David Salinas seemed like one of the good guys. Did I really know him? No, I talked with him at a high school game when he wanted my son to switch teams. He made a very persuasive low key presentation about why Houston Select would be best for my son. Personally, I felt all the switching around and hopping from the team to team was one of the problems with the summer world of AAU basketball. My son had committed to a team and decided to stay with it. It was a good team, one of the top 5 in the country the year before.
David Salinas was found on his water craft dead, a victim of suicide. A real tragedy for his family and the people associated with him. At last count, Coaches were bilked out of over 8 million dollars....or so it appears. Hopefully they find the money. Apparently it is gone. I have to say the coaches have shown a ton more restraint than I would have. Maybe the ones still employed don't want to talk too loudly because they know the NCAA may come around.
I always heard David had coaches investing with him. The guy who told me said it was life long coaching friends. I never connected the dots. In fact, the smartest guy in the whole situation was Tom Penders. He told Salinas up front that it did not seem right, that with Salinas' control over players, it looked like too grey an area for him to get into.
Salinas was great friends with Rice University coaches. Rice is a school no coach from other schools will talk down about. They do not compromise on academic standards and the kids they get attending that school have in general, great character. Who can doubt a guy who associates with guys as good as the people from Rice? You've heard of guilt by association, well in David Salinas' case it might have been innocence by association. To read more about this fascinating case click below:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1188681/index.htm
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A young man gets asked to commit to a school he wants to attend. Before the biggest camp of the year, the ABCD camp, where high schoolers like LeBron James among others will attend, the young mans dad and player are advised to go through with the recruiting process.
When the young man goes to camp, he plays well and gets some good ink on the various internet sites. The local school goes to every game he plays in and makes it look apparent that they are interested in this player. The player keeps playing well throughout the summer season from the local school as well as many high major hoops powers. The AAU coach keeps telling the player to go through the recruiting process. One time, when Colorado State was talking to the player, the AAU coach grabbed the phone and blatantly asked the assistant for some ski lift tickets. It wasn't a joke either. To the college coaches credit, he said he didn't know where he could even get any for himself. The coach kept persisting and asked for tickets and an exhibition game, with a hint hint but not outright said, that he could deliver said player. ( An exhibition game is not legal, but was a way for the various AAU teams to play the college teams on their first game. They would get paid 10 to 40k per game depending on the school, and get some ex college players to suit up and pay the players a hundred a game and pocket the difference. Nike and Adidas supplied these guys free unis and shoes, so they already had it all. )
All of a sudden the players phone stops ringing and there is panic. This player is too good for this to happen. Luckily, the player is connected to a former college coach and he ends up getting a scholarship. The coaches that come around say that they were looking at him, but with the local coach making it known they wanted him, they figured local kid, local school and they backed off.
After the player is in college for a year, his parents receive a call from an above board AAU coach who says the reason he stopped being recruited by the local school and other high major D-1 schools is that the AAU coach said he would deliver this player with an exhibition game and the money that comes with it...unbeknownst to the parents or the player. The father told me that he got to talk with the local coach (since fired) a couple years later. This coach was a really nice man and the father wanted to let him know they had no clue that this had happened and was really sorry. The bad part was the coach could have really used this player.
And that is one of the big problems with the AAU summer circuit. I have had countless parents tell me how mad they were because the AAU coach got paid for their kid going to a school and they got nothing. Now, I never heard this said about David Salinas, or the Houston Hoops for that matter. In fact, most of the players loved David from what I saw. And most coaches said the Houston Hoops were a class act.
I have seen some kids have a choice of 2 schools, with one being an obvious great fit, only to choose the worst of the 2 because the AAU coach got paid.
Again, I don't want to label all coaches in AAU this way or all college programs. Just know it goes down. It happens fairly often. An old saying used to be "Chicago kids know what they are worth." That probably means they have a street agent or pimp AAU coach. If you want to read about how crazy it is, read Play their Hearts Out by George Dohrman. It says it all.
Also, a friend told me this saying about the summer circuit:"The names may change but the game remains the same." It is guard oriented. It is ball hog basketball, because there are motives here and they are 1) I want to get rated as the best and 2) I want to be a star. The kids are drilled into this mode. These are the motives that are eating at the fabric of the game. How many really tall guys do I see that go nowhere near the post because they want to be highlight reels. Note to you coaches, it is not a coincidence that Shaq and Tim Duncan won so many titles. Guards are nice, but a big man that is dominant can help you dominate. Yes, every once in a while you will see good team basketball in the summer. But in many cases it is ball hog basketball and you might never know how good the big men are.
What you are left with as a spectator is a really terrible game like the finals of the NCAA tournament this year. Fundamentals are overlooked the majority of the time, again not by all. The motivational factor for a ton of the coaches are What's in It for Me, or maybe they are a parent. There are a ton of unqualified coaches and the last 10 years has produced an AAU team on every street corner. I would say in the last 10 years AAU teams have doubled. And the play has watered down accordingly. Every kid thinks he is a D-1 player. In my mind there is nothing wrong with going to a good NAIA school or a good D-2 school and graduating. Every year a number of NAIA schools and D-2 Schools defeat D-1 teams. Fact is, many a D-1 school used to be D-2 not that long ago. Parents, D-2 is a free education. If that is what your child gets embrace it and make sure he graduates.
One coach that will be nameless had the exhibition rule named after him (colleges no longer get them thanks to his up front abuse...he was a Houston guy.) This same coach had the world by the tail. He had 3 surefire pro players on his summer team, and once you got past his arrogance he was a very good coach. That just wasn't enough. One game in LA we had the bleachers by the baseline. We had to go all the way to Los Angeles to play a Houston team that both coaches refused to play because their egos were too big. This team had some players our team cut. The game was close and a time out was called. All parents were on this little bleacher behind the huddle in the end zone baseline. He chewed his team out and said the other team sucked. When he sensed these parents coming out of the stands...parents who couldn't stand him... he started stammering "Oh don't get me wrong, now they are damn good."
This coach started a board of directors with connected wealthy businessmen who could mentor some of the players. One generous man started a tournament and brought LeBron James to Clear Lake High for a weekend tournament. He did it without blinking an eye. He gave the coach money for the foundation in cash. He spent over 5 grand on junk at the tennis shoe company executive store and brought back some rubber watches for the board. That was the final straw. Unfortunately, the board was going to do some good things for the players that did not get D-1 offers as now this guy had 4 teams. They were going to scour the NAIA and d-2 ranks for some scholarships. Never happened.
AAU coaches will tell you that they are getting these guys scholarships. Most of the guys on the team above had them in the bag without ever playing a minute of AAU ball. AAU ball had nothing to do with their getting a full ride. These guys had the scholarship in the bag.
But the high school season is meaningless in most cases and the AAU guy has the free shoes.
I believe it is harder being a parent of a player than being a player. There is a ton of anxiety when scholarship times come. As a parent, you don't need behind the scene deals that can affect the integrity of your child.
I believe it is harder being a parent of a player than being a player. There is a ton of anxiety when scholarship times come. As a parent, you don't need behind the scene deals that can affect the integrity of your child.
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