Billy Giilispie inks another great athlete. UK basketball is on a roll!
Welcome to the Big Blue, Daniel Orton! The Nation is glad to see you come on board.
Archive for October 14th, 2008
All Eyes on Billy Gillispie.
In UK Basketball on October 14, 2008 at 11:24 amIt should come as no surprise. Random school does it. Anything. It doesn’t matter. From recruiting 8th graders to UCLA paying players to stay at UCLA. Whatever it might be. Any school does it. No headlines. No outrage. No real objections.
UK does it. Suddenly it’s a problem. Billy Gillispie inks an 8th Grader. Dick Vitale screams that it’s a sign of the Apocalypse. Billy Donovan inks an 8th Grader and it’s a sign of his genius. Billy Gillispie holds midnight madness a week early. Headline news. Four other schools did the same thing this year. Can you name them? A UCLA Booster paid it’s players thousands, tens of thousands over a ten year period. Openly. It was an open secret. Absolutely not a peep from the NCAA. Duke Boosters hire parents of players into positions for which they are unqualified and help them obtain loans for housing for which they are woefully financially unprepared. Not a sound. Not a whimper. An Emery Envelope falls open in the hands of a UCLA fan containing $1,000.00. Supposedly this envelope originated with a UK booster. UK is put on two years probation. Almost given the death sentence. Emery was sued over this and settled out of court.
Now that UK has a Coach that will play the recruiting game within the rules. He does things that journalists have always found “questionable” but rarely made much noise. That is the old days. A Kentucky Coach doing it is news. Now they will make noise about it.
Jeff Goodman. He admits that everyone is doing it. But now that UK is doing it, he’s got himself a story. That Baylor was doing it or Kansas or Oklahoma State were doing it. Not big enough. UK. That’s a different story, And one that must be written.
It’s a lack of journalistic integrity. It’s a lack of integrity within the NCAA Rules and Infractions Committee. It’s been there since the beginning.
KENTUCKY COMMIT NO SURPRISE
Oct 13, 2008 | 7:54AM
I have to admit I wasn’t surprised that Daniel Orton, one of the top big men in the country, committed to Kentucky over the weekend while in town for an early Midnight Madness.
Not because Kansas took itself out of the equation when the Jayhawks took a pledge from forward Thomas Robinson.
But because it certainly didn’t hurt that Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie paid Orton’s father, Larry, to speak at camps in Lexington on three separate occasions this past summer.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t against the rules.
It’s just Gillispie being Gillispie.
Remember, he was basically the guy that came under fire for being one of four coaches to hold Midnight Madness a week before the “official” start of practice.
Creative? Absolutely.
On the verge of being unethical? It depends who you ask.
Larry Orton admitted he was also paid to speak at Kansas and Oklahoma State, but he only picked up one paycheck from each of those schools.
C’mon. He may be articulate, knowledgeable and could even rival Bill Clinton in terms of his ability to captivate a crowd, but that’s not why he was there.
He was there because he is Daniel Orton’s father.
AAU coaches, high school coaches and many others affiliated with top recruits have collected a paycheck for getting up in front of young kids at these summer camps.
Texas Blue Chips director Mitch Malone spoke a couple times at Baylor this past summer. He was involved in Ekpe Udoh’s transfer from Michigan to Baylor and also coaches Quincy Acy – who committed to the Bears and is one of the top players in Texas. There are plenty of others who take advantage.
It’s getting out of hand and isn’t illegal. Not yet.
It’s triggered an NCAA proposal (13.12.2.2.2) in which a school is not able to employ a speaker in its men’s basketball camp or clinic who is involved in coaching prospective student-athletes or is associated with a prospective student-athlete as a result of the prospective student-athlete’s participation in basketball.
I don’t mean to go after Orton here, but this guy isn’t exactly on par with, say, legendary high school coach Bob Hurley.
His background: a couple years of junior college ball, a cup of coffee at Old Dominion capped off at Cameron University in Oklahoma. He’s also an assistant AAU coach on his son’s team.
However, Orton’s resume doesn’t matter. He says he speaks about the recruiting process and “what’s going to happen once the kids get to school” and “to get kids to understand it’s hard work.”
“I’m not trying to get any special privileges or anything like that,” Orton said. “I just think I’ve got something to say. I think I’m a pretty good speaker.”
That’s not why Billy Gillispie has brought him to Lexington on three separate occasions – two with his son.
Orton wouldn’t divulge how much he was paid per appearance, but it’s likely somewhere in the neighborhood of $500-$1,000 a pop plus travel. That’s how much two other high school coaches were compensated to speak at one of the UK camps.
Orton’s other son, Terrence Crawford, who played for current Kentucky assistant Glynn Cyprien at Oklahoma State, also made numerous appearances at the Kentucky camps.
Larry Orton was recently unable to confirm whether schools had offered Crawford a position on their staff.
“I heard Kentucky and Oklahoma State both offered him a job,” Orton said. “I don’t know. Nothing’s done until it’s done. If he gets a job, it’s going to come out, anyway.”
As we know, that isn’t illegal either.
Cambodia and Thailand: Will it be War?
In Cambodia, Politics, Travel, culture on October 14, 2008 at 9:53 amIs this the Thai government attempt to divert the countries attention away from the PAD protests and madness? What is going on in the Land of Smiles? It seems to be going insane. Between the PAD, the Muslims in the South and the Cambodian border, Thailand has become the land of division, protest and madness.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered fresh troops to the border with an ultimatum to Thailand: Pull military forces back today or the border will become a “life and death battle zone”.
Hun Sen told reporters in Phnom Penh that he had warned Thailand’s visiting Foreign Minister Sompong Amornvivat that without a quick pullout, Thai soldiers could face being fired upon by Cambodian troops in “large-scale armed conflict”.
“If they cannot withdraw tonight, they must withdraw tomorrow,” said Hun Sen.
“We have tried to be patient, but I told the Thai foreign minister today that the area is a life-and-death battle zone.”
His comments came after talks with Mr Sompong in Phnom Penh.
Mr Sompong also met with his counterpart Hor Namhong in a bid to resolve the dispute over the area near the ancient Preah Vihear temple.
The Cambodian foreign minister said yesterday’s talks failed to end in agreement because his Thai opposite number “could not sign anything”.
Hun Sen and Hor Namhong both told reporters that Cambodia could choose to take the border dispute before an international court if it was not resolved soon.
The comments made by the Cambodian prime minister and foreign minister surprised Mr Sompong and Thai officials, who were adamant that the meetings had not been a failure.
Mr Sompong said the tone during the meetings between the two countries had been different as the Cambodian leaders agreed that both sides had to be patient in resolving the border spat.
He said no Thai troop withdrawals would be made from the 4.6 sq km overlapping area between Kantharalak district in Si Sa Ket and Preah Vihear province of Cambodia until the dispute over ownership is cleared through negotiations in the Joint Boundary Commission that was set up to demarcate the land border.
Thailand reiterated its ownership over the area, Mr Sompong said in Bangkok and rushed to report the talks to Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.
Suranaree Task Force commander Maj-Gen Kanok Netrakavaesana will hold talks with his Cambodian counterpart tomorrow on the border issues and the Thai and Cambodian defence ministers will meet next Tuesday , according to Mr Sompong.
Cambodian Deputy Defence Minister Gen Neang Phat said more Cambodian troops were heading to the area after up to 500 Thai soldiers had tried to cross the border near an ancient Hindu temple that is claimed by both countries.
“We are building up our troops at the border in response to Thailand, but I cannot reveal the number,” he told reporters.
Maj-Gen Srey Deok, who oversees the Cambodian military in the disputed area, said: “Thai troops have already entered the area. They are confronting our troops.”
But Maj-Gen Kanok denied that more troops had been sent to the disputed area near the Preah Vihear temple.
Thailand and Cambodia have 10 soldiers each at the Keo Sikha Kiri Svara pagoda near the Preah Vihear temple and 45 around the compound on joint patrol, according to the agreement between the two countries to ease border tension.
The two countries also have back-up troops near the border.
The number of soldiers there remained unchanged, Maj-Gen Kanok said.
Maj-Gen Kanok slammed Cambodia for distorting information and taking advantage of the political crisis in Thailand to launch an offensive move for its own political benefit.
The Suranaree chief, his patience wearing thin, called for a quick solution to the border spat and a clear direction to be provided by the government as it could become an armed conflict if it was left unsettled.
“I want the government to solve this problem and make it clear what to do. If it is left this way, nobody knows what is going to happen,” he said.
Tensions between Thailand and Cambodia first flared in July after the Preah Vihear temple was awarded World Heritage status by the World Heritage Committee.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belongs to Cambodia, but the surrounding land remains in dispute.
Tensions escalated into a military confrontation in which up to 1,000 Cambodian and Thai troops faced off for six weeks.
The two countries have swapped accusations of violating each other’s territory in the dispute.
(with Agency reports)
