Institute for Advanced Basketball : Each Summer, Top Prospects Gather to Be Seen at Princeton

PRINCETON, N.J. — And then there’s the one about Sonny Vaccaro being the most powerful man in basketball recruiting, about how he uses the annual summer Nike camp at Princeton University, an invitation-only affair, to get the best high school players into his Dapper Dan all-star game and then funnel them, with Nike shoe contracts, into colleges.

That one has kept Vaccaro laughing for quite a while. Only problem is, the joke is getting a little old now, and it’s become strictly grin and bear it time. For the life of him, the man who is supposed to have more influence on the courts of America than William Rehnquist can’t see what all the commotion is about.

Can giving away a couple hundred-thousand dollars a year so that high school basketball players can show off for the nation’s most famous college coaches, and maybe pick something up in the classroom at the same time, really be this difficult?

“I have never, until this year, felt so much grief,” says Vaccaro, the director of national promotions for Nike. “I’ve created so much before in my personal life by myself, but I can deal with that. I can’t even counter-act these claims.”

Like the Chicago Sun-Times article a couple months ago headlined: “(Sh)amateur camp?”

Or comments by All Star Sports Report publisher Bob Gibbons, also respected for his service, that “These are not the Good Humor people. It’s a business, and this camp is very important to his coaches. Those who have Nike contracts love it.

“I don’t know who had the foresight for it, but they should be complimented for pulling it off. They get the top high school coaches to strike a deal with Nike to get players to come here so some people can use it as a recruiting tool for Nike interests and the Dapper Dan game. A lot of power emanates from this camp.”

One high school coach in Gulfport, Miss., no fan of summer camps to begin with, tried to keep guard Chris Jackson out of the Nike camp last week by taking the Sun-Times story to the state association to show the evils of Vaccaro and his band of academic idealists. The board then ruled that no Mississippi athlete could accept more than $5 in gifts, which made it impossible for Nike to pay Jackson’s way and give him room and board.

Reportedly, Chris Corchiani, a guard from Hialeah, Fla., turned down an offer that would have given him two weeks for the price of one at a rival camp if he’d promise not to attend any other programs. Meanwhile, Nike takes heat for paying players’ ways, up front, to New Jersey.

John (Sonny) Vaccaro, 46, may even look the part of the heavy --high forehead, black and white bushy hair, 5-9 and 205 pounds. “He has had to overcome his looks,” Frank DuBois, the camp’s academic director, said. “He looks like the type of guy on Halsted Street in Chicago with a pistol. If I saw Sonny coming at me on a dark street, I’d go over to the other side.”

But to meet Vaccaro and his mob, to watch them during the five days of Nike camp 1986, talk with those who know them best and also the players who benefit most from the opportunity to come here is to see a group that, for the most part, seems perfectly incapable of pretense. Few other than Vaccaro have any great loyalties to Nike beyond wearing their shoes and shirts during the camp, with three of the prominent officials--DuBois, head counselor Rich Kosic and supervision director Forest Harris--having worked in the program before the shoe company became involved four years ago.

If anything, their loyalty is to Vaccaro.

“This is a Nike operation,” DuBois said, “but if it weren’t for Sonny Vaccaro, Nike would not be involved. I think they do it because they believe in Sonny Vaccaro.”

Amateur basketball, past, present and future, came to Princeton recently to look at itself.

The largest gathering of college coaches outside the Final Four was there, lining the bleachers and sidelines of Princeton’s Dillon Gym from June 26 until July 2 to look over the players who will make up the recruiting class of 1986-87 and several after that. The players looked back, as inconspicuous as possible.

“It’s a lot of pressure for a high school player to be out there,” said Ricky Butler, a Huntington Beach Ocean View senior and one of nine Southern Californians attending this year. “That’s their future. That’s why some guys showboat.”

DuBois, while watching one of the games: “They (the players) are selling themselves. Not in a bad way, but they are selling themselves. They are advertising right now and working on polishing up the package.”

USC and UCLA, among others, brought three coaches so as not to miss anything when three games are going on at once. Because of the talent, Nike has the reputation as a head coaches’ camp, so presumably the few who were not here were at the world championships in Spain. Otherwise, it was just every famous face in college basketball. No big deal.

Danny Manning of Kansas, Todd Mitchell of Purdue, Tim Perry of Temple and Andre Moore of Loyola (Chicago) were counselors. Pearl Washington had the job last year. Charles Barkley came by one day to offer some instruction.

All told, 117 of the 130 players invited by Chris Wallace, director of the selection committee and editor of the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, came to camp. Most of the no-shows were due to state restrictions on accepting all-expense paid trips, like Mississippi. There are some players who have been overlooked --like Purvis Ellison of Louisville last year.

Actually, 116 of the players were invited. One player, Derrick Jackson, a junior guard, drove downstate from Chester with his father the day of orientation and said he was ready to play. No one had the heart to turn him away.

For a while one afternoon, the number grew to 118.

The extra player had no jersey or number, only a red and white Nike T-shirt, was wearing black shorts, also non-regulation, and Air Jordans when he walked toward the end of the bench and tapped Coach Gary McKnight on the hat and said, “OK, coach, I’m in.”

McKnight, from Santa Ana Mater Dei and one of 15 coaches brought in by Nike, did a double take and prepared to tell the kid to sit down.

“Oh,” McKnight said, “It’s you.”

The player checked in and sent people in the stands reaching for their programs. After a couple minutes, though, everyone in the gym knew that Michael Jordan was playing on center court.

He played for about 10 minutes, left with 12 minutes to play in the game after three dunks and a couple nice passes. He spent some time on court 3, signed autographs and chastised one player for wearing Brooks shoes.

The best legitimate matchup came on the last night of the camp: senior Marcus Liberty (6-8, 190) from Chicago against senior Dennis Scott (6-7, 215), one of four players in camp from Flint High High in Please see CAMPS, Oakton, Va. The two top-rated players in the country would face each other on center court.

“A lot of players here are from small towns,” explained Scott, who, along with Sean Higgins of Fairfax (1984-86) and UCLA-bound Trevor Wilson from Cleveland High (1983-85), is part of a select group to attend the camp three times. “A guy might come in from a small hick town in Oklahoma or West Virginia or something like that and he won’t be used to all the extra attention, especially with the cameras. He might see the camera out of the corner of his eye during a play and try to look extra perfect.”

Scott, however, was not worried about the pressure.

Then, wearing a red shirt under white jersey No. 100, he went out to face Liberty, wearing a white shirt under jersey No. 130, in a man- to-man setup. Scott was more aggressive than Liberty in the eight minutes they were on the court together in the first half, relying on his jump shot with rare success. It was the same story in the second half.

So much for big matchups.

“I stunk up the gym,” Scott said afterward. “My jumper was way off.”

“I didn’t stink up the gym,” Liberty said, “but I think I need to improve my ball-handling.”

The two then shook hands and headed downstairs to the locker room. Liberty stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“You never know,” he said. “We might end up playing on the same college team.”

This is the best camp, the best organized, however you want to put it, that I have ever been affiliated with. The people are nice, but I’ve learned a lot, too.”

--DENNIS SCOTT, Flint Hill High, Oakton, Va. A camp’s a camp, and I’m not knocking it. I’m glad to get the free trip and all, but playing is the main thing, to get to play against the best in the country.

--DAVID WHIMORE, St. Bernard High, Playa del Rey

No one has the audacity to claim that the nation’s best prep basketball players come to Princeton during the summer to learn, but it is part of the program. And just as the countrywide search for high school coaches comes out of the $200,000 that Nike put up this year, so, too, does DuBois’ search for 14 teachers.

Each player is given two tests the first morning of camp--the Gates-MacGinitie exam for reading and the verbal portion of the SAT exam--and, taking into consideration the player’s year, placed accordingly. This year, DuBois said, 30 players tested at college-level freshman or above, 17 at sixth-grade or below. One-fourth to one-half of the seniors will not qualify to play Division I next year under the new NCAA guidelines.

“These are better kids than last year in terms of academics,” DuBois said. “Last year, 30 were significantly below average and only one was a full section above their grade level.

“In school, some people pamper these kids and make exceptions for them because of their athletic talent. A lot of these kids are concerned with themselves being superior athletes and a number of them don’t even care about academics.

“But it comes as a relief to him to realize that he does have a problem and that someone is there to help him. Nobody wants to be stupid.”

Because DuBois has academic information on the players, he has become increasingly popular at the camp among college coaches. They introduce themselves, put their arm around his shoulders and ask if a certain player is going to make the grade. DuBois turns down their requests.

Other than the classroom, there are also daily lectures from staff members or representatives of the NCAA, former players and various anti-drug organizations.

Someone asked Vaccaro for his side of the story, something you don’t have to do twice.

“We’re pure and we’re honest and we tell everyone what we’re doing. We have no contact on any level with a college or recruiter, and no one else can say that.

“I’m proud of what the kids accomplish and mad about what the people accuse us of, that we’re not in it for the betterment of the kids. Those people are all pretty jealous.

“Why can’t, without accusation, somebody just do something for the good of the game? This is a very critical time for the sport. Basketball is America’s game. These are the next heroes of America.

“If nothing more, we’re helping to preserve the game. And we make some money off the game itself, not these kids. We can’t afford to lose this. Nobody (other shoe companies) can.”

So he will be back next year for more. It seems that for every player who comes up at the end of the week to thank him for the class two years ago, there are just as many people to knock what he does.

He says the satisfaction comes with the success stories each year, and Chris Jackson automatically became one before taking a shot just by making it here from Gulfport, Miss. Vaccaro tells the story of how Jackson’s mother took out a bank loan to send her son to camp without ruining his eligibility in Mississippi, of the struggle against the red tape to to get him here, when Wallace leans in with a reminder.

“We’ll have to go through the whole thing again next year.”