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http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/acc/2005-02-09-georgiatech-telfair_x.htm
Ga. Tech's Hewitt disputes $250K Telfair bribe claim
By Malcolm Moran, USA TODAY
Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt denied a claim Wednesday in a new book that a representative of his program offered then-high school prospect Sebastian Telfair $250,000 to become a Yellow Jacket.
Hewitt's forceful reaction went beyond the potential recruiting fallout the assertion could bring. He said it was important to dispute the claim because of what it says about his industry. "We're getting to a point in sports where people make a comment and we believe it," Hewitt said. "No. 1, it's not true. No. 2, I just don't like the way it makes college basketball look."
In the book The Jump, by Ian O'Connor, a contributing USA TODAY columnist, a person close to Telfair, then a player at Lincoln High in Brooklyn, N.Y., identified Georgia Tech as the school making the offer. Telfair had not specified a school, saying only that a white, middle-aged man had made the offer.
Hewitt disputed the author's claim, made in a story in Wednesday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that the conviction of Alabama booster Logan Young for paying a coach $150,000 so a recruit would join the Crimson Tide made the possibility of such an offer plausible.
"Because of one case it can implicate everyone in the game?" Hewitt asked. "That doesn't mean all of us are thieves and crooks. I know it's not true, but I don't want to leave it to chance that anyone thinks that it's true."
Hewitt said he decided after Telfair's sophomore high school season not to recruit the prospect because the skill level made a direct path to the NBA a possibility. Telfair, after committing to Louisville, entered the NBA draft and was selected with the 13th pick by the Portland Trail Blazers.
"We didn't leave him a ticket to get into a game," Hewitt said. "And I find it impossible to believe that he was at a game and I didn't know it."
O'Connor said Wednesday that the person who identified Georgia Tech as the school said the offer did come at a Yellow Jackets game before Telfair was a high school senior and it's possible Hewitt might not have known Telfair was present.
"His profile really shot up during his senior year, and I made it clear in the book it was not an official visit," O'Connor said.
"Could he have gone down there as an underclassman and merged into a crowd of eight or nine thousand people? Probably."
O'Connor also raised the possibility in the book that the offer could have been a hoax and that the man who approached Telfair might have had no connection to the school.
Tiny Morton, Telfair's high school coach, said Wednesday that he did not want to discuss the claim until he reads the book.
NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson told USA TODAY on Wednesday night that he could not speak to specifics.
Also in the book:
• Reebok's Sonny Vaccaro, who wanted to sign Telfair to a sneaker deal, claimed Telfair had negotiated with rival Adidas in the presence of an agent, which would cause him to forfeit his amateur status. The NCAA's Bill Saum, whose duties include overseeing agents' activities, said a player "would certainly put his eligibility at risk" by negotiating in the presence of an agent. Kevin Wulff of Adidas denied any financial terms were presented to Telfair until after his high school eligibility ended.
• Mike and Chris Pitino, sons of Louisville coach Rick Pitino, helped organize a high school game between a Louisville team and Telfair's high school while the prospect was being recruited by the Cardinals. Telfair's high school received a $5,000 appearance fee and expenses for the trip to Louisville, according to the book. Pitino, whose team played Wednesday night, is quoted as saying that Conference USA called "to check this out."
Put a smile on: Notre Dame senior Chris Thomas' role in the victory against previously undefeated Boston College on Tuesday could be measured by more than a stat line — 19 points on 6-for-10 shooting (three of five three-pointers) with nine assists and zero turnovers. A season following knee surgery limited Thomas' progress, the outlook he projected became a positive influence.
"When my teammates see a smile on my face, that gives them more confidence," Thomas said. "I talked to a couple of my buddies, and they said that I was just not playing my game. So I wrote on my shoes, 'Just play,' and that's what I stuck to."
Three-point memory: The game was changed 60 years ago this week, when the three-point shot made its first appearance during Columbia's 73-58 victory against Fordham. On Feb. 7, 1945, the game at Columbia was played under rules suggested by Oregon coach Howard Hobson, a member of the rules committee who had coached the Tall Firs to the first NCAA championship.
An experimental game took place in an effort to eliminate the zone defense, "give the harder shot its actual worth," according to information distributed at the game, and decrease the emphasis on the big man.
More than 20 years before the American Basketball Association would feature the shot with its red, white and blue ball and more than 40 before Indiana's 1987 national championship would be made possible by Steve Alford's three-point shooting, a line was placed 21 feet from the basket.
The foul lane was expanded to 12 feet, twice the existing distance. Foul shooters were given the option of a two-point free throw if they moved from the 15-foot line to the 21-foot line.
The game, according to research done by Brett Hoover of the Ivy League, featured 20 three-point shots and eight "long fouls." A poll of 250 of the fans evaluated the experimental rules. Sixty percent supported the three-point shot, while 70% liked the wider lane.
Decades before former Indiana coach Bob Knight would smile as he repeated his disapproval of the three-point shot on his team's championship night, a similar opinion was expressed on press row. "There is more than enough confusion in basketball," wrote Louis Effrat of The New York Times, "without adding to it by modifying the present rules."
Contributing: Jack Carey, Thomas O'Toole
