a long ago recruit who left after only a few days at BU

[capecod]

Bile leaving after only a few days reminds me of a much earlier BU BB recruit who left after only a few days on campus:

1958 BU BB recruiting class
Chico Vaughn.....who before the days of a Letter of Intent, bolted Bradley for Dayton, only to then leave there too & end up at Southern Illinois

Vaughn at the time was the leading scorer in Illinois HS BB history; and would become the leading scorer in Southern Illinois U history & then have a fine pro career with the NBA Hawks + in the ABL

This link is to a Sports Illustrated story on the Vaughn defection...though the following story in the article on the recruitment of fellow BU '58 Frosh recruit Chet Walker isn't (supposedly) totally accurate......details were a bit different....

https://www.si.com/vault/1963/12/09/595091/go-get-em-coaches

here is another article on Vaughn's career (also mentioned the brief stop at Bradley)

https://books.google.com/books?id=tC2tOKqd3bQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=chico+vaughn+bradley+basketball&source=bl&ots=Kfa4M40b3v&sig=kq9VAtDRP78OpO3nw2DW7n0nweU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid4rvw2ZTcAhVkQt8KHfa3CTgQ6AEIUjAK#v=onepage&q=chico%20vaughn%20bradley%20basketball&f=false

[Mikovio]

He's still the all time leading IHSA scorer.

Somehow I doubt Chudier Bile is the next Chico Vaughn.

[capecod]

BU Frosh of 1958-59 sans Chico Vaughn

even without Chico, the Bradley Frosh team of 1958-59 (coached by Joe Stowell) finished 15-0....with Chet Walker averaging 23.2 pts per game.

In the second semester the BU frosh picked up some help with the mid-year enrollment of Mack 'the Knife' Herndon...who averaged 11 pts the rest of the way

Another member of that Frosh team was later my HS Algebra teacher + Head basketball Coach at Spalding Institute =Canadian Barry Shave....who would be replaced as Spalding BB coach by another former BU BB player Ron Patterson(my English teacher) & lead Spalding to a 2nd & 4th place finishes in the State Tourney.

[tornado]

Bile leaving after only a few days reminds me of a much earlier BU BB recruit who left after only a few days on campus:

1958 BU BB recruiting class
Chico Vaughn.....who before the days of a Letter of Intent, bolted Bradley for Dayton, only to then leave there too & end up at Southern Illinois

Vaughn at the time was the leading scorer in Illinois HS BB history; and would become the leading scorer in Southern Illinois U history & then have a fine pro career with the NBA Hawks + in the ABL

This link is to a Sports Illustrated story on the Vaughn defection...though the following story in the article on the recruitment of fellow BU '58 Frosh recruit Chet Walker isn't (supposedly) totally accurate......details were a bit different....

https://www.si.com/vault/1963/12/09/595091/go-get-em-coaches

here is another article on Vaughn's career (also mentioned the brief stop at Bradley)

https://books.google.com/books?id=tC...etball&f=false

great memory as always capecod - you think a little money under the table has something to do with Vaughn's defections...?

Other players who have committed to Bradley but then reneged or never played a game - leaving either before or after enrolling, some are walk-ons
Can anyone think of others?? I cannot recall any other player who enrolled for summer classes but then left before the fall semester arrived & never played.

Chico Vaughn (per capecod)
Walt Wesley
Anthony Grundy
Lee Biddlecome
Ryan Thornton
Cameron Sweatman
Jeremy Fears
Lance Stemler
Saihou Jassey
John Wilkins
DeAaron Williams
Sean Harris
Remy Abell
Kendahl Amerson

[Da Coach]

Back then, there was no such thing as National Letters of Intent, and players were free to switch schools after committing if they saw a better opportunity elsewhere. There were rules against tampering, but the NCAA was a very small organization at that time, and rarely enforced any such rules. The NCAA later placed stricter rules in place and began enforcing them more.

There are actually a number of stories that border on "hijacking" of recruits by coaches to get them to their campus.

Recall this story about the level of intrigue surrounding Bradley's recruitment of Chet Walker-

http://www.pjstar.com/x1803411294/-Hijacked-to-Peoria-How-Chet-Walker-became-a-Brave

How Chet Walker got to Bradley is one of those tales from the Braves??™ basketball glory days that BU fans can??™t hear enough....
...Walker said. ???At the time, I was shocked. I didn??™t know what to think. I was going to Nebraska and was intercepted along the way.

???It was a very traumatic experience for me. They had me taken across state lines by that disc jockey (Chicagoan Al Benson) against my will. And then Ozzie (head coach Chuck Orsborn) and the athletic director (John ???Dutch??™ Meinen) were at the airport and flew me to Peoria. Had I reported that to the NCAA, they would have been on probation for a long time. That was a strong violation.
The simple fact is those kind of incidents were not uncommon back then in college athletics. The NCAA had a one-person enforcement staff with a small budget and a thin rule book.
Here is the generally accepted version of what happened that day:
Walker had chosen the University of Nebraska over Bradley, and he told Nebraska officials he was going to school there. When Bradley assistant coach Joe Stowell got wind of this in late summer 1958, he drove to Chicago and picked up DuSable High School coach Jim Brown, who knew the Walker family. The two coaches drove to Walker??™s home in Benton Harbor, Mich., and tried to convince Walker??™s mother, Regina, that Chester, as he was called then, would be better off at Bradley.
Regina told the men that she??™d given her word to Nebraska and she couldn??™t go back on it. The coaches drove back to Chicago and Stowell returned to the Walkers??™ home the next day with well-known African-American disc jockey Al Benson.
Benson told Walker he could drop him off at Meigs Field in Chicago to catch his plane to Nebraska. As it turned out, Walker??™s trunk of clothes made it to Lincoln, but Walker did not. He was ???abducted??™ to Peoria.
Stowell confirms all of this, but pleads ignorance on how Walker got from Chicago to Peoria.
???Hell, I don??™t know,??? he said. ???I didn??™t drive him down. But he got here.???
When told of Walker??™s claim that Orsborn and Meinen whisked him here from Meigs Field in a private plane, Stowell replied, ???It could be true. Somebody had to pick up him and take him to Peoria.???
Orsborn, now 94 and retired in Florida, said he couldn??™t recall what, if anything, occurred.
???You??™re talking more than half a century ago,??? he said. ???I can??™t speak for Dutch (long deceased), but that didn??™t happen that I know of. I know the disc jockey had something to do with it, but I don??™t know what.

[capecod]

about poor, incident Nebraska

about poor, innocent Nebraska...re Chet Walker

from Chet's autobiography:

"....Nebraska really put the move on me. Nebraska's AD, Bill Orwig was a former Benton Harbor coach & a college friend Benton Harbor mayor Joe Carver, wealthy auto dealer in town...gave my brother Robert a job. The summer after my senior yr Orwig arranged a job for me at a cold-storage locker."


wild west days of recruiting back in the day

[tornado]

Chet Walker recanted some of what he put in his book - and the PJStar went and asked Joe Stowell about some of the claims and Stowell said a lot was untrue and exaggerated.

[Da Coach]

great memory as always capecod - you think a little money under the table has something to do with Vaughn's defections...?

Other players who have committed to Bradley but then reneged or never played a game - leaving either before or after enrolling, some are walk-ons
Can anyone think of others?? I cannot recall any other player who enrolled for summer classes but then left before the fall semester arrived & never played.

Chico Vaughn (per capecod)
Anthony Grundy
Lee Biddlecome
Ryan Thornton
Cameron Sweatman
Jeremy Fears
Lance Stemler
Saihou Jassey
John Wilkins
DeAaron Williams
Sean Harris
Remy Abell
Kendahl Amerson

Other than Chico Vaughn, the only other one on that list that is anywhere near similar to Bile's case- a scholarship player who enrolled at Bradley for only a few days or weeks then left before the first game ever arrived was Lee Biddlecome.
Biddlecome was a 6'10" 2001 Carson City, Nevada high school recruit of Jim Molinari who enrolled over the summer, worked some of Coach Mo's summer camps, but then suddenly left and enrolled at Casper Junior College in Wyoming where he spent the next 2 seasons.
Some on that list played a full season for Bradley before leaving (Sweatman, Jassey, Stemler), and there are dozens of other Bradley players in the past who were similar. Almost every year we have players who leave after playing their first year here (Scotty James, Davante Cooper, Joel Okafor, Ryan Stipanovich, etc). And if we including guys like Fears, Thornton, and Amerson, who left after a redshirt year, there are other guys like Jerome Merritt, Lou Griffith, etc. that would qualify, too.

Grundy, Wilkins, Williams, Harris, and Abell all were recruited but never enrolled at Bradley for various reasons. They do not appear anywhere in the All-Time Bradley Roster.
Cameron Sweatman (2007-2008 ), Saihou Jassey (2005-2007), and Lance Stemler (2004-2005) all spent at least one full season on the Bradley active roster and played in games, then decided to leave. All 3 are listed in the Bradley All-Time Roster database
Thornton, Fears, and Amerson all spent a full season at Bradley after transferring here. All 3 redshirted, then left before the next season when they might have become eligible.

[capecod]

Walt Wesley signed a conference LOI w Bradley

1962

The National Letter of Intent did not exist as yet. But many conferences had created a Conference LOI to stem the crazy recruited tactics of the day.

The Conference LOI had to be honored by every member of a particular conference-but could be ignored by all others.

The Conference LOI was put in place because many schools in certain conferences were at war with fellow conference members for stealing their recruits-and retaliated in kind....creating lots of bad blood between conference members....this was supposed to stem the tide...the National LOI came later

Only certain conferences enacted this LOI-led by the Big 10...the MVC followed along with a number of other conferences.

In 1962, BU Frosh Coach Joe Stowell signed Ft Meyers 6'11 center Walt Wesley to a MVC conference LOI to attend Bradley....this did not stop Kansas (who didn't have to honor the MVC LOI) from stealing Wesley away.

The article below does not mention that Walt had already signed a MVC Conference LOI with Bradley

http://www.kansan.com/sports/retired_jerseys/despite-not-being-heavily-recruited-walter-wesley-developed-a-monumental/article_37b54a1c-f623-11e6-9e39-0bc01066a4d5.html

fyi
Wesley was the 3rd straight Florida HS big man Stowell had recruited:

1960 Joe Strawder 6'9 Belle Glade Fla
1961 Van Ray Salter 6'8 Orlando (flunked out of BU)
1962 Walt Wesley 6'11 Ft Meyers -signed a MVC conference LOI but went to Kansas

[tornado]

....the only other one on that list that is anywhere near similar to Bile's case- ....

maybe you missed itm but that is what I said- and Scottie James, Cooper, Stipanovich played and used an entire season of eligibility here so they don't really compare at all, do they?

... I cannot recall any other player who enrolled for summer classes but then left before the fall semester arrived & never played.

[capecod]

1962

The National Letter of Intent did not exist as yet. But many conferences had created a Conference LOI to stem the crazy recruited tactics of the day.

The Conference LOI had to be honored by every member of a particular conference-but could be ignored by all others.

The Conference LOI was put in place because many schools in certain conferences were at war with fellow conference members for stealing their recruits-and retaliated in kind....creating lots of bad blood between conference members....this was supposed to stem the tide...the National LOI came later

Only certain conferences enacted this LOI-led by the Big 10...the MVC followed along with a number of other conferences.

In 1962, BU Frosh Coach Joe Stowell signed Ft Meyers 6'11 center Walt Wesley to a MVC conference LOI to attend Bradley....this did not stop Kansas (who didn't have to honor the MVC LOI) from stealing Wesley away.

The article below does not mention that Walt had already signed a MVC Conference LOI with Bradley

http://www.kansan.com/sports/retired_jerseys/despite-not-being-heavily-recruited-walter-wesley-developed-a-monumental/article_37b54a1c-f623-11e6-9e39-0bc01066a4d5.html

fyi
Wesley was the 3rd straight Florida HS big man Stowell had recruited:

1960 Joe Strawder 6'9 Belle Glade Fla
1961 Van Ray Salter 6'8 Orlando (flunked out of BU)
1962 Walt Wesley 6'11 Ft Meyers -signed a MVC conference LOI but went to Kansas

I am not sure what, if anything, Kansas had to do to get Wesley to renege on his Bradley commit, but notice in the above linked article that Wesley was the 3rd leading scorer all time at Kansas when he left...behind only Lovellette & Chamberlain....

the below linked article tells the story of how Clyde Lovellette was on the campus of U of I & set to enroll at U of Indiana but told Coach Branch McCracken that he needed to go home to get some clothes.... Clyde lived one hr away in Terre Haute....McCracken never saw Clyde again, and read 10 days later on a wire service that Lovellette had enrolled at Kansas....

the article then goes on to state the U of I fans knew money changed hands, but that this was 'chump change' compared to what Kansas later paid to get Wilt Chamberlain to leave Philly for Kansas .......less than 10 yrs later, Kansas took Wesley away from Bradley............

https://books.google.com/books?id=DWzpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA497&lpg=PA497&dq=clyde+lovellette+enrolled+at+indiana+university+basketball&source=bl&ots=YOPsgBOXoF&sig=PxinLsDA90sXZzcmciOzkpPTQ7Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9r4vi-pTcAhVSmeAKHUTtCDgQ6AEIZTAH#v=onepage&q=clyde%20lovellette%20enrolled%20at%20indiana%20university%20basketball&f=false