental to the team. He will not practice or play in games during the suspension.

The 6-3 Jenifer (Baltimore, Md.) has started 14 games and played in all 19 of the Cavaliers' games this season. He leads the team in assists with 104 (5.5 apg.), and is averaging 5.6 points and 3.5 rebounds a game.

Jenifer played in all 29 games and started 15 for UVa as a freshman last season. He averaged 4.0 points, 2.8 assists and 2.0 rebounds a game, and was an honorable mention selection to the 2002 Atlantic Coast Conference All-Freshman Team.