YOUTH COACHES FACE SCRUTINY

Little Accountability Makes AAU Teams Vulnerable

No one asked questions in 1995 when Curtis Malone paid a $12 membership fee
and signed up to coach a summer basketball team sanctioned by the Amateur
Athletic Union, a nonprofit organization that serves more than 400,000
athletes nationwide.

The AAU, which asks that coaches "set an example of the highest moral and
ethical conduct," didn't know Malone was barely off probation when he
started his team, D.C. Assault. He hadn't told the group about his 1991
felony conviction in Prince George's County for dealing crack cocaine or
about a 1993 guilty plea to reckless driving and eluding police after a
midnight car chase. He wasn't required to disclose this information.

But now, Malone's summer team - funded to the tune of $50,000 annually by
the shoe giant adidas--has become one of the nation's most prominent. And
sports officials are reexamining the procedures surrounding the largely
unregulated phenomenon known as summer basketball.

Today, major college presidents and athletic administrators plan to debate
at the National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in San Diego
rules changes that would limit the contact between summer coaches and
college scouts. The move is an attempt to curb what an NCAA committee
described after a yearlong study as the "corrupting influences" of the
volunteer coaches and sneakers companies that subsidize summer basketball.

Over the last decade, concerns have grown about the backgrounds and motives
of summer coaches, who wield enormous year-round influence over the young
athletes in their care. The explosion of youth basketball leagues, the lack
of serious supervision by the AAU and the infusion of big money from
sneaker company sponsors have fostered a caliber of coach quite different
from the high school or college role model, many youth administrators and
college officials say.

The AAU already has changed its rules to require disclosure of criminal
records. If Malone applies again this year to coach D.C. Assault, a review
board will be looking at his history for the first time.

Malone, who says he regrets the mistakes of his "last life," illustrates
the changes that have occurred in summer coaching. A part-time adidas
salesman whose dreams of basketball stardom never materialized, he has
become deeply involved in his players' lives. He has steered athletes to
favored private high schools - encouraging them to leave public schools -
and negotiated on their behalf with eager college recruiters. To stay close
to star players, he even has brought two young athletes to live in his home.

Critics say that coaches such as Malone, 31, introduce concepts of
cutthroat competition and commercialism to impressionable youths. Instead
of demanding academic excellence, the critics say, some of the coaches
emphasize winning records and push their athletes through a grueling
March-through-September "summer" schedule.

Complaints abound that some summer coaches bend or break the rules to win.
In one local tournament, birth certificates of child players were falsified
so they could flex their muscle on younger age-group teams.

"Parents walk into these activities anticipating that because someone's a
coach, this is the kind of person you want to turn your child over to,"
said David Berst, chief of staff of the NCAA's Division I, or major
college, athletic programs. "But where there's no accountability and
ability to measure what kind of person that is, you might as well just
drive your child to another city and drop him off."

AAU President Bobby Dodd said the organization does not have the resources
to enforce the rules or check the backgrounds of more than 40,000 volunteers.

"People have become much more sensitive to making sure young people are in
the safest possible environment," Dodd said. Since the rules were changed
this year to require disclosure of criminal records, he said, about 20
coaches from all sports have revealed felony convictions for offenses that
included sex and narcotics crimes. Twelve have been denied membership.

Dodd said if Malone wants to participate in AAU events this year, a review
board will "look very hard, very harshly" at his background.

But some parents defend Malone and say that although they were unaware of
his criminal record, they believe he is a positive influence.

"Curtis is like family now," said Sharon Powell, mother of DerMarr Johnson,
who lived with Malone off and on until this fall, when he became a regular
player on the nationally ranked University of Cincinnati team. "Curtis kept
D.J. out of trouble. He kept him focused. Curtis looks at D.J. more like
his son."

Powell said Malone guided her son's high school choices (he attended four
in five years) and his college recruitment.

"Whenever a recruiter would call me," Powell said, "I needed Curtis."

Following the Money

It is no small irony that the AAU should find itself embroiled in a
conflagration over the purity of its athletic intent. Under the motto
"sports for all, forever," the organization promotes old-fashioned sports
values - a throwback to the days when athletes competed for the pure joy of
it.

Today, though, the AAU is big business. Its national office annually spends
upward of $10 million and collects almost $4 million in dues. The AAU is
based at Walt Disney World, sponsored by Nike Inc. and marketed by SFX
Enterprises, one of the world's largest sports conglomerates.

But AAU's national office relies largely on local review boards to monitor
coaches' behavior and take appropriate disciplinary action.

In its yearlong review, the NCAA committee criticized the general lack of
oversight in summer basketball, charging that coaches "operate in a
structure devoid of any accountability."

The committee also criticized the influential role of sneakers company
sponsors. Sponsorship money is one way of courting favor with young stars
before they turn pro and choose which sneakers company they want to endorse.

Adidas's backing for D.C. Assault includes $35,000 in travel expenses, 60
pairs of sneakers and a full range of attire, according to Sonny Vaccaro,
who heads adidas's youth sponsorships. Malone earns commissions selling
adidas merchandise to Washington area high schools.

Summer basketball is clearly divided into teams that have lucrative
sponsorships and teams that do not. David West, who coaches 12-year-olds in
suburban Maryland, is troubled by the disparity and show-me-the-money
mentality.

At one recent tournament, he said he was disgusted by D.C. Assault's
haughty display.

"They came into the gym with their brand-new shoes in the new shoe boxes
under their shoulders," said West, a Washington patent lawyer. "They beat
the team really bad. I mean, just embarrassed the other team. Then when the
game was over, they put the shoes back in the box and were walking around
the gym, like, 'Yeah, we're bad with these boxes!' "

For the sneakers companies, winning is important, but image is everything.
In 1998, Nike removed two summer coaches and began requiring more extensive
background disclosures after embarrassing publicity. Federal investigators
in Kansas City are examining charges that a former Nike-backed summer
coach, Myron Piggie, made improper payments to two college players,
brothers Kareem Rush (Missouri) and JaRon Rush (UCLA). Both have been
suspended from their teams.

Adidas recently began requiring criminal disclosures. Vaccaro said in an
interview at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., that he was unaware of
Malone's prior record but said it did not shake his confidence in the
coach, who has won about 80 percent of his games.

"I'm hurt that Curtis never confided in me," he said. "I knew there were
problems because, you know, he never had a stable job."

Still, Vaccaro said, "to cut somebody from going forward with their life
would be the biggest mistake."

Recruiting Inducements

Malone's team for older boys has been so successful that he started a
junior team for boys 16 and under and brought in Trevor Brown, a high
school building engineer, to help him coach.

"Curtis kept seeing that I was real successful with younger kids and he
kept asking me: 'Hey, Why don't you come over?' " Brown said.

Brown joined Malone after a controversial tenure as a youth coach in
Alexandria. He was called before a hearing last year of the Potomac Valley
AAU, the local association, to answer complaints that he was improperly
recruiting players.

The local board also questioned Brown about complaints that he had played a
role in coaching a 1996 11-and-under boys team that was disqualified from a
local AAU tournament amid allegations that its entire starting lineup was
overage. A board inquiry established that in at least one case, a false
birth certificate had been filed to qualify an overage player.

Brown, whose name was not listed on the team's roster, denied the
allegations, and no action was taken.

Brown's recruiting efforts for D.C. Assault also have brought grumbling
from rival coaches. Six-foot-9, 260-pound Robert Little, for example, was a
10th-grader with a straight-A average at Phoebus High in Hampton, Va., when
Brown approached him to play for D.C. Assault.

Brown offered to place him on the junior team and in adidas' summer camp.

"Trevor basically told me what he would do for me," Little said. "You know,
all the tournaments they play in. All the places they travel."

Brown arranged for Little to attend Paul VI Catholic High in Fairfax, where
several athletes already played for D.C. Assault. Today, Little, 16, lives
in the basement of Brown's house in Springfield, 170 miles from Hampton.

"Trevor, he buys me food ... and if I need some spending change on the
weekend he might give me a couple of dollars," Little said.

Little's former high school coach, David Blizzard, isn't happy. "For an AAU
coach to take a kid that far from home, he's not really considering the
child's best interests. Public schools just can't compete with these AAU
teams that have a lot of money to throw at the kids."

Vested Interests

Malone also relies on help from Mike Brown (no relation to Trevor), whose
comments after a game this fall illustrate the show-me-the-money thinking
that dominates summer basketball.

Brown said he hoped Johnson, a Cincinnati freshman, would sign a lucrative
"signature" shoe contract when he turns pro. "We can get all these high
schools in this area [to wear Johnson's shoe] and rack up - sell apparel,
shoes, everything. ... That's where we can make our money," he said.

Mike Brown's activities in 1995 and 1996 generated concern among some
summer coaches because he appeared to be violating an AAU rule forbidding
coaches and team officials from working as sports agents.

Mike Brown was a "runner" for an agent, Len Elmore, a basketball star at
the University of Maryland in the early 1970s. Brown gathered information
on players for Elmore.

But Brown had not applied for AAU membership, according to Dodd, so his
conduct could not be governed by the organization. Dodd said it was up to
D.C. Assault officials to make Brown follow the rules.

Elmore, now a New York attorney and ESPN college basketball analyst, said
he "made sure there was always a distance" between himself and the summer
players. "I never spoke to any of the high school players about
professional stuff," Elmore said.

Mike Brown said he no longer is involved with an agent. But after a
September game, he nodded toward several Assault players and said, "When
some of these kids [become professionals] and it's time to make that
decision [to select an agent], hey, I may put my coat back on. ... I may
get back into the business."

Under the Influence Malone says his own basketball dreams were ruined by
the appeal of the "fast life." After high school, he drifted over six years
to one university and three junior colleges, playing basketball for a
season at Potomac State College in Morgantown, W. Va.

Malone said he never earned a degree because he was "immature."

In a June 1990 police search of his home, officers found 17 grams of crack
cocaine, a .38 caliber revolver and ammunition. Malone pleaded guilty to
cocaine possession with intent to distribute and was sentenced to five
years in the Prince George's detention center, reduced to three months with
three years' supervised probation. He spent the summer of 1991 in the
detention center.

In 1993, Malone pleaded guilty to reckless driving and eluding police in a
chase near his parents' home in Landover. A friend in the car fled from
police and, later that day, died in a fall. Malone received six months'
unsupervised probation.

Malone did not disclose his police record in the fall of 1994 when he took
a part-time junior varsity coaching job at the District's Dunbar High
School, according to Dunbar's head coach at the time.

The next spring, Malone and childhood friend Troy Weaver started their
summer basketball program. Today, Malone said he is president and coach of
D.C. Assault, Inc., which he said is registered as a "non-profit
corporation so that donations and stuff will be made." But the Internal
Revenue Service has no record of it.

Malone concedes that he has made enemies during his coaching tenure, but
mostly considers them rivals who are upset that he has stolen their
players' affections. "I'm like this bad guy in town," he said.

He sees one such enemy in Morgan Wootten, the nation's all-time winningest
high school basketball coach and a harsh critic of Malone and other
influential summer coaches. Wootten said some of these coaches are
responsible for pushing academically deficient athletes to skip summer
school for basketball games.

Wootten said he objected when his top two athletes last season - Keith
Bogans (now at Kentucky) and Joe Forte (North Carolina) - each missed a day
or two in school to play in summer basketball camps. Bogans was a member of
D.C. Assault, Forte of the Jabbo Kenner summer team.

"If these coaches have these kids' interest at heart, they never would have
influenced them to leave summer school," said Wootten, now in his 44th
season at DeMatha High in Hyattsville.

Malone said he never has encouraged any athlete to miss even a day of
summer school.

He has angered some public school coaches for steering star athletes to
private schools. Malone said he does so only if a parent asks for help and
the athlete is struggling. "Don't get mad at me because I want to get the
kids straight academically," he said.

On a recent afternoon, Malone, outfitted in adidas garb, was looking ahead
to March and his sixth season as a summer coach. "I'm concerned about my
kids," he said. "I mean, if I don't help these kids, who's gonna help them?"