Kevin Love's recruitment to UCLA

The NCAA sent a letter of inquiry to UCLA in connection with Coach Wooden's involvement in the recruitment of freshman sensation Kevin Love. Apparently Love met with Coach on his recruiting trip. Spending time with Coach is an amazing experience, something I've been fortunate to do on several occasions. I would liken an audience with Coach Wooden to the Pope (but in English and far more entertaining). If invited, you don't consult with the NCAA rule-book, you go -- and if you have to beg forgiveness later, so be it. If this sounds "Onion-esque" read on.

Bill Dwyre, another LA institution, who writes about the episode in the Los Angeles Times, wonders why NCAA protocol was so closely followed. Coach Wooden has been involved in college athletics since 1928, making the NCAA barely old enough to be his father. If you had to name an "All-NCAA" team of those who most embody the values of the NCAA, certainly Coach would be a first teamer, if not Player of the Century. I would like to think the NCAA is becoming more student-athlete friendly as they like to say they are, but there are still some ole Javert-types who view a rule as a rule. Certainly a phone call to UCLA's compliance guy Rich Herczog would have provided a satisfactory response: "Wooden, as a paid consultant to the school, is permitted to meet with recruits."

Dwrye wonders: "Even though we know better every time we read about big bowl money and the latest zillion-dollar TV network basketball tournament contract, does not the NCAA purport to exist for the betterment of the educational experience? What better educational opportunity anywhere than to meet and talk to John Wooden?"

--Marc Isenberg

Comments

[Jeff]

Great stuff on Coach. "If invited, you don't consult with the NCAA rule-book, you go--and if you have to beg forgiveness later, so be it." Amen, brother!

[Glenn G.]

Nice Javert reference! Go Les Miz !!!! My favorite !!

[Walter]

Right on, Marc, respecting Coach. I just bought They Call Me Coach for a 12-year-old godson. It's mandatory reading in our home.

[Wooden fan]

I can't believe the NCAA...ridiculous that they would put this in writing. Good gracious sakes alive.

[Miguel]

Any truth to the rumor that is was UNC coach Roy Williams who contacted the NCAA about the possible "violation?"

[Chris]

I certainly don't want to come off like a French cop, but...Nothing much will come of this. At most it will be a secondary violation and the NCAA will say don't let it happen again. The reason I agree with that is not that I want to keep kids from meeting Coach Wooden, it is because the NCAA needs to make a record of these secondary violations so that if it turns out that this is all part of a pattern of routine disregard of rules-breaking, it won't all get swept under the rug. It would be more arbitrary for the NCAA to say, "Yeah, sure, this was a violation, but come on, it was Coach Wooden," then it would be for them to actually follow the rules and document the thing.