Chipman's original recruiters were Greenberg (1980-83) and Reggie Warford. Joe DiGregorio was his bench coach in the later half of his tenure.
Warford got caught trying to buy a Kentucky high school star, as exposed in a Louisville Herald-Leader article. He didn't get another coaching job for a long time. He won a retrial on the lawsuit about the article, on appeal, but not on having the offer disproved, rather on his not being a public figure and entitled to a different standard of privacy. The case was eventually settled out of court.
Greenberg was a counselor at the 5-Star camps and is credited with recruiting Curtis Aiken. When Greenberg left, he was replaced by Jay Eck, who, frankly, I didn't even remember. I barely remember him after finding his picture in some old programs.
I think it was the old Eastern Basketball magazine that alleged Charles Smith's mother held a closed bid, Chinese auction for his services. Smith signed in April 1984, so the staff then was Chipman, Warford, Eck and DiGregorio.
Calipari was hired the last year, 1985, under Chipman, replacing Eck. He was the only coach retained and coached several years under Evans, recruiting the Miller, Matthews, Shorter, Martin and Porter class. He may or may not have been involved in the Doug West fiasco when Pitt and Villanova traded accusations of attempts to buy the player. West's mother allegedly produced a $10000 check signed by a Pitt booster and trustee. He had moved on to head coach at UMass by the time the infamous All-Prop 48 class was signed in 1990.
John Sarandrea replaced Calipari as chief recruiter until he was charged with violations over Jamal Faulkner. To be fair, Sarandrea probably would have brought several very good players to Pitt (who went to Syracuse or UConn instead) if Pitt had admitted them. After the All-Prop 48 class, the Killer B's raised academic standards unilaterally. He recruited very well to New Castle later and won a state title there.
While looking up the details on this, I found a quote I had never seen before. I believe it was from the PG archives. Roy Chipman allegedly told someone he decided to retire because his 9-year old daughter asked him if he was going to jail because of recruiting violations. As I said, I NEVER saw this before and yes, I'm well aware of the questionable veracity of things on the internet. Full disclosure: I am NOT a French model.
The Charlie Brown/Lucy reference IS a good one.
There are people who usually have good information who think we are in good shape on both Diallo and Rowan, but to make ANOTHER cartoon analogy, Pitt sports has been Joe Bftsplk, the guy with a constant dark cloud over his head from L'il Abner. Our Athletic Department motto should be Murphy's Law. If something can go wrong, it will.
This post was edited on 4/4 11:24 PM by Harve74
