sneaker war special report
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SPECIAL REPORT
With no sneaker support, LA entrepreneur foots the bill
LOS ANGELES -- The cellphone rang as Rick Isaacs, an entrepreneur who says he gave up cocaine to help kids chase their basketball dreams, steered his sleek black Mercedes toward the headquarters of his multimillion-dollar business.
The caller wanted one of Isaacs's best prospects, Boston native Troy Gillenwater, to attend a college camp for elite high school players. But Isaacs, who coaches the Los Angeles-based H Squad, one of the nation's top youth travel teams, wanted none of it.
``Troy doesn't have the money," Isaacs told the caller as he weaved his six-figure roadster through traffic. ``And it's not in my budget."
Yet Isaacs's basketball budget is rich enough -- he said he spends as much as $100,000 a year out of his pocket -- that teenagers such as Gillenwater entrust their futures to him. Gillenwater, 17, who played most of the 2004-05 season for Charlestown High School, left his family in Mattapan to travel the country with Isaacs after he rejected a similar opportunity with the
In an era when a sneaker company sponsors nearly every major youth travel team, Isaacs is a different breed, a coach who underwrites some of the country's top college prospects without corporate support. He said he does it because he enjoys helping potential stars like Gillenwater -- underprivileged youths with academic challenges -- secure college scholarships and a shot at the NBA.
``This is my cocaine," he said. ``It's my high."
Along the way, Isaacs said, he has helped pay tuition for several needy players to attend Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, which specializes in helping borderline students meet NCAA academic eligibility standards. The NCAA permits individuals outside a player's family to pay tuition at private secondary schools as long as the individuals are not agents or connected to college or professional teams.
Isaacs, 48, said he also has provided financial support to the mother of Danny Williams, an Oklahoma State recruit from Los Angeles who suffered a serious head injury last year in a car crash. He said he has helped Davon Jefferson, a hotly recruited star of his current team, travel from Los Angeles to the Patterson School in North Carolina. And he said he has helped provide housing and clothing for Gillenwater.
Though the NCAA prohibits amateur teams from providing players anything but ``actual and necessary travel, room and board, and apparel and equipment for competition and practice," players are not subject to NCAA rules until they enroll in a member college. Even then, Isaacs's supporters said, he could challenge the rules because, unlike traditional amateur coaches, he acts as a legal guardian or surrogate father to some of his players.
``He has more of a father-son relationship with them," said Gregory Jackson, who coaches a youth team in Brockton and helped place Gillenwater with Isaacs. ``He has the same interest in Troy that I do, to help him get his education and go to a major university and the NBA, if it's in his grasp."
Isaacs declined comment when asked if he is Gillenwater's legal guardian, and Gillenwater declined through Isaacs to be interviewed.
By any measure, though, Gillenwater took an unusual route to Isaacs. On Jackson's advice, Gillenwater and two other teenage players -- LeRoyal Hairston and Orion Outerbridge -- transferred last fall from Boston public schools to Fremont High, a public school in South Central Los Angeles. Jackson said they made the move to improve their chances of securing college basketball scholarships by playing in the highly competitive Los Angeles city league and advancing from their regional travel team in Brockton to an elite national team like the H Squad.
Then the plan went bust. Acting on an inquiry by the Globe, the California Interscholastic Federation ruled the Boston teens were among six players who had transferred improperly to Fremont. The federation revoked the players' athletic eligibility, forced Fremont to forfeit its season, and placed the school's basketball program on probation through the 2007-08 season.
``I was sweating bullets because I was afraid I may have ruined their careers," Jackson said.
But all three found new opportunities, thanks in part to their basketball talent. Hairston plans to play next season at West Roxbury High School, Jackson said, and Outerbridge has accepted a scholarship to play for New Hampton School in New Hampshire.
As for Gillenwater, he briefly returned to Boston and heeded Jackson's advice to meet with Leo Papile, who coaches the Boston Amateur Basketball Club. Papile said he offered to let Gillenwater join his program and tried to help him enroll in a New England prep school through Mentoring At-Risk Athletes, a social service agency run by the BABC's general manager, Chris Driscoll.
But the plan went awry. Driscoll said he questioned whether Gillenwater could meet the academic requirements at New Hampton, Gillenwater's top choice, and took him instead for visits to Notre Dame Prep and Cushing Academy.
``Then he disappeared," Papile said. ``He became the invisible man."
Gillenwater abruptly renewed his ties with Isaacs, spurring rumors that Isaacs had given Gillenwater special gifts, including a laptop and a DVD player, to lure him back.
``Are you crazy?" Isaacs said, angrily denying the assertions.
Isaacs said he has come a long way since he lived in a Jeep in Santa Monica 16 years ago while he coped with a divorce and a drug problem. Since then, he said, he has built a business selling car care products that posts annual revenues of $15 million and has tapped his company income to try to better the lives of players like Gillenwater.
Isaacs said Gillenwater lives primarily with Isaacs's girlfriend near Isaacs's home, a three-story building a short walk from Venice Beach. Isaacs said some of his players, including Gillenwater, also stay at his home.
``I never lock my doors," he said. ``I have no idea who's in my house right now or who slept upstairs last night."
Isaacs said he has equipped the building with a number of laptops and video games.
``They can use them any time of day," he said. ``Can they take them home? No."
Isaacs said he had never heard of a DVD player, let alone bought one. And the only clothing he bought for Gillenwater, he said, was a pair of pants.
``The kid didn't have any pants," he said. ``Do I not buy a kid a pair of pants if he doesn't have any? Nike gives kids shoes."
Gillenwater, who is 6-8 and weighs 240 pounds, recently helped the H Squad win the Rumble in the Bronx Tournament, which drew elite teams from across the country. He is considering, among others, Providence, UConn, Oklahoma State, Washington, Arizona, and the University of Southern California, according to Isaacs.
But Gillenwater, who spent two years at Charlestown High School and one at Fremont, will need at least two more years of high school to meet NCAA academic eligibility requirements, Driscoll estimated. To that end, Jackson said, Gillenwater plans to enroll at Stoneridge Prep in Tarzana, Calif., despite a recent report by the
Isaacs bristled, meanwhile, at critics like Papile, who Isaacs suggested was the source of rumors about him and Gillenwater. He said Papile had no interest in Gillenwater before Gillenwater improved his game in California.
``He's just jealous because he doesn't have the kid," Isaacs said.
Papile denied starting the rumors and said his program would thrive with or without Gillenwater.
``It's pitiful the guy would say that," Papile said. ``The guy's a clown."
Papile suggested Isaacs spends so much of his own money on youth basketball out of vanity, the thrill of mixing with big-time college coaches and players.
``Guys like him, who masquerade as coaches, there's no financial benefit for them," Papile said. ``There's only a big ego benefit."
Isaacs said he has heard critics make many derogatory statements about him. He attributed them to ignorance and envy.
``I affect a lot of kids' lives in a positive way, but there are perceptions out there that are so untrue it's unbelievable," Isaacs said. ``You can't have a better program than mine."
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
