In college hoops, July recruiting anything but gym-dandy

IF IT'S JULY and there is a gym with basketballs being bounced by very athletic teenagers, college coaches will be taking up most of the seats. Games may be won or lost on scoreboards from November to April, but, in reality, they are won or lost during the manic July recruiting period when coaches have ambitious itineraries that require detailed planning, on-time airplanes, rental cars, late nights and very early mornings. Sleep and food are options.

The coaches are in the gyms to a) show their faces to players they are already recruiting, b) target the next group of players they will be recruiting and c) try to discover good players before anybody else.

I remember going to Princeton in the late 1980s to see the very best high school players in the country at the Nike ABCD camp, run by Sonny Vaccaro. That was my first look at Memphis high school legend Penny Hardaway. It was the first real national basketball camp and every big-name coach in the country at the time was there.

There is nothing quite like the original ABCD because the shoe companies have divvied up the market. The Nike Peach Jam in North Augusta, S.C. is very big, but there are dozens of "events" to attend where a coach can see and be seen.

The summer recruiting period has changed through the years. This year, the 15 "live" days began on Wednesday, July 8. Coaches are permitted to watch games starting each Wednesday at 5 p.m. until Sunday at 5 p.m. The recruiting run ends July 26. On Mondays and Tuesdays, coaches go back to their campuses where they can conduct practices. So, five days on the trail, two days off the trail, followed by five more days on, two off and finally five on.

Time is of the essence. Missing flight connections means missing games and possibly missing out on players. City Six coaches are in the midst of their second five-day road run.

Penn coach Steve Donahue started on July 8 in Suwanee, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. There were two events in close proximity. He left Atlanta at 5:30 a.m. Friday for Boston and then drove to Springfield, Mass. before driving home that night. He finished his week on Sunday at an event at Philadelphia University.

Week 1 for Drexel coach Bruiser Flint was Myrtle Beach, S.C., Atlanta, Augusta and Springfield. This week, it was Atlanta again and Springfield again. Next week, he will be in Las Vegas with just about every coach in the country.

"The old days in Las Vegas were crazy, two gyms, north n south," Louisville coach Rick Pitino texted. "First game at 8, last at 9:20, but really 10:15. Almost 15 hours a day, just moving for a leak n changing gyms. It was awesome!!!!"

Or insane, depending on your perspective.

The Vegas recruiting extravaganza is the perfect ending to the manic July period, going from gym to gym, trying to coordinate times of games, hoping not to get lost in the desert heat where 100 degrees is a chill.

Temple coach Fran Dunphy was in Atlanta, Charlotte, Augusta, Philadelphia and Reading last week.

"You have to be judicious about where you go and how much time you spend at each particular place," Dunphy said. "Our assistants do a pretty good of trying to plan those weeks and fit everything in."

Head coaches and assistants typically are not together so they can cover more ground. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski usually has one or two assistants with him.

Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli theorizes that players are saying: "Look at all this attention Duke gave me, three guys at one time."

Duke, of course, is different. So is Coach K. He selects as much as he recruits.

By the way, Martelli's recruiting adventure started off in Atlanta last week with his parked rental car somehow moving and hitting another car after he left it at the hotel. Three hours later, he was back in a gym.

Last week, he went from Atlanta to Augusta, back to Atlanta and then to Philadelphia. He was scheduled to go to Indianapolis too, but his flight was changed so, once he realized was going to be late for a game he wanted to see, he did not go.

This week, it is Maryland, Atlanta, Hartford and then Springfield. Next week, it is Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

The unlimited texting and phone calls have really helped with scheduling, Martelli said. Also, the event planners want coaches to have accurate information about games.

"It is a very cooperative spirit," Martelli said. "They want you to know where the players are going to be. The sneaker companies want you to know which teams are going to be there. If a kid's on a roster, he is showing up and it's a much better world for us because of that. Before, if the kid didn't show up, you were on an island."

Dunphy has been doing this just about forever, first as an assistant and, for the last 26 years, as a head coach. He still loves it.

"I think that watching the kids play is as much fun as we have coaching the games and practices," Dunphy said. "Seeing how they want the basketball at the end of the games, they have to get that rebound, they interact with their teammates, see the joy when they win and the disappointment when they lose. There is lot of life packed into these games.

"For the most part, it's 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. You're trying to eat on the run and call back to the office to make sure that the kids you are in charge of coaching are doing OK, talking to your assistants all the time about who we need to see tomorrow, is there a change in a game that we're going to see, change a flight here or there. It's a little nutty, but I like the craziness and the zaniness of it all."

Martelli remembers a day in Texas when he was a St. Joe's assistant. He spent it with Fran Fraschilla who was also an assistant at the time.

"We watched games from 8 in the morning to 10 at night," Martelli said. "I remember that night because I looked at Fran Fraschilla and said, 'You know what? St. Joe's got their money's worth out of me today.' "

La Salle's John Giannini said he kept running into city coaches on the road last week and flew back to Philly on a plane with Martelli. Dr. G. really loves those Mondays and Tuesdays he gets to spend with the team he will be coaching this winter.

"Before, the new players would show up for summer school, you would see them for a few days and then you would be gone for the whole month," Giannini said.

The July period used to be 20 "live" days broken into two 10-day periods. This is different, but no less chaotic.

"It's also a more intensified three weeks because you're in the office and working with your guys the other two days so you go straight 21 days all out," Villanova coach Jay Wright texted.

August is for unofficial visits and probably an actual vacation. Then, school begins and preseason practice is just around the corner. Right now, there is a plane to catch, a player to see, a future to contemplate.