Recruiting: How it happens

[Gator]

Greg Hansen

Early Olson recruiting makes one chuckle now

In his first full recruiting season at Arizona, in the fall of 1983, Lute Olson lost his four targeted big men. Zero for four.

John Andersen went to Ohio State; Jeff Arnold to Purdue; George Williams to Minnesota; and Wayne Englestad to Cal-Irvine.

Imagine that now. Cal-Irvine.

Imagine Olson getting shut out.

"The thing we feared most happened," Olson said. "John's parents, and several others, indicated they didn't want their son going that far from home."

No way Olson could have imagined someday getting commitments from two of America's five leading high school players a week apart. Two players so far from home. Mustafa Shakur of Pennsylvania. Ndudi Ebi of Texas.

No way.

Olson readjusted. His first Pac-10 championship was won with junior college center John Edgar, who chose Arizona over Boise State. The first high school center of note recruited by Olson was Joe Turner of Bakersfield, Calif. Turner picked Arizona over Fresno State.

The Arizona program grew, not with big names, but with carefully chosen little ones. Rolf Jacobs took Arizona over UC-Santa Barbara. Eddie Smith turned down Wichita State to play on Olson's first UA team.

Wichita State. UC-Santa Barbara. It makes you chuckle now, doesn't it?

UA assistant coach Ricky Byrdsong thought the Wildcats had their breakthrough "name" recruit in 1985 when he went to Los Angeles to get a commitment from high school All-America forward Chris Sandle.

"I was driving on a freeway, listening to the radio," Byrdsong told me that year. "The sports news came on, and the announcer said, 'Chris Sandle has announced he will play college basketball at Arizona State.'"

Byrdsong exited the freeway and located a pay phone. He called Sandle and, typical of Byrdsong's engaging ways, laughed because he thought the radio announcer had confused ASU and Arizona.

"Sorry, Coach," Sandle said. "It is Arizona State."

And now Arizona acquires the nation's No. 1 power forward and the No. 1 point guard a week apart. Oh, if only Byrdsong were alive to hear about it. He would appreciate how far the Wildcats have come as much as anyone.

A year after losing Sandle to the Sun Devils, Arizona had to make an 11th-hour appeal to persuade Sean Rooks to turn down a scholarship to Washington to attend Arizona. Washington! The Wildcats lost Adam Keefe, a player Olson desperately sought, to a Stanford program that had not yet become a winner.

Olson has been told no, more times than a telemarketing salesman.

Coveted forward Tom Kleinschmidt came to Tucson from Chicago and lodged at La Paloma. He chose a dying DePaul program anyway. Olson enlisted former UA football coach Dick Tomey to double-team the extraordinarily athletic Stais Boseman, making Boseman the first high school player Olson phoned in the summer of 1995. Boseman chose USC anyway.

The UA has lost recruiting battles for so many big men, it has lost count. Richard Mande-ville went to Indiana; Cherokee Parks to Duke; Shawn Bradley to BYU; Matt Bullard to Iowa.

UCLA has tortured the Wildcats, taking so many Olson hoped would play for him. Reggie Miller. Darrick Martin. Mitch Butler. And on and on.

After a couple of Final Fours and a flurry of Pac-10 titles, Olson's reach grew, predictably, but not with the impact of Shakur-Ebi. For example, Olson got Corey Williams out of Indiana, but only when Duke decided to pass on Williams. He got Mike Bibby out of Phoenix; the only obstacle there was ASU, which was not an obstacle at all.

He beat Utah for Richard Jefferson, a slumping Louisville for Damon Stoudamire, and some WAC schools for A.J. Bramlett.

The only constant was that Olson continued to win, no matter who wanted - or did not want - Ray Owes and Donnell Harris.

Now, instead of occasionally beating the world for a New York guard such as Khalid Reeves, the UA's reach no longer exceeds its grasp.

After all these years, Arizona is no longer too far from home.

* Contact Greg Hansen at ghansen@azstarnet.com or 573-4362