I saw it happen in basketball more than 35 years ago when I was a student at USC. We had a premier recruit named Dwayne Polee switch to UNLV during the final days after he had been a sworn USC commit for more than a year. Everyone knew Tarkanian bought him. I called the UNLV athletic department as sportswriter for the Daily Trojan covering the basketball team. Tarkanian refused to speak to me but they put an assistant coach on the phone. He basically laughed at me. His attitude was unmistakable..."Prove it."
Roughly 15 years later I had the proof. I had a friend named Billy Hungrecker who had been a Philadelphia high school hoops legend and briefly played at UNLV in the late '70s/early '80s under Tarkanian. Billy was working in the Imperial Palace sportsbook when I was working at the Horseshoe. Anyway, when I mentioned the Polee situation from that era, Billy really perked up: "Wait a minute. I heard that story. We did buy him. There's an old booster who comes in here all the time. When I see him I'll introduce you. I'm sure he'll tell the story."
Keep in mind this was after Tarkanian had been forced out. The old boosters were forced out also, as UNLV tried to clean up under Rollie Massomino.
Sure enough, one night Billy enthusiastically waved me over to the sportsbook counter. The booster was there and it was like a scene out of a movie. He had a big belly and bigger hat. Perfect stereotype of a booster. Billy prompted me to tell the story. I didn't finish before the booster cut me off: "Oh sure. I remember that kid. Cost us 25. Plus a car. Oh, and a scholarship for his sister. Good kid but he wasn't worth a ****. Not here anyway. The kid, I'm talking about. No idea about his sister."
I was in disbelief while taking it all in. Billy was laughing in hysterics while pointing at the booster. "See! See! I told 'ya. I told 'ya he'd know."
I asked the booster to slow down and decipher for me. Turned out it cost $25,000 to buy Dwayne Polee away from USC. The rest is self explanatory...the car and the scholarship for the sister. The booster tried to remember what type of car it was, and how it was acquired. But he said he was fuzzy on that because cars were common gifts but they made sure to cover tracks by not using the same method or dealer more than once.
I have told that story on many sites, including the USC basketball forum. It was greeted awkwardly there because Dwayne Polee not only had a prominent son who was also a star player, but at the time I told the story the senior Polee was director of basketball operations at USC.
Tough luck. I wasn't going to suppress the information and no one from USC attempted to deny or deflect.
It happened as described.
However, as Coach Macho emphasized...it is a tired excuse. Certainly there are examples. Dwayne Polee was ultra elite and had a firm destination. It took bags to pry him away. But posters here routinely use bags to explain everyone we lose, and that is laughable.
If I had to change one thing about the Canes program it would be the addition of an on-campus stadium. I guarantee it would cleanse our recruiting every year and we'd fare better, with less effort. But I'm not going to be dense enough to pretend it is the explanation for every decommitment. This is all about adding a few percent here and there as opposed to sacrificing a few percent. With so many kids legitimately undecided late you can sense how important every variable can be.
