Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990                   TAG: 9006140512
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Long

COACHES WILL MISS CAMP AS MUCH AS IT WILL MISS THEM

The camp, which prides itself on the quality of its teaching, will have to make do in future years without the likes of Dave Odom or Bob McKillop, longtime members of the Five-Star fraternity who have risen to the rank of college head coach.

After this year, no NCAA Division I coaches, whether they're head coaches or assistants, will be allowed to work at any of the so-called all-star camps.

It could be called the Garf Rule, but Howard Garfinkel, director of the Five-Star camps since their inception, offers a clarification.

"This is Garf Rule No. 2," he said. "Garf Rule No. 1 was that I couldn't have a [scouting] service if I had college coaches. So, instead of dropping the coaches, I sold the service. That bought me five years."

Garfinkel has not been able to hire college coaches for a long time, but the coaches who were already on his staff were covered by a "grandfather" clause.

"We've never hired a college coach," Garfinkel said. "All of our coaches joined our staff as high school coaches, high school assistants or college players. At last count, 133 of our people have moved up to the college level, with another 16 in the NBA."

The opposition to the Garfinkel system, quite simply, is that it provides a recruiting advantage to the coaches who work the camp. This week's Five-Star session at Radford University, for example, is held during a recruiting "dead" period when no other college coaches are allowed to observe the players.

Even Radford coach Oliver Purnell, who in previous years was allowed to monitor the proceedings, is no longer allowed to watch the workouts.

"Talk to any college coach not working a camp like this and he's going to say it's a recruiting advantage," Purnell said. "That's only natural."

Garfinkel estimates that no more than 50 college coaches continue to work his camp, and that group was easily outnumbered by the coaches pushing for change.

"The opposition came from some of my best friends, including Bobby Knight and Mike Krzyzewski, as well as some of my greatest enemies," Garfinkel said.

"They say it's an advantage. I know it is not an advantage. If a great slew of Five-Star players were going to play for Five-Star coaches, that would be one thing. But the number is miniscule."

One of the rules given to the players at the beginning of a Five-Star session is that there will be no recruiting by the camp staff.

"I can't stand here and tell you there isn't grounds for abuse," VMI assistant coach Pete Strickland, an instructor this week at Radford, said. "I can't tell you there hasn't been abuse. But there is a lot of peer pressure here, spoken and unspoken, not to recruit."

When Kentucky coach Rick Pitino addressed the camp Tuesday, Garfinkel took pains to provide four players for demonstrations that he knew Kentucky was not recruiting.

Nevertheless, before Pitino conducted a shooting drill, he asked who the best shooter in the camp was. Several voices called out Cory Alexander, a guard from Waynesboro who happens to be on the Wildcats' recruiting list. For other drills, Pitino asked for the best defensive player and the best rebounder.

"I didn't send [Alexander] out there," said Garfinkel, who was conducting a TV interview at the time. "I didn't want him out there. That's why I sent out the other kids."

So, did Pitino enjoy a recruiting advantage from his speech? No one said he didn't.

"It is a recruiting advantage; no question about it," Pitino said. "But if I'm boring, is that a recruiting advantage? There's no difference in my own camp. A kid verbally committed to us last year who had been to our camp."

The inability to work at Five-Star won't hurt Pitino, who has been a guest lecturer for the past 10 years, or Wake Forest's Odom, head coach at Radford for the boys' camp this week and camp director for the girls next week. The demands on a head coach, particularly one at a major program, become greater every year.

The people the rule affects most are the Pete Stricklands of the profession, coaches looking for a chance to improve their skills and make contacts.

"Don't think for a minute that Five-Star isn't one of the reasons Rick Pitino got where he is," Strickland said. "Of course, he's got talent, but somebody had to see him.

"Who's going to see me work a game? All anybody sees is me sitting on the bench at VMI and telling Joe [Cantafio] how many fouls we've got. Joe gives me a lot of room, but he's still the head coach. This is important for my development."

Strickland was 16 when he first went to one of the Five-Star Camps as a player, and he has been a player or coach ever since. Obviously, he doesn't do it for the money. Coaches receive between $200 and $500 based on their responsibilities and experience.

"I feel the rust developing already," Strickland said. "I'll need an oil can by next October."

Odom, who was a high school coach in Durham, N.C., when he first went to work for Garfinkel in the early 1970s, has trouble concealing his feelings on the elimination of college coaches at the camps.

"They're taking away a portion of my life," he said. "I do it almost entirely now for the associations and out of loyalty, mostly loyalty to [business manager] Will Klein and Howard Garfinkel.

"I think the impetus for the rules changes comes from coaches who have never been involved in Five-Star and want to be. It's developed into a cause without a purpose. I can say that I've never hesitated to supply information on a player to a coach who wasn't working the camp, and I've had a few ask."

McKillop, who has completed his first season as Davidson's head coach, started with Garfinkel in 1974. He thinks that if a coach uses the camp for recruiting purposes, he will find other ways to get an edge.

"You have to look at your own personal integrity and how the camp is monitored by Howie and Will," McKillop said. "I think I'm being deprived of a chance to expand my abilities and denied an opportunity to do something I enjoy.

"I remember when I went to work for Louie Carnesecca [at St. John's] and he told me, `Maximize your summer time and coach as many games as you can.' "

Garfinkel said he has been told by Krzyzewski that the rule may be overturned as it applies to guest lecturers, who, as even Garfinkel admits, probably get the biggest edge from their Five-Star appearances. Otherwise, it appears the changes will go into effect next summer.

"I have given it about five minutes' thought since it happened," Garfinkel claimed. "I'm going to worry about it Sept. 3, after our last camp. I know it's there. It's like a heart transplant. If you know you're going to have a heart transplant in six months, why worry about it every day?"

There is little question that Five-Star will survive.

"Will we be as good as we were with these guys?" Garfinkel asked. "Not the first two years. Not even close. But we'll find new Dave Odoms, new Bob McKillops, new Stricklands. They were high school coaches once.

"On Sept. 3, I'll evaluate everything that's happened. But I'm not giving up the camp. I'm not selling the camp unless there's a buyer who wants to give me $1 million, with $500,000 in cash, and that's not going to happen."