CIVIL WARS: Keeping the Recruiting Battles Clean – January, 2010

Last September, the WBCA sent out an email noting they’d been inundated by calls concerning violations during the July “quiet period.” It encouraged coaches to report possible violations to Elizabeth Ramsey, Assistant Director of Enforcement and Liaison for women’s basketball so that the NCAA could do the necessary fact-finding investigations.

“I think we all want the game to be as clean as it can possibly be,” said Sherri Coale, Oklahoma coach and past president of the WBCA. “What we’re trying to do is be as pro-active as possible because, like most things in life, it begins small and snowballs into larger and larger things and, before you know it, there are a lot of major infractions that are skewing the playing field.”

But asking coaches about the severity of recruiting violations or the prevalence of negative recruiting in women’s basketball can be a bit like trying to pin down a ghost: there are feelings, but not a lot of concrete evidence.

“A lot of things that we hear are either told to us by a scholastic or summer league coach,” explained Tulane head coach Lisa Stockton. “It’s basically hearsay, so it’s difficult to prove.”

“It’s a shame, but I think there are a lot of violations,” admitted Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw. “A lot of people are concerned about the ethics in women’s basketball, but it seems like more and more people are cheating. I think the common perception is that they’re cheating because you can get away with it. And they’re getting away with it because nobody’s turning them in.”

“Some don’t want to say what’s going on,” agreed Kathleen Richey-Walton, WBCA board member and coach at Southwest Dekalb High School and with the AAU Georgia Metros. “When that takes place, then it’s sort of like, they SAID we can’t, but since no one else is really saying anything, it’s sort of like we can.”

“It’s our own fault,” added McGraw. “We’re sitting back and saying, ‘Oh, yeah, well nothing happens when somebody cheats.’ It’s up to us to be the ones who change that.”

CLEANLINESS BEGINS AT HOME

The first step a coach can take is to ensure their staff is totally engaged with their Compliance Office. “The way the NCAA enforcement program is set up,” said Chris Strobel, Director of Enforcement for secondary infractions, “each member institution has an affirmative obligation to monitor their athletics programs for compliance with NCAA rules and regulations and to self-report those violations when they’re discovered.” Over 95% of secondary infractions are self-reported, said Strobel.

“I flat out tell people that the enforcement staff and the Committee on Infractions (which handles major violations) really are more concerned about institutions that do not report ANY violations than they are about those that report several,” he explained. “The rule book is SO complicated, there are so many different scenarios out there, violations are probably happening. So, if you’re not reporting any, you’re either not catching them – which you’re supposed to be doing – or you’re not reporting them – which you are definitely supposed to be doing.”

SPEAKING ABOUT OTHERS
When it comes to addressing violations outside ones own institution, the WBCA is encouraging coaches to speak up – no matter if it’s a longtime friend or a distant acquaintance. “We don’t want to get into a situation where there is this discomfort with reporting violations,” said Coale. So, she tells her staff, “If you know of people who are doing that, don’t come back and complain to me. Tell me who it is and let’s go through the proper channels – proper channels being first and foremost, I notify the head coach. It can’t be hearsay. It can’t be, ‘I think.’ It has to be ‘I saw this,’ ‘I heard this,’ or ‘I was first person witness.’”

“In the few times in my career that we have observed any of that, I’ve called the head coach and it’s been taken care of immediately. Immediately.”

Even when the supporting evidence may be slim, said Stockton, taking action is always better than letting something fester or become fodder for the rumor mill. “I’ve been involved in something that I just couldn’t prove and we’ve still made calls to those schools. Of course, they couldn’t prove them either. But at least I felt like we informed the compliance people of those schools that there was something questionable in their program. At least we tried.”

DOES IT NEED TO BE FRONT PAGE NEWS?
Currently, while “public reprimand and censure” is a standard NCAA penalty for major violations, it is not a typical penalty for secondary violations. Strobel recognizes that this can lead to public misperceptions. “Some media article will come out reporting some sort of violation on an institution’s part, and then the rest of the world doesn’t hear anything more about it. So they assume, ‘Oh, the NCAA let them off,’ when that’s not true. We’ve processed it, we’ve penalized the institution, we’ve penalized the coach. It’s just not made public.”

The reason is that, along with privacy and legal concerns, secondary violations are considered inadvertent in nature and do not represent a significant competitive advantage. Not to mention, the sheer number of violations (3,916  reported in 2009) would make the public reporting process burdensome.

That being said, McGraw wonders how this “secrecy” impacts people’s willingness to speak up. “Even after you report something, you don’t know what happened. I think that’s the frustration of the coaches: ‘Well, I did turn her in. Nothing happened.’ I think if it was on the front page that this school was reported for these violations, the cheating would stop just a bit. Nobody wants to see their name on the front page for something like that.”

Ultimately, said Coale, “I think we as coaches have the responsibility to do our due diligence and then trust the NCAA to do their due diligence. There has to be that mutual respect or else it will continue to be a quagmire.”

TIP-TOE AROUND TEMPTATION

It’s impossible to ignore how the growth of the women’s basketball has influenced – at times adversely – the actions of coaches. “The support nationally of collegiate programs has changed people’s pressure to win,” acknowledged Stockton. “When you talk 15 years ago, coaches were fired, but not as they are now.” Additionally, she continued, “there’s more money in coach’s and assistant’s salaries. We have basketball operation people now. You used to have a Graduate Assistant. No one fought to get a GA position. No one cheated to get a GA position.”

“I think young coaches,” said Coale, “in particular those who are striving to climb the ladder, land that big recruit, and have that marquee name on their resume have to be real careful to not let the pressure of a particular situation guide their behavior. It’s all our responsibility, as ‘veterans’ of this profession, that they feel enough eyeballs and attention on their activity that the right decision is a little easier to make for them.”

Unfortunately, the decision is more challenging if an assistant finds their head coach turns a blind eye to that ethical line. As a former college coach, Richey-Walton’s understands the loyalty an assistant coach feels they owe their coach. “They’re the ones who got you started and, when you want to go to the next level, they’re going to be the ones doing the recommendations.” But she doesn’t expect an assistant to abdicate his or her own sense of what is right. She refers to the saying on the t-shirts her high school players wear: “Your character is determined by what you do when nobody is looking.”

“That’s the most important thing,” Richey-Walton stressed. “We’ve won a couple of championships at Southwest Academy and we can be proud of them because we know we didn’t have to cheat or cut corners to win. I don’t know how you can be proud of something that you know you didn’t do it the right way. Your career’s going to be over sooner than you realize, and when you look back on it, you want to be proud of what you did.”

CHOICES, DECISIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

One obvious reason for a coach not reporting violations or negative recruiting tactics is the fear of being blackballed. “It’s definitely a real issue out there for assistant coaches,” acknowledged Strobel, “especially the younger ones who are trying to make a name for themselves. I think that we’re actually seeing less of those types of cases. That’s not to say it’s still not out there, but with some of the cases we’ve had, the message that’s getting out there is that the Committee on Infractions understands the dilemma assistant coaches are in. But,” he added, “You’re sacrificing your career by being loyal to this individual who has violated the rules. So you need to really think about which what is more destructive to you in the long run.”

“We all have to make those decisions,” said Coale. “If they were easy we wouldn’t even be talking about it. It really doesn’t matter at the end of the day if someone is going to blackball you or some coach is going to view that as disloyal. What can YOU live with? What do YOU want to stand for? Those are personal decisions that people have to make and, for the good of our game, I think they are necessary decisions.”

“As a head coach,” Coale added, “I think it’s our responsibility to not promote people who don’t speak up. If doing it right enables you to advance, more people will do it right. It’s just like having a muscle: the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes, the more comfortable you get in bringing those things to light.”

THE SCHEDULING PUZZLE: Juggling Square Pegs, Round Holes and Dollars Signs

During a recent Debbie Antonelli and Beth Mowins “Shootaround” podcast, Oklahoma’s coach Sherri Coale described the gap between desire and reality within the scheduling process:

You can ask a coach and [they] would not like to be on the road three times in a row. And a coach would like to have at least two games televised on their home court on Saturdays, etc. etc. You come up with 15 criteria [and] at the end of those criteria you can’t build a schedule. It is physically and humanly impossible to satisfy all of those criteria and come up with a schedule.

Or, to put it more simply, coaches dream, and their assistants and basketball operations managers laugh – sometimes hysterically.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
It’s no surprise that location and conference has an enormous impact not just on scheduling economics and opportunities, but also on the wear and tear on staff and student athletes. “I remember when I worked for coach Yow at NC State,” recalled Beth Burns, now head coach at San Diego State University. “I got home from a road game at nine o’clock and I’m like, ‘what do you all do around here? This is crazy!’” “It was a bus league,” she explained. “It was the easiest thing I’d ever done, because I’d been to Colorado with Ceal Berry and been in Oklahoma and Missouri. Once you get west of the Mississippi it’s a whole different animal with how you have to travel and do things.”

When she returned to SDSU and the Mountain West in 2005, “I could have filled my schedule in 15 minutes because we stunk,” said Burns with a laugh. “And we’re in the most beautiful city in America. And we have a major airport.” Of course, that blessing can be a curse when it comes to away games. “Three quarters of my league gets to be on a bus against each other. They get to have fun trips. We’re on a plane everywhere we go.” Recently, for instance, the Aztecs played at Texas Christian University. “It’s two time zones over and we had to get up at two in the morning to get back to go to class on Thursday.”

Another wrench in her scheduling is that, unlike many schools with a Wednesday-to-Wednesday exam schedule, SDSU runs Saturday to a Saturday, encompassing two weekends in December. “That’s why we went to Hawaii [this year],” she explained. “We did not choose to go from UConn to Hawaii. We did not want to take the worst travel trip in America. But, it was three games and I had to get three games. I really didn’t like our schedule at all, but we lived through it and we’ve done okay.”

SCHEDULING THAT POT OF GOLD
An accepted fact of Division I scheduling is that teams will pay another team come play them at home. The fee can encourage teams to travel to hard-to-get arenas, allow the host to reap the benefit of a strong fan base and can underwrite other programs. “We see on the men’s side hundreds of thousands of dollars guarantee games,” said Joe Logan of Loyola University (MD). “On our side I don’t think were looking for the ‘big’ money as much as we might just be looking for it to cover the cost of the trip and to supplement our budget. And that is different at every mid-major. Sometimes [the fee] goes into the women’s basketball budget, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Locking in those games is not without its challenges. “The problem arises when the guarantee is suddenly not enough,” said Nels Hawkinson, Executive Director of Basketball Travelers, which has organized tours and tournaments for over 20 years. “You settle on a figure – say $12,000 – and you say that’s the best you can do (even though it may not be). You send out a contract and then the contract never shows. It might be a legitimate reason – maybe the coach might not be back next year so the contract is being held. But there are also other reasons they’re not getting it back. They think, ‘Great, I have $12,000 for sure,’ and they’re going to tell the next person that calls, ‘Listen, I’ve got $12,000 from somebody, if you give me $16,000 then we’ve got a deal.’”

Burns has no issue with programs asking for money. What she expects in return is a measure of honesty and directness. “Some people are straight up right from the beginning. They’ll say, ‘Listen we’re going to play three road games and we’re trying to get this much.’ And I’ll say, ‘you can negotiate all you want, but I’m not holding out on you. This is what I’ve got. So if this isn’t going to make it, well then let’s let it go.’”

“I don’t want to sound old school but if I shake your hand I’m coming or you’re coming,” she continued. ‘That’s just the way it goes. Now, I’m not that naïve — sometimes things have to change. I’ve had to call people and say, ‘Listen, we just got this great opportunity to take this trip – can we move it around? I’ll help you replace the game if necessary. I just would hope that most of us won’t straight up stiff people. But there are people who will do that,” acknowledged Burns. “You just have to have a long memory and remember.”

“It is like everything else in this world,” she continued. “90% of the people do it exactly the way you’d hope they do it and 10% don’t and they’re not going to. And that’s why we have an NCAA rulebook that’s thicker than the Manhattan phone book. People are ethical some people aren’t — and more are ethical than not.”

I HAVE TO SCHEDULE HOW MANY GAMES?
In 2006, the NCAA increased the permissible number of contests in basketball. Some programs have welcomed the extra games – others have not. “We have trouble finding games a lot of years,” admitted Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw. “There is this crazy ‘trying to get a game, trying to buy a game, trying to get people to come’ time. Or, we want to go to a certain area and there are some schools that just they say, ‘No way, we don’t play you guys. We’re looking for win.’ So it is it’s a challenge. Every year I feel like we’re always looking for that last game or two.”

This year, Burns simply chose to under schedule “not because I don’t competitively wish we could have another win on the board,” she explained, “but I can’t play during exams and that’s a fact. It’s better to have rest in our case. That’s our challenge. Because we’ve got to play the games. The fact that we played ranked teams and were able to beat a couple of them — well that makes all the difference in the world. And I can’t play eight ranked teams if I only have eight non-league games. My conference is too good. We have to be able to have a balance.”

Discussions will be held at this year’s Final Four about possibly reducing the number of games and, said McGraw, “it’s going to be interesting to see how that goes. I’m in favor of it because we’ve had a couple years where we didn’t even play all the games.” Of course, McGraw recognizes that there are many who want to maintain the total number. “I think probably the mid-majors are going, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. You’re taking away some money [because] if you drop a game, it’s not going to be a conference game, so it’s going to affect us.”

“I can totally understand where Muffet and Beth are coming from,” said Logan. “One creative option is just give people a choice. Every conference plays a different number of conference games, so every team within an individual conference has a different number of non-conference games that they can schedule. And, obviously, exams across the country are at different times. So, if they want to play 30 games, if they want to play 31 games, or play in an exempt tournament, give them the choice. Say look, if you only want to play eight non-conference games because of your economics and that’s what your administration agrees to, then that’s what you do.”

“Now the question there becomes what will the NCAA committee do? How does that affect your RPI would be the very first and very next question. For instance, say I played 34 games and won 28, while you only played 27 games and won 19. Our percentage might be the same, but are you penalizing me because I can’t afford to play non-conference games?”

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: THE ECONOMY
As the reality of programs undergoing 10% cuts and required furloughs, it’s not much of a reach to anticipate shifts in the fee system. “If that guarantee money doesn’t increase or doesn’t cover the cost of the trip,” said Logan, “now it becomes, ‘am I going to go play those games? The idea of flying out to Stanford to play a top 10 program, a Hall of Fame coach and to get a great experience for kids to go to a school like Stanford and see what it’s like, those days I think are to go by the wayside.”

“If we are going to go and play in San Diego, Beth is going to have to say, ‘We’re going to cover your costs.’ Because I don’t think I’d be able to say to my administration, ‘look it’s only going to be $7000 instead of $14,000.’ They are going to say, ‘that $7000 is five local trips.” Whatever amount of guarantee money may be available in the future, other questions loom. “Do we want to spend that extra money on non-conference travel or do we want to spend that money on recruiting?” asked Logan. “And the next piece is we are able to go overseas once every four years. Some of our guaranteed money helps us with our overseas trip. So, do we see the value in the overseas trip or do we see the value in our non-conference scheduling? And that will become another debate, institution by institution.”

FUTURE VISIONS
“I think you will see is the increase in exempt tournaments,” posited Logan. “There is a value in those where you can say, “look we are going to spend $5000 for weekend, and we’re to play three games but it’s only going to count as one.” He also wonders if some of the top conferences may start playing more games at a non-conference site. “If we can’t afford to go to an Oklahoma or Texas Tech or somewhere like that,” said Logan, “I think that they’re are going to have to travel to place the mid-majors on the road — which hasn’t happened either in recent years. I can see that that would grow the sport if some of those bigger schools would come play in some mid-major gyms so that it would get exposed to the local community. If you can get a Stanford, a Georgia, a Connecticut, a Notre Dame to come they would garner interest just by their name alone.”

There may be more opportunities to start tournaments similar to those on the men’s side. The question will be getting sponsorship and teams to play in them. Burns has already set up a double-header to support her conference-mates. The first “JHG Jam” – in honor her collaborator Jane Hancock, of a local businesswoman – will feature SDSU playing Arizona. Utah will play against UCLA because, as Burns noted, “Utah can’t get people to come to Salt Lake. So what I’ve tried to do is invite a different league team every year and UCLA is going to have a neutral court game. It’s only a two-hour bus ride and that allows their fans to be able to see it. I hope it’s going to be a win-win situation.”

“But you know,” she said, “the economy is just frightening. “You just have to use your head. It’s a lot easier for me, being in the city that I am. I try to use trade a lot. We can get hotels. We can get a Sea World to pass. But cash is cash. It’s an issue,” concluded Burns. “It’s a fact.”

Coaching USA Basketball: A Road Paved With Gold? – April 2005

If I asked for a quick show of hands, I bet 80% of the people reading this would be hard pressed to identify what the rather inelegant acronym ABAUSA stood for. Of course, since I wouldn’t want to encourage gambling, I’ll give you a hint: ABAUSA was created in 1974.

Still not sure? Hint two: It was renamed USA Basketball in 1989.

Confused? Well, then, please indulge me in as I share a little back-story.

When the United States joined the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) as a member in 1934, it was the Amateur Athletic Union (a very different beast than the AAU of today) that FIBA first recognized as the organization responsible for USA teams in international competitions. While the AAU had been holding U.S. women’s basketball championships in since 1929, the 1953 World Championship marked the very first time a major international basketball competition was held for women. Until the early 1970’s, staff and players for those teams were drawn from AAU teams, sometimes known as Industrial teams, with names like Nashville Business College, Midland Jewelry, Raytown Piperettes and the Hutcherson Flying Queens. AAU All-Americans like Katherine Washington, Doris Rogers and Colleen Bowser competed under the direction of coaches like John Head, Harley Redin and Alberta Cox.

ABAUSA, or the Amateur Basketball Association of the United States of America, emerged in 1974 after a 10-year struggle between the AAU and other U.S. basketball organizations for control of the USA’s international teams. With the recognition of ABAUSA by FIBA, international teams and coaches began to be drawn almost exclusively from the collegiate ranks. The first team fielded by ABAUSA was for the 1975 World Championships. Though coached by Cathy Rush of Immaculata College, it included none of Rush’s “Mighty Macs,” instead featuring such players as Lusia Harris, Nancy Dunkle, Ann Meyers and Pat Head (later Summitt). Choosing Rush as coach “really was a no-brainer,” admitted Bill Wall, Executive Director of ABAUSA from 1974-1992, “Margaret Wade having retired and Cathy having just won three straight AIAW titles with Immaculata.”

Why this walk down memory lane?

Because in examining some of the concerns around college coaches coaching for USA Basketball — Is it fair for them to be coaching potential recruits? Is the process for being a USA Basketball coach open enough? How does one position your athlete to become a participant in USA Basketball? — it’s obvious these are not new concerns.

“We heard those stories way back,” said Wall, recalling in particular the reaction to the rapid elevation of one young person to a coaching position. “We moved Pat Head up very quickly because of the fact she was an outstanding player and, we all know now, had the making of a helluva fine coach.”

This is not to say these issues are not legitimate and worthy of discussion. But it is useful to put them in context of the very explicit mission of USA Basketball: To win gold medals.

To those within USAB, agendas that distract from that goal, especially the idea a coach coaching the younger teams might attempt to recruit those players, seem incomprehensible. Anne Donovan, who has been involved in USA Basketball since 1983, first as a player and most recently an assistant coach for the Gold medal winning team in Athens, seemed almost stunned at the possibility. “I understand and recognize why they’d be concerned but – and forgive me, but I’ve been so entrenched in USA Basketball for more than half my life – that organization is not run with that intent. You’ve got all these all-stars who want to play, all who have been starters, and now you’re the coach that doesn’t think they’re a starter? You’re going to make five friends – your five starters. And you better win a medal, because that also affects their career. USA Basketball program has been so much about gold and silver medals, that anything less than that is almost unacceptable.”

Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, a five-time USAB coach, response was immediate. “I don’t think it’s an issue, to be honest. USA Basketball is real clear about the demarcations between coaches and players. You’re not supposed to do any recruiting. If you do, you just won’t do [USA Basketball] again. You’re a professional and you need to act like a professional.”

Professionalism was a theme echoed by recently retired coach Colorado Ceal Barry during the USA Basketball panel at the 2005 WBCA convention. “If you go in with the idea that ‘I’m going to recruit this player,’ as opposed to going in with the idea that ‘I’m going to win a gold medal,’ you’re already off on the wrong foot,” explained Barry. A coach for nine different USA teams, she noted her most recent team had several unsigned players. At her first practice, her focus was not on recruiting those seven or eight athletes, but, she said with a smile, getting the entire team into “something that replicated a defensive stance.”

“You can disrupt the chemistry if you’re focusing your energy and time on recruiting,” Barry added. “As a head coach, I expected that from my two assistants as well. If one of my assistants was focusing on recruiting, she lost my respect. You may gain a player that plays at your school for four years, but I feel like you’re asked to do a job as important as coaching a USA Basketball team, and there are a thousand other options to coach that team, you’d be foolish.”

Ironically enough, Barry and fellow panelist Jim Foster, himself a coach of nine USA teams, wondered if coaching the recruitable athlete was actually such an advantage. “Some of these kids have never been through a collegiate practice,” explained Barry. “I told these kids this summer, ‘I’m a college coach, you guys are high school. I’m going to run these practices like college practices.’ I gave them plenty of warning at the trials – told then what to do, how to prepare. And when they showed up, none of them had. In three weeks, you can’t really build trust,” Barry continued. You don’t have that sort of opportunity. When you’re trying to whip a team into shape to get ready for gold medal competition, you have more opportunity to lose them.”

“Every coach walks in to it knowing that the expectation is a gold medal and nothing else is good enough,” said Foster. “You can finish fifth in the league and get into the NCAA Tournament. [For USA Basketball] you’ve got to win the games to get to the medal round, and then you’ve got to win the games in the medal rounds just to know you did what was expected of you. So, when you see a coach, you see them in real time. And they’re not recruiting, believe me.” As an example, Foster recalled the questions raised after University of Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma coached Ann Strother, who later signed with UConn. Foster, a good friend of Auriemma’s said, “If you spend three weeks with him and you still want to go play for him, you’ve seen the whole package. I don’t think it’s an advantage at all.”

USA Basketball is well aware of these concerns, explained panelist Carol Callan, who’s been involved with USA Basketball since 1989, and has been Assistant Executive Director of Women’s Basketball since 1996. “We’ve had many discussions on what we could do to try and make this right.” This past summer, for example, because Barry was practicing during the recruiting time, she was required to open up practices half time so other coaches could attend and observe. But that had it’s own unexpected repercussions. “If you’re the coach trying to get on a kid and they’re sitting there wanting to be recruited, you can imagine what kind of disaster that can be in terms of getting your team together,” said Callan. Additionally, it didn’t really “solve” the problem since observing can’t match the interaction between coaches and those players. A coach spends more time with the team just because they are the coach. And, to be honest, as three-time Olympic medalist and fellow panelist Dawn Staley pointed out, “coaches who are coaching these high school players [are] showing them why they’re one of the best coaches in the country.”

“But I have to say, from a USAB stand point, is it fair to have your best players and not give them the best coaches?” asked Callan. “You want to have the best coaches with the best players. You want Candice Wiggins to become Dawn Staley. But, I don’t know the answer the other than what we’re doing, which is to continue to try and make sure that we select coaches that are the best coaches and will not [recruit]. I can’t say that it doesn’t happen, but we certainly watch it. We discuss it on the front end quite a bit – but if it comes to me during, we’ll confront it. Keep offering suggestions,” she added. “We’re open to them, but I don’t know that it’s going to be resolved in what people might classify as a “fair” situation.”

Issues of “fairness” swirl around the coach selection process because, and somewhat truthfully, it seems that positions are always staffed by the same names. While there is an online application form at the USAB website, it is a committee that chooses both the coaches and players for the Cadet/ Youth, Collegiate and Senior teams. The members of that committee (also available online) evaluate applicants that must meet some basic criteria and fit into limited opportunities. Consider, there are 320 Division I coaches, and in any given summer there might be six USA coaching opportunities, and within each team’s staff, there must be a minority. You must already be a head coach and be willing to commit to a two-year stint. That means giving up summers, being away from your family, adjusting your recruiting schedule, and being part of an institution that is willing to allow you to be away from the program you’re being paid to run. “And frankly,” explained Foster, “the objective is to win a gold medal. It’s not a situation where we want someone to try out for that position. You want somebody who can get the job done.” That often translates into experienced, established coaches who feel pretty secure in their jobs and can afford to take the time away.

Oh, and did I mention coaching USA Basketball is not a paid position?

So, if after all that, you’re still interested, what can you do to be part of USA Basketball? Well, first and foremost, understand that it can take a long, long time.

“The main thing is to be successful in your own program,” advised Ryan. “That’s where you draw attention to yourself. I think they watch very closely your demeanor. They watch the way you develop your players. They watch your players and how they act. All those things matter to USA Basketball because you can’t send kids over there who are going to be flamboyant, use bad language. It’s a very different culture. Very different realm of competition. It’s not about showmanship, because it’s not about the coach. It’s about the players. They’re looking for mature people that can coach the game – but that’s only a small part of it. A lot of it is how they would handle the changes of playing internationally.”

Volunteering is always an option. Some coaches are identified by committee members and are charged with ‘scouting’ players and coaches from different regions around the country. Barry, for instance, volunteered for eight years as a floor coach. Currently, when team trials are held, the coaching staff for those teams are the court coaches, but they’re supplemented with other court coaches from other levels of the NCCA, NAIA or Junior Colleges. Donovan points to being on a committee as another option. “Just get your name out as being someone who wants to be involved at any level,” she suggests. “That’s the start. It’s just like any other elite field. A lot of people assume, ‘They need to call me.’ Well, that’s not necessarily the case. If you’re very interested, that should be made known.”

Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw, who’s just finished a four year tenure as the WBCA representative on the Collegiate Committee, understands the frustration of those looking to break in to the USAB ranks. “I don’t think the problem of USA Basketball is we’re not getting great coaches. We’re getting the best coaches, so we’re doing something right. The thing I look at is how can we get the young people in there with out them having the political clout or the feeling, “Well I know someone on the committee so maybe I’ll get a look. Maybe my player will get a look.” It’s still political, and that’s where you want to fight it. That’s what the coaches who don’t get in think. That perspective, that, ‘You know what, I’m not one of the “in” coaches, so I guess I’ll never get there.'”

Interestingly enough, when McGraw reflects on the make up of her committee as well has her own challenge to wear a “USAB” hat as opposed the more familiar “Big East” hat, she recognizes an intriguing paradox inherent in the overall discussion. “We’re torn constantly in our game. No matter what we’re talking about – everybody’s always trying to be fair. And when you’re trying to be fair, some people get hurt by it.” Consider the collegiate committee is made up of NAIA Appointee, NJCAA Appointee, a WBCA Appointee, four NCAA Appointees, and two Athlete Representatives. Depending on a member’s geographical location, and their overall exposure to coaches, it’s can make the selection process daunting. When picking High School teams, it’s even harder. “If you don’t recruit nationally, you may be sitting in the room with eight people and six of them have never seen 90% of the kids you’re talking about play,” says McGraw. “But, again, you don’t want to say, ‘OK, only schools who recruit nationally can be on this committee.'”

“It’s a difficult task,” acknowledges Callan. “At the Cadet/Youth level, representatives are selected regionally so they have all the bases covered somewhat. (USAB) sends out a letter to 30 colleges and universities asking who they think are the top 12 players in each region.” Based on those responses, as well as the committee’s networking with their High School and AAU people, they try and identify the top 36. “Is it perfect? No,” says Callan. “I think we get the top 30. There’s always argument on #31-36.” The process is somewhat similar at the collegiate level. “In the past,” says Callan “we’ve assigned committee members two or three conferences they pay attention to. We prepare a spread sheet of every school in every conference and we have looked at last year’s post-season’s honors, this season’s pre-season honors and this year’s post-season honors.” Letters are sent to every Division 1 coach and to the National Federation of High School and AAU for distribution so others may have input. The Committee will meet to discuss and then, after talking to colleagues and other people, begin to revise and pare down that list. Once they come to trials, 15 or 16 finalists will be brought to training camp where a sub-committee of the collegiate committee to come to the first couple of days of training camp and identify who’s going to be on the 12 member team.

“If you’re trying to position an athlete to at least get a look, you should go back to who’s on our collegiate committee and talk to them,” suggests Callan. “Let them know and tell them why. We try to be as inclusive and perfect as we can be.” (There is an application form on the website.) Of course, as with coaching, the opportunities are very limited. “When you look come down to the Olympic team, they range over the years – from ages 23-33. There’s 12 players, so you’re looking at probably the NCAA player of the Year for ten different years. So, any given year if you have three players who are the same age on our Olympic team, that’s a lot.”

As Women’s Athletics Director for the University of Texas, Collegiate Committee chair Chris Plonsky has a new worry concerning access to players. “The game is changing at our institutions,” says Plonsky. “Today, if Dawn was a freshman in college, in order to play her season, she has to have 40% of degree program in place by her fifth semester. That’s a big ole semi in the middle of the road compared to everything our head caches in our sport are dealing with. If you think about USA Basketball, it’s in the summer. And what the NCAA rule system has done is make summer part – truly part – of a regular academic semester for our kids. Not only do I think a lot of men and women basketball players are going to school routinely in the summer, now our kids are being allowed to come in early and get summer school so they can get ahead. That will change the access to those young ones, and depending upon how the kids on your own teams are doing [academically], it could change USA’s Basketball access to them. USAB needs to be in step with what’s going on in the college platform. [College administrators] are paid to get young men and women through our system, with a degree within a five-year track, and we are being judged semester by semester.”

“I think the biggest thing,” added Staley, “is I don’t want to detract from is us winning gold medals. If everybody would look at that – all the coaches – look at that, that is the standard that USA Basketball has set. We must not lose sight of that – even with all the other stuff that enters into that. We don’t want to take away that part of USA Basketball, because that’s what makes it special. If you’re fortunate enough to coach, or fortunate enough to play, you’ll know what I’m talking about, and you won’t see it as that kind of advantage. We need to continue to be representatives of the best teams and coaches in any country.”

To that end, Callan encourages open dialogue. “Ask us anything. Tell us anything. And let’s work together, because that’s the only way it’s going to work.”