Coach’s Role as Recruit’s Guardian Investigated

Two National Collegiate Athletic Assn. investigators spent this week in Las Vegas looking into Nevada Las Vegas’ recruitment of former New York City prep star Lloyd Daniels, school officials said Friday.

The investigators interviewed between 15 to 20 people associated with the UNLV basketball program, including Coach Jerry Tarkanian and Athletic Director Brad Rothermel.

“We knew this was going to be part of the procedure,” Rothermel said. “I’m guessing we’re somewhere in the middle of this inquiry right now, maybe closer to the end than the beginning.”

Also questioned by the investigators was Mark Warkentien, the Rebels’ basketball recruiting coordinator when Daniels was actively recruited in 1985 and 1986.

Rothermel said it is Warkentien’s relationship with Daniels that is at the center of the investigation, particularly Warkentien’s actions in becoming Daniels’ legal guardian.

“It’s not necessarily just the legal guardianship, but that appears to be the focus,” Rothermel said.

The NCAA is investigating allegations raised in a 1987 Newsday article that Daniels accepted numerous gifts, including a car, from Warkentien.

A former UNLV player, Ricky Collier, reportedly made the allegations, then later withdrew them.

Rothermel said the NCAA policy on legal guardianships has never been clarified, and that UNLV thought it was acting properly when Warkentien became Daniels’ guardian.

“The conference office said to us at the time that the guardianship was generally acceptable, however if we needed clarification to get it from the NCAA,” he said. “We did that, but it was after Mark became his guardian. That’s where the question is.”

Rothermel said the NCAA interviewers wanted to know whether the guardian-recruit relationship was entered into to give UNLV an edge in the recruitment of Daniels.

Daniels, who some said was the best New York City prep player in a decade, was arrested while allegedly trying to buy rock cocaine and never played a game for the university. He was shot in New York City in late May and is recovering from his wounds while trying to play semipro basketball.