NCAA Hoops: Packaging Self-Hate through “Package Deals”

I was writing something  long and winding but needed to take a break because of an Outside the Lines (OTL) piece I watched Sunday morning…

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Sunday OTL and its impressario, Bob Ley, gave us a report about an NCAA basketball practice called, “package deals.” A package deal is one where a high school – or younger – recruit is further wooed to a university through the hiring of a person in that recruit’s sphere of influence, be they a player’s father, high school, or AAU coach.

On the surface, the “report” will probably be lauded for touching on what is a certainly a problem in the collegiate basketball ranks. However, upon closer inspection, we will find that ESPN showed us that it is afflicted with a corporate disease of which they have full knowledge of but actively choose to ignore. It is the disease of at once wanting to be the Microsoft of sports, that is, be all things to all people, protect its tight alliances with the leagues, while attempting to remain known as a “news” network.

Now, this commentary could hinge on the braces of racism quite easily. We have ESPN telling us that there is a black affliction in the ranks of collegiate basketball called “the package deal. Young black men are delivered to overwhelmingly white populated and patrolled colleges and universities. Once within the confines of the campuses they are charged with one thing and one thing only – to make money for said college or university’s athletic program and further the career of the white – probably – head coach.

Meantime, the other half of this old time New Deal entails another black man. Usually this man is older and is a father, a coach, or mentor of some sort, but rarely all of those. The older man must want something for delivering this strapping young black buck to the jaws of the Great White Shark, eh? Oh yes he does. And what he receives is what amounts to an honorary position as an “assistant coach” or “recruiter.” Every so often, which happens to be quite often when you think of it, money is exchanged between a “representative” of the university and the older black man.

In its infinite wisdom ESPN and its representative, Ley, portrayed seven instances of this deal. All the players and older men involved were and remain black of skin color designation. They even interviewed two of the young men involved in such deals. One said he would have gone to college wherever his older pimp – oops – mentor was stationed. The other, still in high school said of course he is influenced by the fact that his mentor is now an “assistant” at Baylor University in comely – and I’m being nice in that one word description – Waco, Texas. Of the colleges the high schooler is considering Baylor, though an excellent site for receiving an education has the worst basketball team. The other schools are either perennial NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament participants or are perennially on the cusp of being invitees to what is commonly known as the “Big Dance.”

The OTL producers – again, acting as sagaes and intelligent men and possibly women – charged little-use in investigative reports, Darren Lynn, with the task of ferreting out the vagaries and the villains of this story.

That’s right Darren Lynn. Not Andy Katz or Pat Forde, regulars on the ESPN basketball beat streets, regulars of the NCAA hoops feature story and investigative story.

The network instead used Darren Lynn.

This is not meant to demean Lynn or his capacity to carry a 15 minute videotaped, televised in-depth report about a college basketball-related topic. What I am saying is that there are men in the network’s Bristol, Connecticut located halls who know this topic inside and out and back in again.

But by using Lynn we were ensured that the only part of the story that would be elucidated was the part ESPN wanted to highlight, not the portion that would drag the real culprits – the money men – into the light of day and hold open their eyes with toothpicks or some other object of torture.

No no no. What ESPN did was highlight one of two major sports program universities with a large contingent of black boosters. And one with a black athletic director. The university is Southern California. The black boosters are largely former athletes. The athletic director, a former Heisman Trophy and Super Bowl winner, is a black man named Mike Garrett.

So, ESPN giveth – and ESPN taketh away.

Can you feel the religion? No? Can you feel the racism?

Probably.

But.

Racism is too easy a charge here. Obfuscation, sure. Self-protecting, uh huh.

Yet it ain’t only racism that I’m seeing here. That’s the most obvious and the easiest of the problems. And as we know, if racism sells, ESPN is going to sell it like it’s the last bottle of snake oil they have to offer a hungry group of prairie dust-ass pioneers looking for their god in all the wrong places.

Let’s go back to the package deals. Let’s get to the crux of the biscuit. Or if that Frank Zappa reference is too arcane, let’s get to the “jits” of the matter, as Mos’ Def would say.

At its heart, the package deal is a matter of self hate.

That’s right, I wrote it. And I’m not in the midst of a demonic hostile takeover by the still living spirit of Jason Whitlock. Or Bill Cosby. Or Armstrong Williams, Or pasty-lipped Stanley Crouch.

And in need of an exorcism. I was raised a Catholic but I am not a Catholic.

Yes folks, this is a case of black people engaging in that time-honored American negro practice of self hate.

If black men are worth a quarter we’ll trade ‘em for fifteen cents. Unless we’re up to our eyeballs in caskets and prison cells.

In the case of NCAA basketball package deals, older black men are trading younger black men like welfare money for dollars on the open “black” corner market. We’ve been like this for as many centuries as we’ve been on this soil.

You know the names for the black people who would serve up another black man in the hopes of being one step closer to “Massa”, “house nigger” being chief among them. Only today, these older black men are actually convinced that they are doing the right thing, doing a good thing for themselves and the young men they fork over to head basketball coaches around the country.

Predictably, the black men are defensive.

As Delonte Hill, the consort for Michael Beasley – formerly of Kansas State form an oh-so brief run and now with the Miami Heat – said of himself in response to being a part of the package deal:

“It [being called part a package deal] gives me the title that that’s all I’ve done is brought Michael Beasley to the table and that I haven’t recruited anybody else and I haven’t done anything before Michael Beasley.

“I wouldn’t be in charge of recruitin’ if I could only recruit Michael Beasley. I’d be in charge of scouts if it was just about Michael Beasley. I thinkl I’ve done my diligence I just haven’t got credit for it.”

Well Delonte was the coach of a Washington, D.C. area AAU basketball team before joining Bob “Huggy Bear” Huggins at KState (after Beasley left Huggins moved on to coach West Virginia). He did deliver Beasley as promised. And he delivered five other D.C. area ballers – all of whom he coached in his AAU days.

You recruitin’ all right Delonte.

Hill’s self-incriminating statement was not the only one made during the 30 minute report – well about 15 minutes if you count commercials and three minutes or so of disjointed chat where three white men discussed this package deal problem of black men.

As compensation for his “head recruitin’” job, Hill pulls down a princely $420,000, which is at least twice as much money as the top assistants at Kansas, North Carolina, or Memphis earn.

All that for six brothers from Dark City? My inclination is to delve into Mr. Hill’s personal finances to find if any of that pay is floating around in those recruit’s pockets. Hill has been on the J-O-B three years and has “recruited” six players to the Wildcats basketball program.

That works out to $70,000 per recruit.

The OTL show then moved onto Mario Chalmers who was the point guard for last season’s National Champion Kansas Jayhawks team. Chalmers hit the game-tying three-pointer which propelled the Jayhawks to their title. It is a fairy tale ending to a collegiate sports career to be sure.

However, after Marion came down from the hinterlands of Alaska, his daddy, Ronnie, joined him in Lawrence, Kansas. As an assistant to head coach Bill Self.

I guess any place is better than the Great North White People’s State. After arriving in Lawrence, Ronnie was immediately made “director of basketball operations” for the Kansas men’s team.

Of the elder Chalmers’ hiring Self did some purring and averring:

“We had an opening on our staff and I thought he could help coach our team – and in large part to coach his son. But we did not hire Ronnie to get Mario.”

What kind of double-palaver is that? You recruit the son, admit you move the father down from Alaska to coach the son – but give the father the title “director of basketball operations” (no director of basketball ops in the NBA would be caught dead coaching, but oh well) – and say you didn’t hire the man to get his son?

Next to perform what black people know as the “perp walk” in the OTL lineup was shooting guard from Chester, Pennsylvania ( a hotbed for young black men looking to use basketball as a means of escape from their mostly dream-constricting environments), Tyreke Evans, who is a freshman in the Memphis Tigers basketball program.

Evans beneficiary at Memphis is one John Calipari, a much-traveled head coach who has experience in the NBA ranks as well as with collegiate rosters. In the case of Evans, Calipari probably thought he would elude reporter-types and NCAA investigators looking for signs of immorality in his program by waiting five months before completing the deal he almost surely made with Evans.

After a 150 day or so wait from signing day Calipari sent for Evans’ former trainer from Philadelphia, Lamont Peterson. Peterson’s present job? If you said team trainer you got the wool pulled over your eyes. On no no no, Peterson was hired as an ——— are you ready for this?… an “administrative assistant” to Calipari himself.

In other words, Peterson was hired to shut the eff up and stay ensconced in the shadows of the athletic department, except when Calipari needs something like a run to office Depot for a box of #2 pencils and a package of legal pads —– and stretch out Evens whenever the much-wanted shooting guard’s hamstrings are tight.

When Lynn approached Calipari with the news that “some people” think it’s looks fishy that the coach hired Peterson, “Coach Cal” as Calipari is called was less than magnanimous in his response – and predictably, the white men are aggressive:

“Well you can say that. There are people that are gonna insinuate anything. But Ty-reke committed to us and there were no staff openings. So there was no, like, ‘you come (meaning Peterson) – we had no staff openings.

“The people that know us don’t need to hear anything. The people that don’t know or maybe don’t like us, they’re not gonna hear my explanation; they don’t care.

“And you know what — I don’t care.”

Calipari smugly grinned and shrugged his shoulders as he finished his remarks to Lynn, who was clearly shuddering in the face of a man who reporters know can become the brusque, bullying type in a heartbeat.

So, Coach Cal’s explanation is that the Memphis basketball program had no openings and therefore Peterson is not part of a package deal for the young 6’6” buck, Tyreke Evans.

I see. So Peterson’s hiring was not the result of a closed-door meeting between Calipari and Evans where Coach Cal asked Evans what he wanted and “needed” to make him comfortable at the school; where Evans said, “Yeah coach, I want you to put my man Lamont on; get him out of “Illadelph” and on your payroll.” And an inventive Calipari did just that, putting Peterson “on” by making him an administrative assistant.

That’s not a good look Coach Cal. Especially when you also tell us that suddenly five jobs opened up and Lamont Peterson just happened to get one of them. It is definitely not a good look when you tell us that Peterson’s job is an entry-level job lasting only eight months (hmmm, just long enough to get through the regular season and the NCAA Tournament) and those employed are earning only $1000 per month, and receive no benefits.

The background crew at OTL quickly found Peterson’s Memphis employment records. Lynn reported that the man with the title of “glorified gopher” was actually pulling down $4500 per month for six months (ahhh, up to March Madness – then Peterson will quietly slip away back above the Mason-Dixon line to the chillier climes of Plilly).

In a twist on the overall story so far, Peterson was not allowed by the university to conduct an interview with Lynn. I guess not, once the reporter had the goods on Peterson’s pay.

But the university was brazen enough to allow Memphis athletic director RC Johnson.

When Lynn asked Johnson if Peterson would be at the school if Evans was not there, Peterson disdainfully shrugged off the question – first with his shoulders, then with his words:

“Probably not because it was after the fact when he came here anyway.”

Which is code for, ‘the NCAA can’t touch us on this, so go away with your investigative report.’

Lynn then asked Peterson if he thought it was ethical to offer a package deal to a recruit.

At this point, Peterson, in his arrogance, spoke the words that every head coach or athletic director who becomes imbued in the shady dealing that is the “package deal” would like to speak. And he did it with not a care in the world:

Yeah I think it’s okay I really do. If you have someone and you want to get him there and you have good intentions I think it’s okay. I wouldn’t want to do it year after year and make yourself someone that you do it all the time and this is how you hang your hat. I think then you’d have to take a good, hard look at it. But every once in a while to do something along those lines, I think it’s fine.

Translation: If you need a player, that one player who can make your program if you get him onto your campus, you get that boy by any means necessary.

Malcolm would go back to the bullet if he knew of all the white men who applied his philosophy for attaining personal freedom to their philosophy of acquiring personal power

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I should let you know now that I’m not delving into the USC situation at all. I’ll allow ESPN to do all the bashing of their program because there is the element of racism in their reportage of this package deal reporting that, to me and some other black reporters, is unmistakable.

However, I will leave you with this about the young man I mentioned way back near the beginning of this lengthy commentary-article. The young man in question, whose mentor and AAU coach, DeJuan Clifton, has been employed by Baylor University’s basketball program in anticipation of him attending their university, is a high school basketball player who has the tag “phenom” attached to him. He is thought to be far better than NBA star point guard Chris Paul was at the same age and level of playing experience.

His name is John Wall.

Wall is, barring a miracle of cataclysmic proportions, most certainly a one-and-done player; that is, he will play in college for one year and after that when he turns 19, which is the base eligibility age to play in the NBA, he will turn pro. It is said by someone in the know that Wall’s “people” have also attached a price tag of $250,000 to his head. Any college wanting Wall must lay out the cheddar in stacks if they want the services of the “next big thing” in college basketball.

Undoubtedly, that money is for Wall’s “people” – his black people – and not earmarked for him. Wall must play that freshman season, excel, and not get injured if he is to collect his pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow, which is his rookie NBA contract and all the endorsements that go along with his potential as a star in The League.

Once again, black people are auctioning off one of us to the highest white bidder. And of those in the trade game, there is one surprise entry. He has not made an appearance in the Final Four in quite some time now. He recruits “good kids” (read “white boys”) as his team leaders and key players. The black players on his team have, for a stretch, been secondary talents, for the most part.

Lately though, this coach’s team makeup has a few more black faces than usual. And he has finally unchained his most talented black player, a senior now, and is being rewarded with a player who attacks the game in a fashion similar to that of Kobe Bryant.

And yet next season this coach’s team will be without a reliable point guard. And he knows with certainty that Wall is just the player to carry him to the mountaintop once again – even if it is for just one season. Because of his relationship with NBA superstars like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Chris Paul, the coach might have an inside track to Wall. And because he has not played on that final NCAA basketball weekend in so long, he is just desperate enough to meet Wall’s “people’s” financial demands.

This coach is Duke Blue Devil head coach and famed all-around saintly “good guy,”
Mike Krzyzewski. He is Coach K – who most popularly comes to feed the masses turning goodwill into pizzas for the poor students who wait in tents in the dead of winter for the right to sit in the student section of Cameron Indoor Arena. He is Coach K, coaching progeny of the General, Bob Knight. He is Coach K, Army alum. He is Coach K who brought back the gold medal in men’s basketball to the good old USofA by stripping a collective of individual NBA superstars and turning them into selfless, sharing, and caring human beings.

He is Coach K, who will use the knowledge that too many black people are self-hating enough that they will sell their young to the highest bidder and narcissistic enough to think they are getting over on the powers that be all at the same time.

He is Coach K who will prey on John Wall’s people just like any good mantis.

Coach K knows all this. And if he can get the right people to pony up the cash, young Mr. Wall will be seen across America playing in a Dukie Blue uniform next college basketball season. And Walls’ “people” will be right there decked out in Blue Devils garb cheering like they just hit a $250,000 lottery ticket.

And to tell the truth, wherever Wall lands his self-hating negro “people” will have hit the lottery.

Let’s just hope for their sake no sore loser in the John Wall sweepstakes wants to hit back.