6-8, 270-:Pound Royce White Of Iowa State Is a Wonderful Talent. He Has the Skills Necessary To Play In the NBA Sooner Rather Than Later

During Iowa State's 87-71 NCAA basketball loss to Kentucky, 71-year-old CBS-TV play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist [pictured at the left with commentator Bill Raftery] said, "If you're a lip-reader, you can see that Royce White [pictured at the right] is saying, 'I'm the best player' to the Cyclone fans." I wouldn't argue that at all. That White was the best player, I mean. Kentucky has some wonderful young players, but White--who had 23 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals--in the game at Louisville certainly had nothing to be ashamed of in this game or in his entire first season as a Cyclone. It's natural to wonder if the big guy, who has all the tools necessary to excel on the basketball court, is ready for the National Basketball Association. I think he is. He had enormous talent before he got to Iowa State, and Fred Hoiberg's coaching certainly was beneficial in a sensational 2011-2012 season. White appears to be a very mature person, and he has a family to support, so it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to take his chances in the NBA draft. For Iowa State's sake, it would be nice if this 6-8, 270-pounder stuck around Ames for another season or two, but the guy is a wonderful talent, and no one should be upset if he decides to start playing basketball for a living sooner rather than later.

20 Years Later: Coaching Box Vilolation [Strangely Enough, On Mild-Mannered Fred Hoiberg] Plays a Role In An ISU Game Against Kentucky In NCAA

As I was watching Kentucky's 87-71 NCAA tournament victory over the Cyclones tonight in Louisville, I was reminded of Orr's frustration [and anger] that the zebras didn't call then-Kentucky coach Rick Pitino for being out of the coaching box a number of times in the Wildcats' 106-98 victory over Iowa State in an NCAA second round game in 1992. At the time, Hoiberg was playing for Iowa State. [The photo shows Orr, when he was the Cyclones' coach, and Hoiberg, when he was an Iowa State player]. In the game against Kentucky, Hoiberg scored two points and had eight rebounds. It was the only collegiate game in which Hoiberg fouled out. I covered the game, and Orr several time complained to the officials that Pitino was out of the coaching box. But he was never whistled for the ] violation, and wasn't called for a technical foul--unlike Hoiberg in Saturday night's game. The second-year Iowa State coach [a poker-faced, mild-mannered sort of guy on the basketball court] was charged with his first technical [while disputing an official's call since he was in middle school at Ames. My friend Marc Hansen wrote a while back that Hoiberg had nerer gotten a technical as a player at Ames High School, at Iowa State or in a 10-year NBA career. Hoiberg had to be restrained by assistant coaches after being whistled for being whistled for the technical in the last half tonight.

'Clark Mollenhoff and James Risser Would Be So Proud' Of the Paper'sWatchdog Girl. But a Senior Editor Told Her, 'Don't Be Messing With Advertisers'

"Hi, Ron.

"Charlie's cousin Chickie checking in from Czech Village. Charlie is at Sam's Club stocking up on poppyseeds for the big St. Joseph's Day kolache sale. Me and Charlie wanted you to know we're keeping an eye on the Watchdog. Hoo-ee, she's a busy girl, rooting out wrongs done from Waukee to Altoona. Did you see the one in today's paper? Some woman had a run-in with a locksmith company when she couldn't get into her car. Lots of details. Charlie was more impressed with the Watchdog's work uncovering the awfulness last week about the guy who didn't get disability payments from the pizza joint where he used to work. Watchdog Girl digs up these blockbusters by answering the phone. People call in, complain about something and she puts it in the paper. Clark Mollenhoff and James Risser would be so proud the investigative reporting tradition continues at the Register. Rumor has it Watchdog turned down a story about a reader who bought some bagged salad Hy-Vee was selling a day after the expiration date. "Don't be messing with advertisers," Watchdog reportedly was told by a senior editor. Watchdog apologized and ran off to Osceola to write a followup to an earlier Watchdog article about the guy who said he got cheated when he bought a pickup truck from a non-advertiser. Sorry, Ron. I got to go. Charlie just drove up to the back door with a trunk load of poppyseeds. He said to tell you hi and for you to tell that Hlas guy hi too. Happy St. Joseph's Day.

-- "Chickie in Czechtown."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS--It's great hearing from you, Chickie. Mike said to say hi, too. Thanks for keeping track of Watchdog Girl. I try to read all of her stuff, but I fell behind while I was getting heated up over all of that NIT basketball coverage. You can't beat a good NIT game. Chickie, you brought up the names of Clark Mollenhoff and James Risser, two Des Moines Register investigative reporters from days gone by. Glad you did. I've got a picture of Mollenhoff [when Clark was a young guy, to be sure] displayed at the right, courtesy of the paper. Too bad the bosses wouldn't let Watchdog Girl investigate Hy-Vee. It's pissing me off a little about those expiration dates on the lettuce sacks, too. I'll bet things are buzzing down there on The Avenue in the Czech Village today. The warm temperatures tend to bring out the Bohemies who've been busy all winter building bird houses in their basements. I think one of two of the taverns on The Avenue open early every day, but none of the Bohemies I know from the old days want any beer that's colored green. Most of 'em want Grain Belt, if they still brew the stuff, and the last I heard Grain Belt didn't come in green. I'm glad you had Charlie on poppyseed detail. If you and Charlie can't eat all of the kolaches, you know a guy [that's me, Chickie] who'll finish up the leftovers. I've never met a poppyseed kolache [pictured at the left, courtesy of Google and the Internet] I didn't like.]

Blazing New Ground

An e-mail to me from Cecil of Colesburg:

"Ron, Did you notice Tom Witosky had two or three very long stories in the Register about how the University of Iowa followed the law when they hired Kirk Ferentz's kid? Investigative pieces used to expose organizations that broke the law. Witosky is blazing new ground there."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: He didn't get the nickname "The Shovel" accidentally. Also, Cecil, don't forget this: Witosky is included among the people in the age and seniority groups at the Register targeted for buyouts].

Being the Register's Boss Hasn't Been the Job Hollingsworth Dreamed Of--What a Laugh. The People the Paper Fired and Laid Off Have No Sympathy for Her

Green Bay Press-Gazette

One way to deal with change is to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Laura Hollingsworth knows. As president and publisher of the Des Moines Register and a group president for Gannett Co. Inc.'s U.S. Community Publishing Division, Hollingsworth has had to help steer her newspaper and others through a paradigm-changing landscape. Gannett also is owner of the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Hollingsworth spoke at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay's "After Thoughts" series for women. In April 2011, the university presented the Sturgeon Bay native with an Alumni Association award.

Hollingsworth said change is an ever-accelerating constant.

"No matter how steadily our economy improves, the changes will be permanent. Constant change will be permanent," she said.

Leading the Register hasn't been the job she dreamed of when she decided at 23, while working at the Press-Gazette, that she wanted to be publisher of a major newspaper by the time she was 40.

Hollingsworth was appointed publisher of the newspaper in 2007, and the first two months were all that she envisioned. She was 40, was running a major daily and had the likes of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in her office before the Iowa caucuses.

The industry already had begun to change in the wake of 9/11 and the recession that followed the terrorist attacks, and with the birth of the Internet and cellphone networks, but the real estate/financial meltdown of 2008 created the worst advertising recession ever to hit media companies, which continues.

"It wasn't even close to the job I had aspired to 20 years before," she said. "The global recession exacerbated the crisis for any advertising-dependent media model."

That said, when asked if newspapers are dead, Hollingsworth answers with a definitive "no."

She said newspapers continue to matter because they provide trusted news and information.

"We envision communities growing and thriving directly because of the information we are providing every day," she said. "We are in the greater good business."

How that information is delivered is changing. Actual newspapers continue to provide the bulk of revenue, but online advertising is growing more than 20 percent a year. And delivery platforms are expanding to include every kind of mobile electronic device.

"The printed product reaches 75 percent of all adults over 30 days (in Green Bay). I wouldn't go tossing that away," she said.

Readers 45 and younger, however, show a growing preference for digital delivery and the industry is responding. News organizations are remaking themselves to become instant news providers in any way the reader wants to receive it.

"Is it working? I don't think any of us know fully yet. We are in year two or three of a five- or six-year process," he said. "Our customers, in the very near future, will subscribe to our product (available across all platforms). We deserve to be paid for the high value we bring."

Her recommendations for guiding a company through change include:

» Get cost structures down. Stabilize your core business. Look at what you have to do and what you can outsource to others.

» Fund the old way only enough to sustain the new. Put the rest of your assets and resources into new investments.

» Be bold, innovative. Empower your team to act.

» Find new revenue streams.

» Solicit and hire new skill sets.

» Make sure you are surrounded by the best people.

» Ensure that any one of your employees can explain your vision to anyone.

» Prepare for the worst case. Understand the trends and listen to what that is telling you. Multiply the worst case by two and prepare for that.

» Don't sugar coat. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

» Act in the long term while managing for the short term.

[RON MALY'S COMMENT: Tell all of this crap to Dan McCool, Brian Duffy and all the others the Register has fired or laid off in recent years].

Charlie from the Czech Village. Again

I've had seven or eight e-mails and phone calls lately from people who think they know the true identity of "Charlie from the Czech Village," one of my correspondents. "I'm pretty sure Charlie is really Mike Hlas, the sports columnist at the Cedar Rapids Gazette," said a guy who was one of my classmates at Lincoln Elementary School in Cedar Rapids way back when. My ex-classmate isn't the only person who thinks "Charlie from the Czech Village" is Hlas in disguise. Both Hlas [pictured at the right] and Charlie are outstanding writers, and they both know a lot about Cedar Rapids. Hlas grew up there and, of course, still lives there. Mike's dad, Ernie, owned a tavern in the Czech Village. Let's back up a step or two now. "Charlie from the Czech Village" wrote to me several weeks ago to tell me about what Lee Rood's new assignment would be at the Des Moines Register. "I just couldn't wait to tell you about the Register's newest high-larious high-jinks," Charlie wrote. "Yessiree, the folks on Locust are still trying to be real-life investigative reporters, and leading the pack is Lee Rood, the biggest pretender of them all...The lovely Ms. Rood has been designated as 'The Reader's Watchdog' at the Register." Charlie obviously knew a lot about the inner workings of the Register's news operation. Mike Hlas, of course, is not only an outstanding columnist, but also a very good reporter. It wouldn't surprise me if he knew a lot of the goings-on inside the Register's newsroom. Frankly, I have no idea who "Charlie from the Czech Village" is because he [or she] didn't reveal his [or her] true identity when he [or she] submitted the guest column about Lee Rood. I never ask for the real names of my correspondents, as long as they make a good point. Kind of like "Your 2 Cents' Worth" in the paper, I guess. I don't know if Mike Hlas would have had the time to put together the very enjoyable piece on Lee Rood's new assignment at the Register, but I could be wrong. Maybe Hlas got tired of writing about Iowa's basketball team, and decided to show his versatility by taking off on Lee Rood's new job in Des Moines. I'd call Hlas right now to ask if he was the guy who wrote the column on Rood, but I know he's busy. Like a lot of other people in eastern Iowa, he's probably fired-up about Iowa's NIT basketball game tonight against Dayton at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It's such a big game that George Wine hurried back from his winter home in Florida to get a ticket. With Wine in the house, I guess it's an official NIT game. Tipoff is only about a half-hour away. The next time I see Hlas, which might not be until next football season, I'll ask him about all of this. Whatever, thanks to all of you folks who wrote and called to see if "Charlie from the Czech Village" is really a sportswriter named Mike. The more I think about it, the less I believe that's the case. Meanwhile, it's time for a poppyseed kolache--the kind they bake at Sykora's [left] on The Avenue in the Czech Village.

Gene Keady's New and Old Hairdos; Pat Keady, Gene's Late Wife; George Wine's Promise To E-Mail Me the NIT Score; Flashbacks Of 1978 Iowa-Dayton Game

I sent an e-mail to George Wine a few minutes ago with this message: "I thought you might like to see the new Gene Keady hairstyle, courtesy of Karl Kraebber on Twitter. Gone is the dye job, gone is the comb-over. I'm wondering if I liked the ex-Purdue basketball coach more with his old look or with his new look. I assume you're back from Florida, and I hope you had a great winter down there. It wasn't bad around here either. The weather was warm, it didn't snow much and all four Division I basketball teams had winning records, and will be playing in postseason tournament. When's the last time that happened? Everybody seems to be excited about Iowa being in the NIT. It used to be they couldn't give tickets away to an NIT game. If you go to the game, e-mail me with the score. Otherwise, not much else is new. They'll be having more buyouts and layoffs at the Register soon. Same old crap. People there are scared, wondering if Wal-Mart is hiring greeters." Wine's e-mail response: "Glad to see Keady go natural. Wonder what his wife looks like these days. I am going to the NIT game and will e-mail you the score. Iowa has only played Dayton once. That was December of 1978 when Ronnie Lester got knocked down driving to the basket and sustained a serious knee injury that probably cost Iowa a national title. Got to the the Final Four, but Lester went down again vs Louisville. I really think that team would have won it all with a healthy Lester. Never lost a game he started until the Louisville loss. Been home a week enjoying the Florida-like weather." [The new version of Keady's hair is at the right, the old version is at the left. That's Pat Keady, Gene's late wife, pictured at the top of the column. Pat died of heart problems and cancer three years ago at 62.]

Tough Times for Ex-Hawkeye Scott Plate

By Danielle Salisbury
Danielle_Salisbury@mlive.com

JACKSON — His is a story that began with promise.

One of three brothers who played Division I football, Scott Plate, a top-notch player at Columbia Central High School, got a full-ride scholarship to the University of Iowa.

In 1991, he played in the Rose Bowl.

He was well-liked. Coaches called him a good student, self-motivated and hardworking, and he went on to play in the Canadian Football League. He got married, had three children and established a successful career in sales.

“He had it all going for him,” said Plate’s former wife, Katie Etue of Summit Township.

By Feb. 3, Plate, 41, recently out of jail for failing to pay child support, was living in the Jackson Interfaith Shelter on S. Blackstone Street.

Problems with alcohol put him there, his father, Bill Plate, and others said.

“He’s been a good guy. He’s run on some hard times,” Bill Plate said last month.

Medical records presented in court showed Scott Plate had a blood-alcohol level of 0.358 percent when a witness said he called Justyn Ewing-Brown a racial slur. He chest bumped the 20-year-old and the younger man punched him, Ewing-Brown’s lawyer, Susan Dehncke said.

Plate fell to the ground and hit his head, fracturing his skull. He was in a coma, had to have brain surgery and spent about three weeks at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Now, he is at a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Ohio.

With many visitors and support, his recovery has been “pretty miraculous,” Bill Plate of Bellevue, Ohio, said. He is walking, talking and improving, but it is not clear what the long-term effects will be. “It’s going to be a rocky road.”

Tuesday, Bill Plate was in Jackson County District Court for a preliminary examination in Ewing-Brown’s case.

Ewing-Brown initially was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm, a felony punishable by a maximum prison term of 10 years, but District Judge R. Darryl Mazur found Ewing-Brown did not intend to do such a degree of damage and reduced the charge to a misdemeanor.

“It appears the antagonist in this case was Plate,” Mazur said.

Bill Plate said his son doesn’t seem to have any recollection of the events.

While some things are clear in his mind, he is a bit confused about time and places, his father said.

After the hearing, Assistant Prosecutor Everett Perry dropped the case.

The prosecutor’s office would not have been able to successfully prosecute it, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer said. “We thought there was a viable claim of self-defense.”

Plate, who was listed at 5 foot 9 inches and 190 pounds as a football player, is much bigger than Ewing-Brown. Dehncke estimated Ewing-Brown is 5-5 and 140 pounds. Plate was intimidating, she said.

Plate’s “extraordinary” level of intoxication, almost 4.5 times the legal driving limit, might have affected his response to the punch, Blumer said.

If not for alcohol, Plate never would have gotten himself into such a situation, Bill Plate said.

Scott Plate had in the past been to a treatment program and attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, court records show.

He’s struggled, had success and failures, his father said.

“It is a tragedy,” Blumer said. “A person who clearly had such promise is being dragged down."

A proud part of a football family, Plate graduated from Columbia Central High School in 1989.

His oldest brother, Todd Plate, already was on the University of Michigan football team. Rick Plate, who graduated a year earlier, played at Central Michigan University. Their cousin, Troy Plate, also played at Michigan.

The four were close and competitive, according to past accounts.

“They were all very good athletes,” said Gary Huntley, Columbia Central’s varsity football coach in the 1980s, when all four Plates went to the high school. “About as hard of workers as you could ever ask for.”

Scott Plate never got into trouble, he said. “His whole world, and his brothers’, was being an athlete.”

In about 30 total years of coaching at several levels, Huntley said Scott Plate probably was among the top 10 players he ever schooled.

A quarterback and defensive back at Columbia Central, Scott Plate was courted by all the Mid-American Conference schools and several Big Ten Conference institutions, said Bob Elliott, former defensive backfield coach at Iowa.

Elliott, now the safeties coach at Notre Dame, recruited Plate, and called him a tough, intelligent player. He was self-motivated and reliable and did well academically. “He was the kind of guy you wanted to coach.”

The standard was high in his family, which inspired Plate, Elliott said.

The Michigan game was big.

In a 1990 story about the Michigan-Iowa rivalry, Todd and Scott Plate were described as gritty and hard-hitting players who didn’t like to lose, especially to one another.

“We’re both pretty hot-headed individuals,” Todd Plate, who now lives in Tennessee, told the Citizen Patriot in 1990. “When we were growing up, people didn’t really mess with us too much.”

As hard as they fought against each other, the story said, they fought harder for each other.

Plate started for three seasons and was a “huge contributor” at a time when the team was successful, Elliott said. They went to the Holiday Bowl in 1991 and to the Rose Bowl the previous January. Scott Plate received a ring for the Big Ten championship that got them to Pasadena.

The ring, marked with the Rose Bowl emblem and Plate’s name, was stolen from Plate as he walked in January from a downtown bar to the shelter. Three people stopped him. He was struck in the side and one of the three took it, Jackson Police Lt. Elmer Hitt said.

Detective Brett Stiles has since found the ring at a local jeweler, where it had been pawned or sold. No one was arrested in the case and unless new information arises, the case is closed, Hitt said Thursday.

The January and February assaults are not believed to have been related, Hitt said.

Elliott and Huntley have not kept in regular contact with Plate.

“You hear things. But you don’t want to believe half the stuff you hear,” Huntley said when asked of Plate’s difficulties in recent years.

In 1994, after he graduated from Iowa, Plate signed a one-year free-agent contract with the Vancouver British Columbia Lions. He played on and off for two seasons, his father said.

The following year, he married Katie Etue, according to court records. They had known each other since they were 16, Etue said. She went with him to Iowa.

Together, they had three children, now ages 10, 13, and 14, and she said he became a successful salesman in the plastics industry.

For eight years, he worked at Chicago-based MAUSER Group, an industrial packaging producer, but lost the job because he refused to relocate, according to information contained in his divorce filing. As of July 2008, he was unemployed and the mortgage company had taken the family home.

His wife filed for divorce in May, 2008. “It had something to do with the drinking,” Etue said last month.

That same year, Scott Plate pleaded guilty to operating while intoxicated. The vehicle he was driving hit another car and a school bus, injuring six students, the bus driver and himself. All recovered, but Plate, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.21 percent, had to spend three weekends in jail, attend three 12-step meetings per week, and pay about $4,000 in restitution to Columbia schools, according to District Court records.

In a letter to the sentencing judge, Etue wrote Plate had turned around his life since the September, 2008 crash. He got sober, was working for a large company in Indiana and “had his priorities in line,” she wrote.

It did not stay that way. According to court records, he worked several different jobs since 2008. Sometimes, he was unemployed and got into trouble for failing to pay child support.

In December, a judge ordered him to pay $2,000 or spend 45 days in jail. He went to jail and was released in early January.

At the time of the assault, he had been at the shelter for what his father said was two or three weeks.

Plate had stayed with family in the past, and Bill Plate, a plastics engineer in the automotive industry, said he wanted his son to come home with him and his stepmother in Bellevue, where Plate had earlier lived.

Plate’s children were in Jackson, and at his father’s house, there were rules.

“He wanted to live his own lifestyle, whether we approved of it or not,” Bill Plate said. “He wanted to have the freedom to make those decisions.”

His troubles aside, Bill Plate said his son, who has helped with some high school teams, has a good heart and nature.

Since the assault, the family has been pulling together for Scott Plate. He had many visitors in the hospital, including former teammates.

“A lot of people have been praying for him,” Bill Plate said.

His children, who live with their mother, have been to see him, and he recognized them, Bill Plate said.

At one point, his condition seemed dire. His family is glad he is alive, said Bill Plate, who wanted to “kiss the nurse” when Scott Plate first opened his eyes and said, “Dad.”

They are focusing on the good, on Scott Plate’s well being, he said.

“We hope something positive will come out of this,” Bill Plate said.

You'll See Some Interesting Names In This Story

By PETE THAMEL, New York Times

EVERETT, Mass. — Nerlens Noel is a 6-foot-10 basketball star considered the best prospect from the Boston area since Patrick Ewing. He is the top-ranked high school senior in the country, and hailed as the best shot blocker of his generation. The 17-year-old son of working-class Haitian immigrants, he could be worth $10 million in about 16 months when he is eligible for the 2013 NBA draft.

A high school prospect with a promising future is immersed in the murky world of major-college recruiting.

His college choices have narrowed to some of the elite programs in the country: Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, Georgetown and Connecticut.

All make the future seem blindingly bright for Noel. But in the shadowy world of recruiting, it is rarely that simple. The pursuit of Noel includes not just college coaches hoping for a star on the court. There are also fringe figures hoping to latch on to a player seemingly viewed more as a commodity than a teenager.

“I feel like the kid is a piece of meat right now, and he’s going to be used,” said George Wright-Easy, one of the numerous adults who have mentored Noel over the years. “Grown men are fighting over a kid.”

Those tied on some level with Noel’s recruitment include a former Providence assistant who has been barred from visiting Noel’s prep school, an unemployed high school football coach, a prominent coach of a summer basketball team in Boston, Noel’s high school coach, a former star recruit who believes his career was derailed by bad advice and a low-level NBA agent who works for the group that represents LeBron James, Creative Artists Agency.

The scramble to get close to Noel underscores how important it is to be associated with an elite high school recruit. For a coach, it may mean a lucrative job. For an agent, the hope is big money once the player reaches the N.B.A. For a player like Noel, however, it can mean a cacophony of voices, people with motives of their own. Choosing whom to listen to could mean the difference between a future filled with N.B.A. riches or a tale discussed in muted tones along the recruiting trail.

If Nerlens Noel is the first player selected in the 2013 N.B.A. draft, as the Web site Draft Express currently projects, he should receive a contract of about $20 million. If he is among the top 10 picks, he can expect a deal worth at least $10 million.

And that does not include endorsements, which could be lucrative for a player who has nearly 14,000 followers on Twitter and an account — @NerlensHighTop — dedicated to his box-top Afro hairstyle. All that attention is a long way from Noel’s humble beginnings in the tight-knit community of Everett, Mass., on the outskirts of Boston. Dorcina and Yonel Noel immigrated to the area from Haiti in 1990, and friends of the family say they initially worked cleaning jobs at a local hospital. The four Noel children, perhaps not knowing any better, would tell friends their father was a doctor.

Noel and his older brothers, Jim and Rodman, spent their afternoons in Everett High School gym, playing basketball with the son of the school’s longtime football and basketball coach, John DiBiaso. After their games, DiBiaso would sometimes buy them Gatorade or maybe a Chicken McNugget value meal at McDonald’s.

With Noel’s parents working long hours and rarely attending school activities or sporting events, the community helped raise the Noel children. Parents of friends chipped in to provide cleats, baseball gloves and registration fees for youth sports. Someone always found them a ride to practice or a game.

Lenny Parsons, a youth coach whose son played with the Noel boys, gave one of his winter coats to Nerlens, who was wearing adult sizes when he was in junior high. Parsons learned Creole phrases — “ak pase?” means “what’s up?” — and knew Noel so well that he kept Cheez-Its, Noel’s favorite snack, at his home and jokingly demanded that Noel keep his sneakers on during visits because his feet smelled. When Noel had academic problems in seventh grade, administrators asked Parsons to help.

Parsons coached Noel on youth travel basketball teams. Even then, he noticed rival coaches sizing up his star player and attempting to poach him.

“There have been people trying to use him since the fourth or fifth grade,” said Parsons, who works at a Budweiser distribution plant and has a son who plays football at Princeton.

Noel’s older brothers were multisport stars at Everett High and earned football scholarships; Jim will be a senior at Boston College next season and Rodman a sophomore at North Carolina State. But early on, Nerlens focused on basketball.

“Nerlens is his own man, and he’s been that way for years,” said Errol Randolph, who worked as an unassigned teacher at Everett High and has advised all three Noel brothers. “Since he was in eighth grade, he pretty much went by the beat of his own drum. He don’t answer to no one.”

When Noel decided to leave Everett at the end of his sophomore year and attend the private Tilton School in New Hampshire, the move surprised the community and created hurt feelings. Some in Everett say that decision came after a meeting of the sort that can involve star players, even well before they approach college. At the meeting were Noel; his mother; Randolph, the teacher; and two former volunteers for the prominent local amateur team Noel played for, Chris Driscoll and Reggie Saladin.

Driscoll had known the Noel family since Nerlens was 10, first coaching Jim Noel. Driscoll had steered other players from lower-income backgrounds to Tilton and other prep schools. At the meeting with Noel, Saladin, the other former volunteer, was given an essential task: he translated for Dorcina Noel, the Haitian immigrant trying to decide what was best for her son.

Randolph said some in Everett blamed him for Noel’s leaving, but he insisted Noel made the best decision for his future.

“They felt like I made him to go Tilton, but if it was my kid and he could get a $60,000 education for free, I’d let my kid go there,” Randolph said of the school, which has an annual tuition of $47,600.

Noel did not discuss his decision with coaches or administrators at Everett. Suddenly, the kid who had grown up in the Everett gym and been embraced by the community was gone. He would not be graduating from the high school that his brothers Jim and Rodman starred for before heading off to college.

It is not clear how much say Noel’s parents, who are now separated, have in their son’s college decision. His father, Yonel, drives a cab in the Boston area, and Nerlens Noel recently told ESPN.com that his mother, Dorcina, can no longer work two jobs at the hospital because of back problems.

DiBiaso said he had placed a call to Georgetown during Noel’s sophomore year, believing the Hoyas were a possible destination for Noel because of the team’s successful history of developing big men like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo and the university’s strong academics. Yet, DiBiaso said that a rift developed between him and the Noel family after he made the call, perhaps an early sign of others attempting to influence the young star.

“The big thing I echoed to the parents when I did speak with them was that I’ve been here 33 years; I’m not looking for anything,” DiBiaso said. “I’m going to be here when I retire or hopefully until I die. I don’t need anything. I’m not looking for anything but what’s best for Nerlens.”

He let out a long sigh and said, “They chose a different tack and we lost touch.”

Noel declined to speak to a reporter from The New York Times when he was approached for comment.

The Everett High principal, Louis Baldi, said he was “extremely concerned” about Noel, and said that his recruitment reminded him of a boxer with a teeming entourage in his heyday who might find himself penniless upon retirement.

“I pray it works out for him and that the light turns on in his head,” Baldi said of Noel. “I pray it’s not too late.”

When Providence named Chris Driscoll an assistant in the summer of 2010, the move stunned many in college basketball. Driscoll had little playing experience beyond high school, his highest basketball position to that point had been as an assistant with a prominent amateur team, and he had not graduated from a conventional college.

What Driscoll did have was access to the top players like Nerlens Noel in the Boston area, a precious commodity for Providence, which was trying to keep pace in the Big East.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of college basketball. To win, coaches need a steady stream of good players. And if a person can deliver players like that, he can often parlay that talent, rather than extensive coaching credentials, into a job as an assistant.

Driscoll, 41, is separated from his wife and has three children. Associates say his main job over the years has been running the Massachusetts-based charity Mentoring At-Risk Athletes, called MARA. Driscoll’s ascension through the coaching ranks can be traced to his connection to Will Blalock, a talented young Boston-area guard in the early 2000s. Driscoll was a presence at Blalock’s games before becoming a volunteer assistant for the Boston Amateur Basketball Club in 2005, said Leo Papile, the club’s coach since 1977.

The Boston club is a prominent amateur team of the sort that now dominate the world of summer high school basketball and often play an outsize role in the development and recruitment of elite players. (For its part, B.A.B.C. says it does not get involved in its players’ recruitment.)

Blalock was the first prominent player Driscoll became close to, and after Blalock accepted a scholarship to Iowa State in 2003, Driscoll used him as a poster child for MARA.

A photograph of Blalock, identifying him as an at-risk athlete, appeared on the cover of a MARA pamphlet, along with the photographs of several other talented players from the Boston Amateur club. Blalock said he received numerous major scholarship offers before meeting Driscoll.

“At risk of what?” said Nate Thompson, a former assistant with club. “The only thing they were at risk of was becoming great basketball players. That made me suspicious. In my opinion, he was abusing the connections.”

Papile — who has coached players like Ewing, Chris Herren and Scoonie Penn and also worked as a scout for the Boston Celtics for almost 15 years — said he regretted allowing Driscoll to have access to the Boston summer team and its top players. He has since barred all B.A.B.C. volunteers from becoming involved in a player’s recruitment. He calls it the Chris Driscoll Rule.

“He’s a great disappointment to me,” Papile said of Driscoll. “I thought he had wanted to be a coach, but it appears that his primary object was to be a handler. He’s not a teacher, he’s not a coach.”

He added, “Bluntly, you’re dealing with the worst guy I’ve ever known in this game.”

But Driscoll also had supporters from his time with the Boston summer team. Pernell McDaniel, whose son, Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, went to Tilton with the help of Driscoll and is now a junior forward for Hofstra, called Driscoll “the best thing that happened to us.” Alex Oriakhi Sr., whose son, Alex, also went to Tilton and is a Connecticut junior, said his son called Driscoll their “white family member.”

Driscoll found himself in the middle of controversy during his season at Providence. Laurel Cannon, the mother of guard Gerard Coleman, called Providence administrators and claimed that her son was asked by Driscoll to fake an injury in order to lose games. The reason he asked, Cannon told Providence administrators, was so Coach Keno Davis would be fired and Driscoll could take over.

Coleman refused Driscoll’s request, his mother said, sending him a text message that said “the man in me” would not allow him do that.

“No one wants someone to see their child used as a product; no one does,” Cannon said. “He had us fooled. He really had us fooled.”

She informed Providence’s athletic director, Bob Driscoll, of Chris Driscoll’s request, but Bob Driscoll, who is not related, said he investigated and did not find reason to take any action.

“I took what his mother said very, very seriously,” Bob Driscoll said. “If that happened, it’s a fireable offense. Chris denied it and said it was a misunderstanding, and we moved on from there. I can’t tell you whether it happened or not.”

After multiple phone conversations, Driscoll said his lawyer advised him to say, “I vehemently deny all of the allegations.” He declined further comment.

Bob Driscoll was primarily responsible for hiring Chris Driscoll at Providence. He identified him as a candidate and suggested him as a possible assistant to Davis. Chris Driscoll received a multiyear contract, which is not standard for assistants.

One of the lines on Chris Driscoll’s résumé appeared to be dubious but apparently did not raise suspicion at Providence. He claimed to be a 1996 graduate of Amhurst University. Two of the country’s leading experts on fraudulent schools, the Illinois professor George Gollin and the former F.B.I. agent Allen Ezell, said that the apparently now-defunct Amhurst University, which billed itself as a distance learning center, was a diploma mill, essentially a school that awards a degree for money rather than the actual completion of coursework.

Gollin said that if Providence had investigated, it would have taken it little time to determine Amhurst’s illegitimacy. (A phone call placed to the number listed on Amhurst University’s Web site went directly to voice mail, and a message left received no response.)

Bob Driscoll said that Chris Driscoll passed a background check and that he was subject to the typical human resources review. Chris Driscoll also contended in his biography that he had an interim coaching record of 97-2 and won eight national championships with the Boston summer team, numbers that Papile said were exaggerated. Officials from a Massachusetts-based charity that Driscoll was involved with, Community Teamwork Inc., laughed when told that he claimed he raised $10 million; they said the actual figure was less than $100,000.

“If I had thought or learned that he didn’t have a degree or had surreptitious things on his résumé, we never would have hired him,” Bob Driscoll said. “I was under the impression he had a degree and it was legitimate.”

Chris Driscoll had a strong relationship with Noel before was hired by Providence, helping to steer him from Everett to Tilton. Just days before he took the Providence job, Driscoll drove to the house of Tilton Coach Marcus O’Neil in Eliot, Me. According to O’Neil, Driscoll told him that he thought Davis would be fired at the end of the season and that Driscoll felt he had a chance to replace him.

“He told me that he thought he was going to be the next coach at Providence College and that I could be his assistant,” O’Neil said. “All I had to do was help him to get Nerlens Noel to commit to Providence College.”

O’Neil rebuffed Driscoll, but it was not the last time he was approached. After Driscoll had been fired by Providence along with the rest of Davis’s staff in the spring of 2011, he met O’Neil at a pizza restaurant in Tilton.

“Nerlens is my last chance,” O’Neil recalled Driscoll saying. “I need to score, and I need to score big.”

O’Neil said Driscoll added, “You’re either with me or against me on this.”

Will Blalock met Chris Driscoll at a street-ball tournament after Blalock’s sophomore year of high school. Driscoll introduced himself as someone who ran a charity for at-risk athletes. Blalock did not think much of the encounter until a secretary at his high school called him soon after to say Driscoll wanted his phone number. Blalock told her to pass it along.

Thus began a relationship that would define and perhaps undo Blalock’s basketball career. Long before Nerlens Noel, Blalock embodied some of the same qualities — an elite player for B.A.B.C. who was considered one of the country’s top 100 prospects. Blalock struggled academically but drew interest from a number of major college teams. Blalock grew close to Driscoll, who steered him to Notre Dame Prep, 60 miles outside Boston, to help with his grades and eventually took over his recruiting process.

Blalock said programs like Memphis, UCLA and Pittsburgh were interested in him. He said he liked Connecticut best, however, as it was close to home and he wanted to play for a coach like Jim Calhoun.

But when it came time to choose a college team in 2003, Blalock listened to Driscoll and went to Iowa State, then enjoying success under Coach Larry Eustachy. Nearly a decade later, Blalock regrets the decision.

“When I was 16 or 17, I might have said he’s helping me out,” Blalock said. “But at 28, he may have hurt me more than he helped me. I know what kind of guy he is now. He burns a lot of bridges.”

Blalock said he believed that Driscoll sold him to Iowa State, although he stressed he had no proof. When Iowa State fired Eustachy in the spring of 2003, Blalock said, Driscoll instructed him to call the athletic director, Bruce Van De Velde, and say he would attend another university unless Iowa State hired the assistant Wayne Morgan as Eustachy’s replacement. Morgan was hired, Blalock kept his commitment and Blalock said Driscoll visited Ames about four times a season. (A spokesman at Hofstra, where Morgan now works as an assistant, said Morgan could not be reached for comment.)

“I don’t like to live with regret, but every now and then, I do regret going there,” Blalock said. “When it was time to make my decision with the N.B.A., even though my numbers were better than the guys in my class at point guard, all of them went to bigger-name schools and got picked ahead of me.”

Blalock, who left Iowa State after his junior season, also said Driscoll guided him to an agent he did not want to sign with, the Boston-based Frank Catapano.

Blalock was the final pick of the second round of the 2006 draft. He has played just 14 N.B.A. games and may never play another after having a stroke a few years ago. He is currently attempting a comeback with the Reno Bighorns of the N.B.A.’s Development League.

During Blalock’s time in the NBA, he said, Driscoll helped to pay his bills after Blalock gave him restricted access to his bank account. Blalock said he was not angry at the thought that Driscoll had made money off him as much as was angry that the money he believed Driscoll made from steering him to Iowa State had not been shared with him and his family.

“We never got nothing from him,” Blalock said. “There were times I’d have to ask drug dealers in my neighborhood to get a plane ticket home from college.”

Blalock said he stopped talking with Driscoll after he pushed him to sign with Catapano. Catapano denied paying to get Blalock as a client and said that he had never received a fee from Blalock for getting him a guaranteed rookie contract, the only one of his career. Catapano said he donated money to MARA years later when Driscoll asked, but only a small amount.

“I can tell you unequivocally that Chris Driscoll did not get anything from me because I signed Will Blalock,” Catapano said. “I’m not one of the whores that chases after the kids in college. I don’t take care of kids in high school.”

Agents have become an indelible part of college sports in the last two decades, with so-called runners, who do not have formal ties to agencies, given the awkward job of growing close to top teenage players like Noel or the people around them. Although the NCAA has tried to create rules to inhibit agents’ access to high school players, the presence of agents and financial planners aiming to align themselves with top prospects has become commonplace.

The involvement of agents at the high school level has become so sophisticated, the notion that schools and boosters pay for players to join their teams has become somewhat antiquated. It is more common now for agents to cut a deal with people associated with a player and find a school that will protect him from other agents. In some cases, an agent will offer a high school player to a college in exchange for signing one of the talented players who is ready to leave and enter the draft.

Agents also carefully and discreetly try to influence people who have the ear of top prospects. Papile, the coach of the Boston summer team, said he had received calls from about eight agents regarding Noel, with many of their questions related to when he would decide to become a professional. Noel, who was originally expected to graduate from high school next year, announced last month that he would attempt to graduate this spring.

If he does not qualify academically for college, he could spend a year playing professionally in Europe.

For George Wright-Easy, an unassigned teacher at Everett High School, he saw the interest of agents in Noel up close more than a year ago while at a trendy Boston nightclub called Rumor. A mutual friend introduced Wright-Easy to Ty Sullivan, a low-level agent for Creative Artists Agency, which represents star athletes and actors like Will Smith.

Wright-Easy is the half-brother of a former Penn State tailback, Omar Easy, and Sullivan immediately began dropping the names of former Nittany Lions standouts into conversation, along with basketball stars like James.

Sullivan eventually said, “Your guy is going to be the truth.”

A confused Wright-Easy asked, “Who?” When Sullivan said, “Nerlens,” Wright-Easy responded indignantly, “Man, he’s like 15 years old.”

Wright-Easy said that he did not consider Sullivan a threat to Noel. A low-level agent like Sullivan, who handles mostly players in the European and development leagues, is unlikely to land a potential big name like Noel. And he is probably one of many agents and their associates who are trying to become involved with Noel’s recruitment.

When reached on his cellphone, Sullivan acknowledged following Noel but denied any relationship with him. (Papile, who spoke with Sullivan at one of Noel’s games, said that Sullivan also denied any affiliation with Driscoll).

Whether Sullivan or C.A.A., which also represents Kentucky Coach John Calipari, will become a significant factor in Noel’s agent recruitment is not known. But Sullivan’s presence and attempt to ingratiate himself with someone close to Noel is illustrative of the increasing presence of agents at the high school level.

“Going to a local high school game is, you know, I don’t think is a problem,” Sullivan said. He declined further comment.

With its looming oak trees, elegant brick buildings and a history dating to 1845, the campus of Tilton School exudes the serenity of Norman Rockwell’s New England. But the last few months have been anything but tranquil for Tilton, which has a reputation for sending students to well-regarded universities in the Northeast and elsewhere.

Tilton has also become a national power in basketball, and Chris Driscoll is one of the people most responsible. Seven players on Tilton’s roster this season are from B.A.B.C. and he had steered several prominent players there in previous years.

For a time, the relationship between Tilton and Driscoll was mutually beneficial. The players that Driscoll steered to Tilton used their time at the school to qualify academically so they could play for the colleges of their choice. They also helped Tilton become an increasingly powerful basketball school nationally. Before, Tilton had been a middling performer on the prep school level. Now, while still mainly playing other schools in New England, Tilton has become a recognized team around the country.

It was not until Noel arrived that O’Neil, Tilton’s coach, and others at the school began to feel uncomfortable with the association.

Noel originally entered Tilton to repeat his sophomore year. (He had cracked a growth plate in his knee while warming up for a game with Everett.) After his knee healed and he became a coveted prospect, Noel decided to try to graduate from Tilton this year instead of in 2013. Tilton was annoyed by the decision, but Noel stuck to it and remained at the school for what will be his final high school season.

For his part, Driscoll is no longer welcome at the school.

Tilton’s headmaster, Jim Clements, declined to comment directly on Driscoll, whose son, Jeremy, attended Tilton as a postgraduate. But he did say it was his first time in his 14 years on campus that he had barred anyone from the school because of a relationship to an athlete. Still, Driscoll has maintained contact with Noel and acted as a liaison to college recruiters and some members of the news media about his recruitment.

O’Neil — who arrived at Tilton in 2004, works as a college counselor at the school and has a master’s degree in social work — stressed that school policy prevented him from speaking directly about Noel.

“I don’t think his primary focus is a student’s well-being,” O’Neil said of Driscoll.

From a basketball standpoint, Noel is considered raw offensively. He is not comfortable playing with his back to the basket and, at 215 pounds, the lanky Noel still seems a long way from being able to handle the physicality of the N.B.A. Still, it is believed he can make an immediate and significant defensive impact on the college level. Noel’s unusual skill set makes it difficult to compare him to another player, though some mention the former N.B.A. All-Star Shawn Kemp when discussing Noel.

Until this weekend, when Noel is scheduled to go on an official visit to Georgetown, he has had to pay for his visits to college campuses. He flew to Kentucky and Louisville on separate unofficial trips that Randolph and Wright-Easy said Noel’s father paid for. Clements said the school had had extensive discussions with Noel and his mother about the difference between official and unofficial visits and how to “not engage in behavior that would create a violation” of NCAA rules.

Papile said he considered this a lost year for Noel in terms of his basketball development.

“In my opinion, he’s given up this year because of bad advice,” Papile said.

In a recent game, Noel wore pink shoes, played out of position at point guard for long stretches and seemed to complain to the referees more than talk to his teammates. He rarely attempted to score inside.

For some who have watched him for a long time, Noel’s game seems to have stagnated, perhaps an outward sign of how the atmosphere surrounding his recruitment has affected him.

“The risk to him is that through poor choices on his part or his family’s part,” Clements said, “he would jeopardize the potential to participate in a college program with integrity and that would be of concern were that to be the case.”

This Was My Kind Of Day and Night: Baylor Whipped Kansas; Cincinnati Stuck It To Syracuse; Missouri Ousted Texas & the Forecast Is for Warmer Weather

Oh, and one more thing. Nice going, Drake women in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

Here's a Feel-Good Basketball Story

Meghan Herrick's hope of playing Division I basketball ended in high school, where she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in one knee as a sophomore and the other knee as a junior.

Morgan Herrick's Division I career ended after playing just 19 games in three years at Drake, where she tore the ACL in her right knee as a sophomore and again as a junior.

[Morgan is at the left in the Chicago Tribune photo, Meghan at the right].

Now the sisters from Cedarburg, Wis., are starting together for the second straight year on a Division III national championship contender at the University of Chicago.

The second-ranked Maroons take a 27-0 record into tonight's NCAA regional semifinal against No. 5 Calvin (27-1) in Hyde Park.

They have won 48 of their last 49 games, the lone defeat coming in last year's regional final. That near-perfect span began when Morgan Herrick began to mesh with her new teammates after her transfer to U. of C.

"My first two years, we always had potential but couldn't do anything with it because we struggled to play together," Meghan said. "Morgan was the last puzzle piece we needed."

Morgan (11.6 points per game) was named player of the year in the University Athletic Association this season, while Meghan (9.0) made second-team all-conference. A third Maroons senior, Taylor Simpson (12.6), was named Division III player of the year for her excellence on the court, in the classroom and in community service.

"The sum of our five starters and the bench adds up to much more than what we are individually," coach Aaron Roussell said.

The second knee injury reminded Morgan Herrick she wouldn't be playing basketball the rest of her life. It also gave her a chance to see her sister's U. of C. teams play.

"I saw it was intense, physical basketball and in no way a downgrade for me from Drake," she said. "I would never look back and wish things had gone differently."

Best of all, she has stayed healthy, no mean feat for a Herrick. Their older sister, Brittany, also had surgeries on both knees while playing for the Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

"It's our dad's genes," Meghan said.

Despite knee problems, Daryl Herrick is in the Wisconsin-River Falls Hall of Fame as a football player. [Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune.com].