A Season Inside by John Feinstein Read Free Book Online Page B

recruiting, that is a weakness.
    One of the more unusual recruiting stories in the country was that of Jerrod Mustaf. In many ways, Mustaf was every college coach’s dream. He was 6–10, a gifted, graceful athlete who could run, shoot, and pass. He could play inside when he had to although, as he made clear to Jim Boeheim, he preferred to be outside. He came from one of the great high school programs in America, DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, where he played for the legendary coach Morgan Wootten. He was a good student, a bright youngster who would do well academically anywhere he decided to go.
    What made Mustaf different was the involvement of his father in the recruiting process. Parental involvement—to the point of being interfering and domineering—was certainly nothing new in recruiting. It is something coaches deal with all the time. Often, in their recruiting folders coaches write notes that say things like: “The father is the key here.” Or, “Johnny will go to college where his mother wants him to go.” Thus the phrase, “recruit the parents.”
    That was the case with Jerrod Mustaf. Although Sharr Mustaf insisted, as all parents do, that the decision on where to attend college was Jerrod’s and Jerrod’s alone, that was clearly not so. In fact, Sharr Mustaf readily admitted that he had gone to his son before his senior season and said, “Son, please let me use you.”
    At least, unlike many parents, Sharr Mustaf wanted to use his sonfor a good cause. Born and raised in North Carolina, a former Greyhound sales officer who had retired on disability, Sharr Mustaf was a handsome man of forty-six who felt deeply about the exploitation of blacks in athletics. That was where Jerrod came in. His son’s ability gave Sharr a chance to do something. That was why he had convinced his son to leave his mother in Whiteville, North Carolina, and move in with him and his second wife in order to play at DeMatha.
    “I can remember when Jerrod was a freshman, Sharr saying to me, ‘Coach, this boy has a chance to do something for his race,’ ” Morgan Wootten said. “It was something that I think was in his mind when he brought Jerrod to DeMatha.”
    As a DeMatha freshman, Jerrod Mustaf had played with Danny Ferry, then a senior. He was comfortable with Ferry and liked him but was pleased as a sophomore when Ferry had gone on to Duke and he became the focal point of the DeMatha offense. Ferry’s last team had lost the city championship game, the big game every year for DeMatha, and the Stags lost again in Mustaf’s sophomore and junior years. “I don’t want to leave here without having won a city championship,” he said at the outset of his senior year. “That’s the most important thing to me this season.”
    That and choosing a college. In late August, Sharr Mustaf sent Morgan Wootten a copy of a letter he was sending to the eight coaches who were being invited to make home visits to the Mustaf home. The eight schools on the Mustaf visit list were Maryland, Howard, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Villanova, and Notre Dame. The coach at each of those schools received the following letter, dated August 29, 1987:
    Dear Coach,
    Thank you for the interest you have shown in our son’s academic and athletic future. Your institution has a rich tradition of scholarship and athletic achievement which recommends it highly to us. The decision that Jerrod has to make, relative to which university to attend, is a critical one that our family must take very seriously. We have given it considerable attention and have decided that there is some specific information that we require to make an informed decision. We have outlined the components of this information below. We would like for you to address these points and be in position to discuss them with us when you visit our home.
    We are concerned to know the following:
    —What percentage of your university’s faculty positions is held by