Recruitment of Fairfax’s Mills Elicits Questions, Not Answers

Over the weekend, it was reported that Chris Mills of Fairfax High might not play basketball for the University of Kentucky after all.

That was the word from his father, Claud, who has shown a penchant in recent weeks for dropping innuendoes and refusing to explain them.

In a weekend interview with the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, he said: “I really don’t know if (Chris is) coming to Kentucky or not. I really don’t know. It’s up to the NCAA. . . . I don’t care anymore. I’m sick of it. I’ve got a hundred reporters calling me every day. I’m sick and tired of you accusing my son of something.”

The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and the university are investigating an allegation that $1,000 in cash was found when an overnight mail envelope addressed to Claud Mills popped open at a Los Angeles sorting center. The sender was listed as Dwane Casey, a Kentucky assistant coach.

Monday, in an interview with WLEX-TV in Lexington, Ky., Claud Mills claimed that he had been misquoted by the Herald-Leader and that Chris will, indeed, play for Kentucky.

Mike Johnson, the newspaper’s sports editor, said that Claud’s original interview is on tape and that all quotes are correct.

The elder Mills also objected to an investigation the Herald-Leader was doing into his life. “All that stuff is an allegation, and it will be proven real soon it’s not true,” he said.

Two weekends ago in Albuquerque, N.M., site of the McDonald’s all-star game, he walked down a hallway after a practice session, waving his hands in the air as he went, and said:

“I said I’m not saying anything. . . . Somebody’s gonna get hurt. . . . Somebody’s gonna get a lawsuit. No one’s messin’ with Chris.”

What Chris Mills wants is unclear. Contacted at home Monday afternoon, he said, “I can’t speak to nobody.”

Meanwhile, the Louisville Courier-Journal has reported that the NCAA is also investigating whether the mother of Sean Kemp of Elkhart, Ind., another star in the Wildcats’ second straight outstanding recruiting class, had her expenses or transportation paid during a campus visit.

All parties involved--the Mills family, Kemp and his mother, Barbara Brown, and the university--have denied all charges.

Emery Worldwide air freight, which handled overnight delivery of the package sent to Claud Mills March 30-31, finds itself caught in the middle and will no longer comment on the matter except to deny the possibility that any employee was in on a plot to frame Mills, Kentucky or both by planting money in the package.

Casey’s attorney, Joe B. Campbell, told the Courier-Journal he has “absolutely no reservations” about suing Kentucky if the school tries to make the coach the fall guy for any violations, and that Emery could also be sued for “everything from negligence to defamation of character to invasion of privacy” if it does not cooperate.

Claud Mills mentions lawsuits regularly.

So far, however, no one has been sued, and Mills’ attorney, Ron Hecker, said Monday that no suits are forthcoming. “There’s not anybody who comes to mind who may have done something wrong to get sued,” Hecker said.

In the coaching fraternity, Casey apparently has few detractors. A 31-year-old former Wildcat co-captain who played on the 1978 NCAA championship team, he has been regarded as one of the up-and-coming coaches in the country.

Casey was being interviewed for the vacant head-coaching job at the University of New Orleans the day the story broke about the money in the package. Some say that it was too big a coincidence that a newspaper would get a tip on a story like that when a big job was at stake.

Previously, Casey had been recommended for the Providence job when Rick Pitino left for the New York Knicks.