It’s appropriate that one day after the Academy Awards, we see firsthand the deluding power of films and movies.
In this case, the feature presentation is a tale of broken promises, beginning with a videotape of a 6-foot-8 high school forward on a basketball court.
Cast in the starring role is a University of Pennsylvania player and his family, who filed a six-figure federal lawsuit against Northwestern last week. They charge that coach Kevin O’Neill reneged on a verbal scholarship offer in June 1998 when the player was a high school senior.
The storyline centers on Andrew Coates and the legalities regarding breach of contract. Because of the alleged spurn by O’Neill, Coates’ family contends that it now must pay more than $30,000 a year to send Andrew to Penn, which doesn’t give athletic scholarships. That’s compared with the free-ride Andrew could have had if he played at NU.
However, the subplot to the story may be more significant than the potential courthouse wrangling.
In the lawsuit, the Coates family has made the first direct challenge to O’Neill’s reputation. Many have questioned how long the sought-after coach will stay at NU; until now no one has challenged his renowned abilities as a recruiter.
Today O’Neill stands accused of offering a scholarship to a player he had seen play in just two games on videotape — only to back off after seeing Andrew in action at a Nike-sponsored summer camp.
And while two games constitute a double feature of basketball, O’Neill doesn’t do short subjects when it comes to recruiting. To a coach who was tabbed the nation’s best recruiter in 1989, the charges are grievous.
When it comes to recruiting players, O’Neill is King Kong. The story about him dressing up in a gorilla suit to greet a prospective player has been oft-repeated.
He’s also the Postmaster General. His current players have said they received at least one piece of priority mail every day for more than a year when the coach wanted them.
So what’s O’Neill doing making alleged scholarship offers via the VCR? After never having seen Coates play in person? For a spot in his most prized recruiting class?
It doesn’t make sense.
“He said he could tell from one game whether a kid could play,” said Peter Coates, Andrew’s father. “He said Andrew was a versatile offensive player who would be terrific at NU as a (forward). He was their No. 1 priority as a (forward) and it was his scholarship to accept or reject.”
As a head coach, O’Neill still treats recruiting the same way he did as Lute Olson’s tenacious assistant at Arizona. On the first day he took the NU job in 1997, O’Neill ventured into Chicago to catch two high school sectional games — despite having been awake for more than 24 hours.
When incoming freshman guard Jitim Young played in a summer tournament last year, O’Neill stood courtside at all of his games to display his interest. And even after sophomore forward Tavaras Hardy had committed, O’Neill still went to every one of Hardy’s summer AAU games.
It’s that persistence that lands O’Neill players. It’s also what makes the Coates family’s suit so perplexing.
As evidence of O’Neill’s deception, the family claims to have letters, e-mails and postcards from the coach welcoming Andrew to the team. And they have memories of O’Neill’s lavish praise for their son.
“We are offering you a full scholarship to attend NU — we will make sure that one is available to you!” O’Neill allegedly writes in an e-mail to Andrew. “We want to make you a Wildcat.”
But after watching Andrew play at the camp a week later, O’Neill allegedly abandoned the recruit, who he believed wasn’t up to the level of the Big Ten. That action coupled with a subpar senior season left Andrew scrambling to find a program.
After being pressed by Peter Coates, O’Neill reportedly admitted his foul-up.
“He repeatedly said he was sorry,” the father said. “He said: ‘It’s my bad. I’ve never made a mistake like this before.'”
Since similar cases have been settled out-of-court, the Coates lawsuit likely will be decided in that fashion — even though Peter Coates said talks have been “unproductive.” Most likely, no players, coaches or university presidents will be compelled to testify (although it is worth noting that when Andrew visited the campus he met with University President Henry Bienen).
In the end, though, the lack of scrutiny involved in the process is surprising, the coach’s behavior is suspect and the lawsuit is smoldering. When O’Neill was asked about the allegations in his office on Monday, he referred all questions to university officials.
But surrounding O’Neill as he spoke were posters and dummy newspapers made to tout a recruit the coach was meeting later in the day. A four-year plan had been drafted for the player to become one of the Big Ten’s best and arrive in the NCAA Tournament.
And it was a scene reminiscent of what Peter Coates said he and his son saw.
“It was a dog-and-pony show at the offices,” the father said. “The walls were covered with posters of (Andrew), there was a jersey with his name on it and signs that said Coates leads Cats to Big Ten championship.”
