Rick Stansbury, also making a run at Butch McRae, Rickey Rowe, and Neon Bodeaux
Rick Stansbury and the Mississippi State basketball program laughed in the NCAA Infractions Committee’s general direction last week when they offered a scholarship to Los Angeles high schooler and McDonalds All American Renardo Sidney. Normally, the 6ft 10 inch center would be a coup for any program, a feather in the recruiting cap, until you realize that the only reason he is ending up in Starkville is because his hometown teams wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
Though they are from rival schools who often wage intense battles for the same athletes, the sources agreed on this about Sidney: The reward of suiting up such a prodigious talent was not worth the larger risk. Bruins and Trojans sources both say they were wary of potentially intense NCAA scrutiny prompted by these issues: Despite what was perceived as a limited income, the family moved multiple times and resided in upscale homes during Sidney’s high school years; and stepfather Renardo Sr. directed a club basketball team with financial backing that was unclear beyond a relatively modest shoe company sponsorship. Plus there was this: A source intimately familiar with Sidney’s recruitment said a university official thought the stepfather had strongly hinted that he expected to be compensated if his son signed with the school.
So lets put this in a littel perspective, Tim Floyd, coach of the USC Trojans, a man who took on OJ Mayo sight unseen two years ago even though he attended several high schools in four years and had more handlers than a pack of dancing circus bears, a man who all but wrote personal checks to Marcus Fizer to lure him out of Arcadia, Louisiana to go to school in Ames, Iowa, wanted nothing…NOTHING to do with Sidney.
Stansbury, however was apparently willing to take on the immense talent, potential liability, and inevitible NCAA inquiry (speared on by the prying journalistic integrity by some Ed Oneal type no doubt) that Sidney potentially brings.
4 responses so far ↓
1 ZSkrilla // May 5, 2009 at 2:32 pm
This is simply a case of parent’s wanting to remove their child from the temptations of upper class white kid drug use. He survived the L.A. streets man he shouldn’t be subjected to the SMU’s of the West. What better way to do that than send your kid to the middle of effing nowhere?
2 Happy // May 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Let’s see Blue Chips was about a veteran coach in a big conference who just couldn’t seem to get over the hump and decided to sell his soul and take a recruit with a parent obviously looking for a payday and a 7 foot center with a shady past that no one knows really anything about. Nope, I completely fail to see the resemblance.
3 Neon // May 5, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Lets not forget in addition to Sidney they also just got a 7’2 center from the Sudan who just spent a year at the IMG Academy and whose potential eligibility is a complete mess. Hmmm 7 foot center, no one knows how old he is or where he really came from. Sound familiar?
4 BG // May 12, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Renardo was originally from Mississippi and MSU recruited him heavily. The day he left Mississippi for CA is the day that this thing got ugly. What liability does MSU have here? They certainly did not want the kid to move to LA…that only benefited USC and UCLA. If you are MSU then you have nothing to lose here…if he is cleared you have a stud forward…if not you don’t have any liability. You were his safety net…now they have to find out if he is cleared to play…which right now he is. I laugh at people that don’t have the facts behind this kids past and then wonder why he ended up at MSU….his entire family still lives in Mississippi.
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