Tale of Two Camps: Nike, Entrepreneur Compete for Players : Basketball: Shoe company keeps grip on most standouts, but UC Irvine camp attracts many talented players.

When Nike, Inc., and basketball entrepreneur Sonny Vaccaro parted ways last August, the end of the relationship left both sides claiming the rights to a famous camp for high school basketball stars.

Vaccaro says the concept was his, and so was half the name--Academic Betterment and Career Development (A.B.C.D.) Camp.

Nike, of course, had the more prominent half of the name and wasn’t about to discontinue a camp that is one of the cornerstones of its phenomenally successful shoe-promotion efforts in high school and college basketball.

Now, like squabbling ex-spouses who couldn’t decide who would get the house, Vaccaro and Nike have each built their own.

The result is dueling basketball camps, both claiming to be the descendant of the Nike/A.B.C.D. camp that used to draw the nation’s top 120 high school boys and hundreds of recruiters to Princeton, N.J., every summer.

Vaccaro has set up his A.B.C.D. camp at UC Irvine, where it will continue today through Wednesday. Daily game sessions from 2:30 to 5 and 7 to 9:45 p.m. at the Bren Center are open to the public for a $2 admission charge.

The Nike All-American Academic Camp begins today as well, and continues through next Sunday at Indianapolis, where the Nike/A.B.C.D. camp moved from Princeton last year.

Because the camps are starting the same day--”Not a coincidence, definitely not a coincidence,” Vaccaro said--they also competed for players.

The Nike/A.B.C.D. camp used to issue tuition-free invitations to the players it considered to be the nation’s top 120.

“Now, 240 kids instead of 120 can go to camp tuition-free and get good exposure,” said Vaccaro, estimating that about 50 players received invitations to both camps.

The Nike camp apparently will have the stronger field. Rich Sheubrooks, the camp director, claims Nike has drawn 85 of the top 100 prep players, according to talent scout Bob Gibbons. Gibbons, a practitioner of the imprecise art of rating young players, is working for the Nike camp.

Still, Vaccaro’s A.B.C.D. camp at UC Irvine has made some raids, luring such Southern California standouts as Charles O’Bannon and Avondre Jones of Lakewood Artesia High, as well as Dontonio Wingfield of Albany, Ga., who is considered by some to be one of the top five players in the high school class of 1993.

Of the top 20 seniors in the nation as rated by HoopScoop, a Louisville scouting publication, six are registered for the Irvine camp--O’Bannon, Wingfield, Ronnie Henderson (Jackson, Miss.), Donnell Williams (Bayonne, N.J.), Ed Elisma (New York) and Damon Flint (Cincinnati).

But Nike has kept its grip on most of the nation’s standouts. The other 14 of HoopScoop’s national top 20 are expected to be in Indianapolis. Among them is Jacque Vaughn of Pasadena Muir, along with Jerry Stackhouse (Kinston, N.C.), Keith Booth (Baltimore), Darnell Robinson (Emeryville, Calif.), Randy Livingston (New Orleans), Rashard Griffith (Chicago), Rasheed Wallace (Philadelphia) and Sylvester Ford (Memphis).

The only Orange County players scheduled to be at either camp are Jim Harris Jr. of Ocean View and Miles Simon and Marmet Williams of Mater Dei, who will all be at the Nike camp in Indianapolis.

A major beneficiary of the dueling camps is one of the college coaches who will be in the Bren Center stands, scoping the talent. That would be UC Irvine’s Rod Baker, despite the fact he is under contract as a consultant to Nike and Vaccaro’s camp is being sponsored in part by Converse. All Baker sees is 120 outstanding basketball prospects taking a long look at his campus and enjoying the Irvine area, without Baker spending a dollar to recruit.

Though the two camps are clearly competing and each side used its influence with high school coaches to try to secure the best players, both sides publicly downplay the rivalry.

“There’s no envy on my part,” said Vaccaro, who as a Nike representative initiated the practice of signing college coaches to contracts of up to $200,000 or more if they would have their players wear free Nike shoes.

Vaccaro was forced out at Nike last year. Now a “a free agent in the shoe business” who is associated with Converse only for the camp, Vaccaro remains involved in basketball promotions and has a company, Vaccaro Sports Marketing, in Pacific Palisades. He continues to call Nike chief executive officer and co-founder Phil Knight “one of the most influential” people in his life.

“It was time to move on,” Vaccaro said. “Corporate Nike is a lot different than Nike was in 1977 or ’78. My personality, I’m more, ‘Go wing it. Go do it.’ Just the very fact that I’m going to continue my camp shows that.”’

Sheubrooks dismisses the rivalry with a phrase that sounds more like a claim of victory.

“I don’t think there is much competition,” he said. “Initially there was a lot of misinformation going out; a lot of kids were confused. They were confused because Sonny Vaccaro left Nike and Sonny Vaccaro has been synonymous with Nike.

“I think we did very well on the West Coast. Nike camp has a reputation and a tradition that’s really strong.”

The camps have similar formats, including an emphasis on academic assessment. In an interesting coincidence, both are including a field of international players this year for the first time.

Vaccaro is adamant that he will not lose his camp because he is no longer a Nike employee; Nike isn’t about to let a good thing go.

“I think they can probably coexist,” Sheubrooks said.

It would seem simple for one camp to change the date it is held, but both are tied to the opening of the college recruiting season.

“I’ve always had the A.B.C.D. Camp the first day of recruiting,” Vaccaro said. “Now that I left Nike, that’s when I chose to continue it.”

Notes

Los Angeles area players participating in A.B.C.D. camp at UC Irvine--Toby Bailey (Los Angeles Loyola), Stais Boseman (Inglewood Morningside), Austin Croshere (Santa Monica Crossroads), Duane L. Curtis (Pasadena John Muir), Robert Foster (Los Angeles Fairfax), Jelani Gardner (Bellflower St. John Bosco), Avondre Jones (Lakewood Artesia), Cameron Murray (Glendora), Charles O’Bannon (Artesia), Michael O’Quinn (Downey Pius X), Ricky Price (Long Beach St. Anthony). Boseman is also registered for the Nike camp at Indianapolis.