Of all the self help vows I’ve made, it is one of the most important for my continued sanity.
A resolution I must admit, I break Every Single Year.
Do not allow the whims of teenaged basketball players to effect your serenity and well being.
Yet, here I am again. At once, proud that I’m holding off joining yet another group that follows such roster building stuff microscopically.
Still checking my computer every half hour or so to see if there are updates.
I beseech thee, Naismithius, allow your gentle
countenance to shine upon me and grant me peace.
* * * * *
As wacky as this season turned into decades ago with the advent of recruiting gurus and services, it is even more so now.
It used to just be HS kids. Then we started talking about middle schoolers, like you know, Rajon Rondo’s son.
Now it’s the portal, who’s going, who’s staying, who hasn’t told us yet, who’s visiting? What about the Euros? Anybody from the Lost Continent?
I am too old for this.
I know that.
I can’t help myself.
Until the Maalox kicks in, there’s gastrointestinal turmoil, wondering who’s got next?
Did I mention I’m too old for this.
* * * * *
I recall a moment in the early 80s.
Sitting on one of the dozen or so stools at the serpentine formica counter in Williams Food Shop, the great long-gone diner at 5th and Market. Still the best grilled onion laden cheeseburger ever fashioned.
Next to me was a proud, boastful father.
Talking about how his son, soon to graduate from IU was starting a recruiting service. How he was already one of the most knowing experts in the land.
That son, Clark Francis.
The Hoop Scoop.
I used to see him all the time at Cardinal games. Loved sitting next to him, because he loved to talk ball incessantly. A kindred spirit.
It was then that I guess I fully comprehended that recruiting was a thing.
* * * * *
Reminder to self:
Do not allow the whims of teenaged basketball players to effect your serenity and well being.
* * * * *
Francis was all over the Brandon Bender quagmire.
The kid’s whisper counsel.
BB, who delusionally mused he might turn pro after his junior year at Ballard, was a had to have for the Cardinals early in the Pitino regime.
He came. But, his father’s son, he was a relatively inconsequential, pain in the ass one and begone.
He’s far from the only cautionary tale.
It’s now that I trot out, as I do Every Single Year, other cautionary tales.
You’ve heard ’em before. Now again.
Because I need to remind myself, you hopefully understand . . .
Do not allow the whims of teenaged basketball players to effect your serenity and well being.
* * * * *
Number 1. My conversation with Cardinal diehard and recruiting obsessive Ernie Allen on Jefferson Street in front of Citizen’s Fidelity in 1975.
In the wake of U of L’s FF appearance in San Diego.
“We’ve absolutely have to get Winford Boynes.”
He found his heart in San Francisco.
The Cards survived. Thrived.
Number 2. In ’80, in the wake of Louisville’s first crown, Vern Fleming, a classic NY PG, a must have, a we’re gonna get.
Went to Georgia.
The Cards survived. Thrived.
Number 3. Fab Melo, the big we had secured the night before signing day in 2010.
Until the next morning when he signed with Syracuse.
U of L ended up with some Senegalese never heard of, Gorgui Dieng.
Seems to have worked out OK.
* * * * *
Will I remember these admonitions in the days/ years to come?
Today when a couple of top TP ballers are supposedly scheduled to visit?
When I’m through with this and it’s posted?
You tell me.
Loudly please, my stomach’s gurgle is cranked to 11.
— c d kaplan
