The Last Temptation of Rick Pitino

by Michael Sokolove

  Jordan, of course, validated Vaccaro’s acumen as a talent scout. On the court he was electric; off it, he was a charismatic pitchman with a made-for-TV smile. The commercials produced for Nike, especially the early ones made by Spike Lee, with “Mars Blackmon” as Lee’s alter ego, permeated the culture. The Nike-manufactured Air Jordans were a triumph as a performance basketball shoe and a style tour de force. It all worked magically. Without Vaccaro, Jordan might just be another basketball star, and Nike a company that made running shoes.

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  Vaccaro is best known for bringing Jordan to Nike, but two other of his innovations have had an equally powerful impact, and they relate directly to the current recruiting scandal. Nike and other companies had been giving away free shoes to prominent college programs as a way to boost the company’s profile. Vaccaro suggested to Knight, his boss, why not pay college coaches to have their teams wear their shoes? It wouldn’t really cost much, and since their rival companies were also giving away shoes, it would tilt the competition in their favor.

  He went after the biggest names in coaching—John Thompson of Georgetown would end up on Nike’s board, with several million dollars in stock—but the initial deals were modest, just $5,000 or $10,000 a coach, depending on the size and prestige of the program. Vaccaro paid the coaches out of his own pocket and then got reimbursed, because Nike had no budget for it, but the contracts were the basis for every big-money apparel deal with colleges that followed.

  The deals made college basketball “bigger,” a goal of all coaches and athletic directors—and it put more money in the game’s pipeline. (“Bigger” in sports almost always translates to more money—and in college sports, it means more money to coaches.) The tournaments and all-star games now sponsored by the shoe companies amount to one-stop shopping for the coaches. Instead of flying from high school to high school to see one or two prospects at a time—in almost all cases, matched up against inferior competition—they attend a limited number of big events where the best players compete against one another.

  And the events take place in major metropolitan areas, where the coaches can stay in five-star hotels. It was another stroke of genius by Vaccaro, who like any salesman was acutely aware of his clients’ needs. He put money in coaches’ pockets and made their lives easier.

  The logic of partnerships between the shoe companies and college basketball coaches was established. They had a legitimate role on campus; all they had to do was buy their way in. Anyone who questioned it was quickly drowned out by a chorus of happy insiders, and even now, that remains the case. “Let’s not go crazy here. Shoe companies have been great for our sport,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said in October 2017, not long after news of the federal charges broke. “Many colleges have shoe deals that fund all their student-athletes. We wouldn’t have all that. They fund programs, grassroots things that help thousands and thousands of kids. Just because we’ve had a few things go wrong here, you can’t get rid of all that.”

  A big part of what the shoe companies bought was obeisance. In 2012, Adidas outfitted its client teams in unconventional new uniforms for postseason play. Rather than honoring the school’s traditions, they called attention to the company. Louisville, in place of its classic red, played in what Adidas called “InfraRED” jerseys, which were infused with pink and orange. “We look like highlighters,” Louisville basketball player Peyton Siva said. Baylor’s “Electricity” uniforms were neon yellow down to their socks and shoelaces. Adidas announced that its “Adizero” uniforms were also going to be worn by players at the McDonald’s All-American Game, the annual marquee event for the most coveted high school performers.

  The attention-getting uniforms brought exactly what Adidas hoped for—a flood of free media, much of it consisting of the nonsense that the tricked-up threads conferred a performance advantage. A story in USA Today that read like a long press release claimed the uniforms were meant to “pay homage to the high intensity of the NCAA tournament” and were “28 percent lighter” than what the teams were wearing during regular-season play. (If that was true, you had to wonder why the company had previously burdened players with overly heavy uniforms.)

  An Adidas executive said, “The most important reason why we come to work is figuring out how we can give athletes a competitive advantage—make them one step quicker, jump one inch higher, and give them extra confidence.” He added that he had commissioned a survey of some younger players, kids playing on an elite AAU team, and they all liked the uniforms, and every one of them had used the word “swag” in describing them.

  The following season, Adidas outfitted six schools, including Louisville and Kansas, in “camo” jerseys. They looked absurd, nothing like basketball uniforms, and the spectacle of them seemed to toughen up some of the media coverage, including in the previously fawning USA Today, which noted that “in the relationship between college athletics and apparel companies, the Nikes and Adidases of the world hold the cards.”

  Kansas coach Bill Self got right to the heart of his program’s bond with its shoe and apparel sponsor. He did not enthuse over the uniforms, but explained, “Sometimes you’ve got to be a team player, and Adidas has certainly been good to us, there’s no question. And this is something that was important to them, that they are able to market it with some other schools that they feel that can help them in this area. Certainly, we’re going to do that to try to help them.”

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  Vaccaro’s other idea was to radically ratchet down the age at which he started wooing players. Why wait till the players are in college, or even high school? It doesn’t take a lot of money to win the love of a middle or grade school player and his family. Just regular shipments of shoes, which might have a retail value of $100 or more but cost only a fraction of that to produce. Nike probably spent more money shipping them to young prospects than making them.

  Vaccaro had zeroed in on Jordan as he was wrapping up his career at North Carolina. In 1996, after Vaccaro had split with Nike and moved on to Adidas, he signed up Kobe Bryant, who was entering the NBA directly from Lower Merion High School in suburban Philadelphia. “I knew the family. They knew me,” he explained, making it clear that he had been laying the groundwork for several years.

  Vaccaro is a colorful figure, and journalists, even ones troubled by the influence he yielded, have always loved to quote him. He has a way of speaking that can make it seem like he walked right out of The Godfather, and he is smart and self-aware enough that it is safe to assume he has workshopped that aspect of his persona. Vaccaro gave Jim Gatto, the indicted Adidas executive, his first job in the shoe and apparel business. After the criminal charges were announced, Vaccaro said, “I know Jimmy Gatto. I hired him. An altar boy. I have known him since birth.”

  When I talked with Vaccaro, he expressed shock at the gullibility of everyone involved. “The most obvious thing is you never use phones,” he observed. “And if you’re going to do these things, don’t do them with people you don’t know.”

  There were limits, he said, that had not been observed and caution flags that must have been missed. He had stepped down from his post at Adidas in 2007, and it looked to him that in the time he was gone, the money had gotten even bigger and the competition meaner. “Everybody forgot the boundaries of what they could do with their deals. No one stopped and thought, ‘What are the legal ramifications?’”

  That Louisville’s program was wrapped up in the federal case surprised Vaccaro. He has known Pitino for more than forty years. “Rick is Rick,” he said. “He’s the cute sharp dresser, the first guy to put the Armanis on, and he could coach like no one else. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if he had better guys, but he won, and he figured out how to do it with whatever talent he had.”

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  Nike’s association with Jordan and the incredible success of it led to a mi
sconception—that the shoe companies are engaged in a quest to identify kids who will hit it big in the NBA. The proverbial search for the next Jordan. That may have been the case for a time, but it has not been for many years. There are about 450 NBA players at any given time, and fewer than two dozen have their own signature shoe. (Mostly the ones you would expect—LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, and other superstars, though a few lesser names, like Matthew Dellavedova, have signature shoes for aspiring Chinese brands Peak or Anta.)

  None of them, not even LeBron James, has come close to matching the appeal of Jordan in the marketplace, whose Air Jordans, fifteen years after his retirement as an active player, accounted for $2.6 billion in sales in 2016. James’s shoe sales totaled about one-eighth of that. (The person who has come the closest to Jordan in cross-cultural appeal for his sneakers is not a basketball player but a rapper, Kanye West, whose limited-edition Yeezys sell out almost instantly and then are resold for hundreds of dollars above their retail price on the secondary market.)

  The real goal of the shoe companies, in their outreach to young players, is to buy brand loyalty and enter them into a pipeline that leads to the college teams they sponsor. If the players make it to the pros and rock the shoe and gear in the NBA, that’s a bonus. Gear that is especially blingy may even attract players whom a college coach covets. After signing to play basketball for Oregon, Bol Bol, a top prospect in the high school class of 2018 and the son of former NBA player Manute Bol, said that what first attracted him was that the Nike-sponsored team “had a lot of jerseys, a lot of different shoe combinations.”

  No young player is going to solely build a brand. Jordan did that, and it was a phenomenon of basketball talent, marketing genius, and good timing that will never be replicated. “When I was with Nike I wanted a kid to go to a Nike school,” Vaccaro said. “I didn’t give a shit which one. Same with Adidas. Just go to some Adidas school, one where they win games and get in the tournament and get on TV. Otherwise, we could give the money to Appalachian State if we just wanted to be good guys. But it’s a business deal, not a basketball deal.”

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  The ten-year, $160 million contract that Tom Jurich signed with Adidas included in its value about $6 million a year in shoes and gear for Louisville’s teams. It was explicit about what items each sport would receive, when athletes were required to wear it, under what circumstances they could obscure the company’s logo (which is called “spatting”), and what financial penalties the U. of L. would incur for instances of unauthorized spatting.

  Football players were getting jerseys and pants, a “base layer” to wear under the uniforms, as well as cleats, gloves, and other accessories. Men’s and women’s basketball players got uniform tops and bottoms and, of course, sneakers. The rest of the U. of L. teams were in line for uniforms and a variety of gear—basically, anything related to their sport that was in the Adidas line of products. All the athletes were to wear the Adidas products exclusively for practices, games, clinics, and certain other unspecified university functions. Coaches and other athletic department staff were also required to dress in Adidas-branded gear during their official duties, and nothing with the “trade name, trademark, or logo” of any other company.

  Spatting refers to ankle taping, except that the tape goes around the shoe and over the sock. It is more like bracing. As many as half the players in the NFL have their ankles spatted every game. Many athletic trainers believe in it, and some studies have shown that it cuts down on the occurrence of ankle sprains, though some players may also consider it a fashion statement. Much attention was paid to the issue of spatting in the Louisville contract, as it is in most deals between universities and apparel companies. Under the terms of the agreements, the student-athletes are action figures festooned with company logos, and anything that covers up those symbols runs counter to the whole spirit of the partnerships.

  The language about spatting directly inserts the companies into issues involving players’ medical conditions and needs. In 2013, USA Today wrote about the University of California’s contract with Nike and concerns that its football team might be in violation because too many players were spatting. The newspaper uncovered an email from the athletic director, Sandy Barbour, to the team’s equipment manager and head athletic trainer. “I believe that even in the case of injury, we are limited in the number of shoes that may be spatted for any given game,” she wrote.

  The Adidas contract with Louisville called for just a warning after a “first occurrence” of unauthorized spatting, meaning without a written medical explanation, and financial penalties for a “second occurrence of spatting” and a “third occurrence of spatting.” Violations for postseason games brought stiffer penalties, and Louisville under certain circumstances could lose up to 25 percent of its Adidas deal in a given year for players covering up their Adidas logos in NCAA tournament or football bowl games.

  The contract states that Adidas must be advised about medical conditions of Louisville athletes requiring spatting. (It is hard to see how its language does not come into conflict with federal regulations protecting the confidentiality of individuals’ health information.) “University acknowledges that ‘spatting,’ taping or otherwise covering up any portions of any Adidas logo or trademark on athletic footwear supplied by Adidas is inconsistent with the purpose and terms of this agreement,” it says. “University agrees it will not permit such ‘spatting’ or taping unless it has been medically prescribed and Adidas has been so advised.”

  It then goes on to say that if there is a medical problem, Adidas must have an opportunity to remedy it. “In the event any team member shall at any time suffer any physical injury, pain, or discomfort attributed to the use of Adidas shoes due to a bona-fide medical condition as evidenced by a certification by the team physician which is serious enough to affect the athlete’s performance, then university shall so advise Adidas and afford Adidas the opportunity to remedy the problem.”

  Only if Adidas cannot make its shoe fit “reasonably satisfactorily” can an athlete wear another company’s shoes. But in that case, he is required to spat, in order to “completely cover all non-Adidas logos, trademarks and brand insignia . . . while wearing non-Adidas shoes.”

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  Performance bonuses were written into Louisville’s contract with Adidas—for the university, of course, not the players. The company pledged $300,000 for a national championship in men’s basketball, $150,000 for a Final Four appearance, and $50,000 for a conference championship. Football was also promised $300,000 for a national championship, along with $100,000 for getting to the semifinal game of the Bowl Championship Series. Women’s basketball would earn $200,000 for a national championship and $75,000 for playing in a Final Four.

  If Adidas were to use an athlete’s “name, image, likeness, avatar and/or appearance” in connection with advertising, it had to get approval from the university and follow applicable NCAA rules. (The contract does not say anything about getting the athlete’s approval.)

  There are a few exceptions for when athletes can openly wear competitors’ gear. One is after championship games, when gear commemorating the moment seems to magically appear and players are captured on camera with broad smiles proudly wearing the T-shirts and hats they’ve just been handed—which are often part of a contract that the NCAA or a conference has cut with an apparel company. (In that case, for example, a Louisville player might be handed a Nike-branded hat.) In the contract, these are termed “celebration moments,” during which Louisville’s student-athletes are permitted to wear “celebration products,” even if they come from a rival company.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WAITING FOR BRIAN BOWEN

  As Tom Jurich worked to finalize Louisville’s new contract with Adidas, Rick Pitino was still putting his team together for the 2017–18 season. By his own high standards, he was in a slu
mp. The previous year was a rare moment when his squad underperformed. Louisville had an excellent regular season, winning home games against archrival Kentucky and vaunted Duke. They prevailed at Syracuse, an accomplishment for any visiting team. But after earning a No. 2 seed in the Midwest region, the Cardinals could not survive the first weekend of the tournament, losing to seventh-seeded Michigan.

  The year before that, Louisville was ineligible for the tournament—fallout from Strippergate. The university declared that it would not compete in the postseason in hopes of avoiding even stiffer penalties from the NCAA, a common tactic known as a “self-imposed ban,” but one that irritated Pitino. He thought it implied that he had done something wrong.

  In the upcoming season, however, five of his top players were returning, a good base in an era of college basketball when talented underclassmen on highly ranked teams routinely enter the NBA draft. In addition, Pitino had a top-ten recruiting class coming in, one of his best in years—and that was even before Brian Bowen Jr. began to look like a possibility. Pitino, in fact, thought he was done recruiting for the year. “We’ve got the best recruiting class we’ve had in sixteen years,” he said. “We got everybody we wanted.”

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  Bowen is the son of a white mother, Carrie Malecke, and an African American father, Brian Bowen Sr., a former high school basketball star who became a cop in Saginaw. Bowen Sr. trained and mentored his nephew, Jason Richardson, when he was a promising young basketball player coming up in Saginaw. “I became what they call uncle-dad” is how Bowen described the relationship in a 2014 interview. “When Jason was twelve or thirteen, from that time, it was me and Jason.”

  When Richardson went off to start his freshman season at Michigan State, the Bowens moved from Saginaw to East Lansing to be near him. The move came at about the same time Bowen left the Saginaw police force with a medical disability pension. (It pays him $48,513 annually.)