Nothing like a little controversy

Let me set the stage for you. John Wall (Link) is the #1 ranked high school basketball player in the country. He is predicted to be drafted #1 overall in the 2010 NBA Draft (Link). He will instantly upgrade the talent level and the season results of any college he attends for the one season he is there. He wears the number 11.

That being said...

Baylor is a school he is considering. He was on campus this weekend to take a tour and watch the Bears play Nebraska. Sometimes, recruits with big egos (like the #1 ranked player) love to see people in attendance making a big deal about them. So I decided that I would make some posters and bring them to the game. Here is the caveat...it is against NCAA rules to display signage that contains the name of a prospective student-athlete at games. This includes signage made by spectators. I knew this going in to the game. However, I understood that to mean that I couldn't have a sign that said "John Wall come to Baylor!" or something similar. So I tried to be implicit in my messages without specifically putting "John Wall" on my signs.

Here is a picture of me and James holding up some of the signs:



I know that the words are hard to read, so let me spell out and explain the content.

The far left is a huge heart with "John #11" inside it. Pretty simple and pretty vague. "John #11" could be a chapter in the Bible or it could be for any of the million guys named John. The next sign says "You can't BUILD without a WALL." Again, this sign just says that any building can't be completed without a wall...otherwise, it's a gazebo. Construction 101. The next sign says "Waco has Dwon Clifton & TY Williams." This is stating a simple fact. John Wall's old coach Dwon Clifton now coaches at Baylor and his good friend from high school TY Williams attends nearby McLennan Community College. Just a simple reminder to anyone who is curious about those two people's whereabouts. The last sign says "Baylor needs a Winner And Legit Leader". It seems like it could have just been a coincidence that the first letters of the last four words spell out "WALL."

These four signs got taken away from us, but I planned ahead and brought in a blank poster board for just such an occasion. James had the brilliant idea of making a sign using only the names of current players on the Baylor roster. How could anyone possibly misconstrue that for a John Wall sign? So we made the following sign:



Those are the names and jersey numbers of Kendall Wright, Quincy Acy, Josh Lomers, and Lacedarius Dunn. All that sign was doing was supporting the future of Baylor basketball as all four of them are not seniors and will be back for next season. Somehow, that sign got confused with a John Wall message, and it was confiscated too.

Let's be honest here, I knew going in that I was walking a fine line and I expected the signs to be taken up. But I thought I did make an excellent case for the final sign that James came up with. Even Bryce the compliance guy that came by both times to take them from us said he hated to do it because he thinks the signs are great (and technically don't violate the letter of the law) but word came down from his boss. So James and I even went and talked to his boss, Kevin Price. He is the Associate AD and the person in charge of compliance for Baylor. He was very understanding and appreciative of the intent of the signs, but he did say that Baylor just has to cover themselves so there are not any repercussions from the NCAA. No hard feelings.

The thing that made it all worth it was to hear from someone close to Wall's recruitment that Baylor is his leader at this point. I won't name my source as this person is not allowed to talk about recruits until they sign a letter of intent with the school of their choice. But nonetheless, this was a pretty exciting part of an otherwise crappy game. Baylor lost to Nebraska in the final home game of the season...sending off the seniors with a loss.