Play Their Hearts Out

by George Dohrmann

  In the 1980s, analyst Bob Gibbons in North Carolina rose to national prominence. Like Garf, he would eventually run a camp and put out a newsletter, All Star Report, but he differed from Garf in that he marketed to fans, not coaches. His lists, such as the top-100 seniors or top-100 underclassmen, were immensely popular. Fans wanted to know how the players their school signed stacked up against their rivals’ recruits. If North Carolina got the number-1 player and Duke ended up getting number 7, that was ammunition a Tar Heels fan could use to prove his school’s superiority.

  Francis arrived on the scene after Gibbons and adopted his penchant for lists. But whereas Gibbons would stop at the top 100 or 150, Francis’s rankings seemed to go on until he ran out of names. “He’d have a list of the top underclassmen, and it would go to 966,” says Tom Konchalski, who took over HSBR from Garf in 1984. “We all chuckled at that. It was like he was taking every name a coach gave him and putting it out there in the hopes it would stick.”

  Konchalski and other veteran recruiting analysts liked Francis, but they drew a distinction between what they did and what he did. “Clark was more of a popularizer,” Konchalski says. Garf or Konchalski felt their reputations were on the line when they ranked players—the college coaches who were their customers would know if they ranked a kid a 5 and he couldn’t play a lick—and they resisted doing national rankings. “We wanted to be able to see a kid over a period of a few years, see a pattern of development physically and also how their skills developed,” Konchalski says. “One person can’t do that nationally.” But for Francis, there was no consequence to ranking 966 kids or putting a guard from Arizona he’d never seen play in his top 50, and in his early years he did so with impunity.

  Eventually Francis assembled a team of “editors” around the country to help him with rankings and his newsletters. Some were qualified independent scouts, but others were grassroots coaches, which created an obvious conflict of interest. For a spell, Francis’s “California editor” was Dinos Trigonis, the long-time coach of the Belmont Shore Basketball Club. Not surprisingly, kids from his team appeared in Francis’s rankings. In one newsletter in 2001, Francis wrote: “When our California Editor Dinos Trigonis goes against the consensus and ranks (Jamal) Boykin over 6′9″ Soph Amir Johnson from Los Angeles (Verbum Dei) CA, as the #1 sophomore in California, we think it is more than justified.” Nowhere does Francis mention that Boykin played for Belmont Shore and Johnson did not. Konchalski recalls another year when the father of a player Francis ranked highly was one of The Hoop Scoop’s editors.

  Francis would likely have remained among the minor recruiting gurus had he not moved to differentiate The Hoop Scoop from other scouting services. He was the first to rank the top eighth-graders in the country and in doing so passed a hard deck that others had been loath to cross. Veterans like Konchalski and Gibbons never stooped to that level, in part because the NCAA doesn’t deem a player a recruitable athlete until the tenth grade. They also considered the evaluation of kids before they reached high school too inexact a science. The further out you tried to project a player’s ability, the more of a guess it became. But like Sonny Vaccaro before him, Francis saw gold in going younger. He continued to push the limits, ranking sixth-graders and then even fourth-graders. Combined with the advent of the Internet, this innovation boosted the online Hoop Scoop’s popularity and Francis’s profile. He would eventually charge $495 for a year’s subscription and claim that during the busy AAU months of June and July, his site got nearly one million hits.

  Francis’s lists of elementary-age kids were famously inaccurate. His first ranking of fourth-graders in 2004 had Kaleb Farrell of Indianapolis as the number-1 player. One problem: Kaleb was a second-grader and the younger brother of the player Francis meant to put number 1. Mistakes such as those didn’t stop people from reading The Hoop Scoop, and it became the National Enquirer of recruiting, a hoops junkie’s guilty pleasure.

  Francis’s justification for ranking kids so young varied depending on the day. In one interview, he sounded a lot like Joe Keller when he said, “Some kids can handle [the rankings] and some need to be sheltered. That’s not my responsibility. That’s the responsibility of their parents or coaches or teachers or counselors.” But in that same interview he offered what came across as parental advice: “What’s worse, to shelter a kid throughout most of his growing-up career and suddenly throw him to the wolves all at once, or to do it in increments and see if he can handle it? That’s what happens with some players—they get to be sophomores and juniors in high school and are good enough to play on national AAU teams, but they’re sheltered all their lives. Has someone done them a disservice?”

  Francis repeatedly presented to me the classic drug pusher’s defense: “I am just providing a service people want.” To those who consider what he does harmful to children, it is a cop-out. “I like Clark, but I think ranking kids so young is a subtle form of child abuse,” Konchalski says. “Pedophiles want child pornography. Does that mean we should cater to them? … The pressure it puts on kids is immense. But even with so many people saying it is a mistake, it is not illegal and he is not going to stop.”

  Among the largest subset of people who followed Francis’s rankings were AAU coaches, and not only because some of them were on his payroll. Rankings of any kind, from any scouting service, regardless of its credibility, were instruments with which to measure one’s importance. If a coach had the number-1 player in the country or several kids in the top 50, his value to the shoe companies, his popularity with college coaches, and his ability to recruit new kids was enhanced. To Keller, Francis was the most important opinion-maker in America, the key to creating a national groundswell about Demetrius and the team. Upon re-forming the Inland Stars in 2000, Keller made courting Francis a top priority. He called Francis regularly with “tips” about the great players on his team, and eventually Francis took the bait.

  In April of 2001, in a report prior to the Kingwood Classic, a well-attended tournament in Houston, Francis wrote on his website: “The Inland Stars in the 10-Under Division might be worth a look as well, because this top-rated team includes tremendous size with … 5’8 Joseph Burton … 5’8 Demetrius Walker … and 5’5 Rome Draper.” In a newsletter dated three days later, Francis wrote: “Now let’s move to the 10-Under Division, where we made a point to watch the Inland Stars. The last time the Inland Stars were this good at so young an age, they had 7’0 Tyson Chandler from Compton (Dominguez) CA, 6’6 Josh Childress from Lakewood (Mayfair) CA, 6’5 Cedric Bozeman from Santa Ana (Mater Dei) CA, and 6’11 Jamal Sampson from Santa Ana (Mater Dei) CA. But this team promises to be better. As a matter of fact, Joe Keller has come out of retirement to coach this group. Their best player is 5’8 Demetrius Walker … Sure some Tyson Chandler comparisons are in order, but just like we told our buddy Pat Barrett, who is Chandler’s mentor and club team coach, Walker plays a lot harder. Also, Walker’s father is 6’8 and his mother is 6’1. So his potential for growth is scary. But right now we’re talking about an outstanding athlete who is very fluid and impossible to stop at this level. … Unfortunately, we only got to see this team for about a quarter, because we had to go to the 15-Under Championship game.”

  The errors in Francis’s report are numerous. Chandler, Childress, Bozeman, and the rest never played together on the Inland Stars, only on SCA, and Chandler did not play for Keller when he was a ten-year-old. Demetrius’s father was not six foot eight—not even close. But the most astounding (and telling) aspect of his report was that after watching Demetrius play for only a quarter—about eight minutes—he likened him to Chandler, who at the time was months away from being selected in the first round of the NBA draft.

  Seven months later, Demetrius made The Hoop Scoop again. In a tease of Trigonis’s rankings of the top players in California, from seniors down to fifth-graders, Francis wrote that Demetrius was Trigonis’s pick as the top sixth-grader in the state. “Speaking of Walker, his father is 6’9, his mother is
6’2 and he’s already being touted as the next Tyson Chandler. So you might want to remember the name!”

  Francis can be forgiven somewhat for taking erroneous information straight from Keller’s mouth and plopping it into his report. How could he know Keller would lie to him about Demetrius’s father’s height or Kisha’s? But comparing Demetrius to Chandler revealed an iniquitous truth about his mission. Francis would say he ranked and evaluated kids, but he was really in the business of hype. College coaches did not consider his rankings when they chose the kids they recruited. Whether they signed a player or not didn’t hinge on Francis’s opinion. He was writing only to titillate the rabid fans who made up his readership. Howard Garfinkel scouted kids; Clark Francis promoted them. He was a salesman, and he wrote what he thought his readers wanted, which was whispers of greatness in a kid still shy of middle school.

  As Konchalski pointed out, this puts immense pressure on players very early in their lives. From the moment Francis compared Demetrius to Chandler, the bar was set. Demetrius had to become the next Tyson Chandler. If he didn’t, he would fail to live up to his potential. It didn’t matter that his potential had been determined after only eight minutes by a man with no real experience playing or coaching basketball. Fans didn’t know Francis’s qualifications or his true motive. They knew only what they read: Demetrius was as talented and worked harder than a player who would ultimately be the second pick in the 2001 NBA draft.

  Francis continued to listen as Keller gushed about Demetrius’s ability. After the Inland Stars defeated Team Maryland in Baltimore, Keller called with the news and urged Francis to watch the team play in April at the Las Vegas Easter Classic. “Demetrius is the best player in the country,” Keller told him. A few days later, just before the tournament, Francis wrote on his website: “Speaking of the 12-Under Division, we’re especially anxious to check out SCA/Inland Stars, which features 6’2 Demetrius Walker from Fontana, CA, who is widely considered the best 6th grader in the nation.” After the tournament, which Keller’s team won easily, this appeared on The Hoop Scoop’s website: “[Demetrius] Walker, who had 18 points in the game we attended, deserves special mention, because he had incredible moves, athleticism, and skills for somebody his age and, as a result, is the best 6th grader in the nation.”

  For three years Keller had been selling the idea of Demetrius as the top player in his class, and finally someone had put it into the recruiting lexicon. Keller could print out Francis’s words and mail them to coaches, parents, and reporters. He could email a link to The Hoop Scoop posting all over the country, and he could use it to sway other recruiting analysts when the time was right (“Clark Francis has Demetrius number 1; why don’t you?”). Keller believed no one was better than Demetrius, and so Francis’s posting felt more like validation than deception. He didn’t view what he’d done as lobbying. He’d merely tipped Francis off to a great kid, and Francis had confirmed with his own eyes that Demetrius was special.

  When Demetrius heard what Francis wrote, he was characteristically unmoved: “That’s great and all, but that doesn’t mean nothin’ if we don’t win Nationals.” But to Keller it meant everything. It substantiated the course he’d set for himself and his family. He always talked as if Demetrius’s stardom were a foregone conclusion, but strands of uncertainty existed. Following Francis’s stamp of approval, all qualifiers were removed. Demetrius was the next Tyson Chandler, and Keller was going to make millions. Case closed.

  In addition to labeling Demetrius as the best player in the nation, Francis also printed, at Keller’s request, the names of several of the Inland Stars, tagging them as players to watch. Jordan, Rome, Andrew, and even Tommy were listed, and the pride John and the other parents felt at seeing this cannot be overstated. They imagined coaches at UCLA, Arizona, and Duke scribbling down their son’s name, making a note to check out Joe Keller’s team of phenoms. The mention in The Hoop Scoop helped heal the wounds from Maryland, and the parents and kids turned their attention toward Nationals. “With Joe, it might be hard to see sometimes, but the good outweighs the bad,” John said.

  A few weeks after Francis proclaimed Demetrius the best player in the country, LeBron James signed a $90 million contract with Nike, despite having yet to graduate from high school. News of the deal reached Keller at his apartment, and he quickly called me to confirm the details. He then brought Demetrius on the line in a three-way call.

  “D, did you hear? LeBron got ninety million dollars from Nike.”

  “That’s nice,” Demetrius said. “Good for him.” He was chewing on something, and in the background a video game could be heard.

  “Ninety million dollars. Ninety million. Wow,” Keller said. “I’ve got to say, I would be happy if D got half that when he goes pro.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Demetrius said.

  “D, what the hell are you talking about? You wouldn’t be happy with forty-five million dollars?”

  “Not if it’s half of what LeBron got.”

  “D, are you crazy? Forty-five million? We’re talking about forty-five million dollars. You’re out of your mind if you wouldn’t take that.”

  After a long pause, Demetrius answered, although reluctantly: “Okay, I guess I would take that. But I wouldn’t be happy.”

  “Yes, you would,” Keller said.

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “D, you’re crazy. Hang up. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

  When Demetrius was safely off the line, Keller said, “You know, hearing about LeBron getting all that money makes me realize how big all of this is. And also how big it is going to get.”

  9

  Demetrius Walker (#23) before the 2003 Nationals

  Rare were the moments when a subject other than basketball penetrated Keller’s world. If you weren’t discussing the team or the brightness of Demetrius’s future, he tuned you out. If you couldn’t listen for hours as he went on about the certitude of the Inland Stars’ triumph at Nationals, he’d find someone who would. Given how little he knew about anything else, his obsession seemed at times like a case of savantism. Only when the world revolved around basketball did life make sense; only then was he comfortable and centered.

  Only once before had Keller been so singularly fanatical. In the mid-1990s, he believed—like many young men in the Inland Empire—that his car was the ultimate representation of his persona. He drove a lowered forest-green Mitsubishi Eclipse with eighteen-inch chrome rims, and he liked to sit low in the gray seats, sunglasses on, windows rolled down, blaring rap music. Shortly after buying the Mitsubishi, Keller learned of a competition called the California State Sound Off, which was essentially a contest to determine who owned the loudest stereo. Winning this competition became Keller’s purpose in life. He ripped apart his Mitsubishi, filling the doors and dashboard and even the floor with Dynamat, an insulator that reduced vibration and prevented road noise from entering the car and stereo sound from exiting. He removed the backseats and squeezed in eight subwoofers and forty-two speakers. Anyone riding in the car had to wear earplugs designed for use at gun ranges, and Keller liked to brag that he could be heard coming a mile and a half away. He worked on the car at least six hours a day for four months and spent more than $25,000 on the stereo alone. That didn’t count the cost of replacing the windshield and side windows he blew out while testing it.

  As with the Inland Stars years later, Keller’s incredible focus paid off. His car finished first in its class at the Sound Off, and the victory awarded him some local cachet, which he parlayed into a business installing people’s stereos and alarms. At one point he was netting $4,000 a week, “but then car manufacturers started coming out with those keyless-entry devices, which people thought were an alarm, and the market dried up.” Shortly thereafter, he sold the Mitsubishi and became a full-time basketball coach.

  With few exceptions, hoop dreams had been Keller’s sole preoccupation ever since. Even when he quit coaching after his brief partnership with Barrett, he neve
r stopped thinking about the game. One reason he returned to the sport was that he couldn’t get it out of his head. But in early June, a few weeks before the Inland Stars departed for Newport News and the 12-and-Under AAU Nationals, Keller’s singular focus was threatened by the news that Violet’s obstetrician had scheduled a C-section for the birth of their second child, a girl, for the same week as Nationals. It presented the ultimate test of Keller’s priorities: Would he set aside his ambition to tend to his family? Or would his obsession with Demetrius, the team, and roundball riches trump even the birth of a child?

  Few people knew about his dilemma until days before the team’s departure. John found out while sitting on the couch at Keller’s apartment. They were discussing the uniforms and the shoes the boys would wear in Virginia, and then Keller said matter-of-factly that Violet’s doctor had advised her to have a C-section.

  “The good thing is that you’ll know exactly when it’s going to happen,” John said. “So what day is it?”

  “It’s for the Tuesday night we’re at Nationals.”

  “So who’s going to coach the team?”

  “I’m going to coach them. I’m still going.”

  John assumed he was kidding. “What does Violet think about that?” he said, expecting Keller to laugh at him for taking the bait.

  “She’s okay with it. She knows that even though I won’t be there, she’s still my number one priority.”

  He’s trying to impress me, John thought. What greater declaration of one’s commitment to the team than to put a tournament ahead of family?

  When Tom heard Keller make the same statement, he lectured him sternly. “Joe, this is something you can’t get back. Think hard about what you are saying. You are going to miss your daughter’s birth—your daughter’s birth!—to coach in a tournament.”

  It wasn’t just any tournament, Keller insisted. “No one else can coach the team. If I’m not there, we don’t have a chance.”