The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(03-30-2013 02:37 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

Quote:Mike Davis was a racist?

Yes, as was team captain Paul Delaney III, according to Morcos client Terrence Roderick.

Wokka wokka.

Paul Delaney III and Mike Davis were racist, and I must have miss understod your post, because it never mentioned Morcos or Terence Roderick...I thought it was based on some interactions you had with Davis... and now to hear one of out beloved Blazer....well I will never believe it...unless the definition/meaning has changed.

(03-30-2013 03:18 PM)rebounder2u Wrote:  I must have miss understod your post

Marco Morcos was our Director of Basketball Operations. That would be this Marco Morcos, banned from HS coaching in New Jersey for illegal recruiting practices:

http://www.state.nj.us/education/legal/c...120-07.pdf

Mike Davis hired him, and he brought Roderick here in a package deal.

As our DOBO, Morcos did apparently nothing. Lee Moon handled the travel arrangements and such that are usually the DOBO's job (let that indictment of Morcos' uselessness sink in for a moment)

Morcos was invited to move on, and did so to Rice, taking with him Tamir Jackson, one of his Jersey Guys who had committed here (apparently part of the same package).

Rice also eventually fired Morcos. Morcos retaliated by encouraging all of his recruits to leave Rice. Two of them got waivers to play immediately (at programs with a record for buying players from runners -- see Mayo, O.J.) by calling the Rice AD a racist - yet so far, none of the coverage has mentioned whether they thought this vile racism worth reporting to anyone in authority at Rice University. And Arsalan Kazemi was so traumatized by this racism that he is returning to Rice next year to complete his degree.

We are extremely lucky that Mackin got rid of Morcos and he became Rice's PR nightmare.

If these comments were made, they are of course vile and hateful. They are not a joke. But I find it curious that these comments did not become unbearable to Kazemi and Oraby until their mentor wanted to strike back at the guy who fired him.

I'm with 58-56. I have a hard time buying this story

My understanding was that Tamir Jackson could not get through UAB admissions in the wake of Davis' APR nightmare and the subsequent tightening of standards. I know that I certainly questioned how the hell he got into Rice when he could not get into UAB.

Morcos is nothing more than an overgrown AAU runner, and there has been more than a little slime around his doings.

(03-31-2013 11:31 AM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  My understanding was that Tamir Jackson could not get through UAB admissions in the wake of Davis' APR nightmare and the subsequent tightening of standards. I know that I certainly questioned how the hell he got into Rice when he could not get into UAB.

Morcos is nothing more than an overgrown AAU runner, and there has been more than a little slime around his doings.

We heard the same things about Ricky Tarrant, and he ended up at Tulane.

Yeah, and I think that the two cases are quite similar. You know how Attalla keeps bitching that we need to get back to the point where we have some flexibility in recruiting, that we need to be able to do what the schools we compete against do? Tarrant and Jackson are exactly the sort of cases that he was talking about.

Things APR are about settled at UAB, PCG is gone, and the NCAA as a whole is raising the APR standards. Those taken together mean that things will level out some in recruiting... but what Haase inherited is much different than it could have been. Of course, if we'd had those two guys under Davis he still might be coaching at UAB.

What ifs.

I don't think Jackson was a grade casualty. He was recruited before the crap hit the fan on the APR. as it was told here, Davis quit recruiting him because he thought he was parlaying his Cousins deal into better players. Remember when everyone was looking to come here because Cousins was coming.

That may be true as well. It's not like any of us have contacts inside the admissions office, much of it is speculation.

(03-31-2013 02:39 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  That may be true as well. It's not like any of us have contacts inside the admissions office, much of it is speculation.

Actually, I do have a contact inside the admissions office. And my contact can't share a thing with me about these players. It's all confidential. So yes, it's back to speculation.

(03-30-2013 04:15 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(03-30-2013 03:18 PM)rebounder2u Wrote:  I must have miss understod your post

Marco Morcos was our Director of Basketball Operations. That would be this Marco Morcos, banned from HS coaching in New Jersey for illegal recruiting practices:

http://www.state.nj.us/education/legal/c...120-07.pdf

Mike Davis hired him, and he brought Roderick here in a package deal.

As our DOBO, Morcos did apparently nothing. Lee Moon handled the travel arrangements and such that are usually the DOBO's job (let that indictment of Morcos' uselessness sink in for a moment)

Morcos was invited to move on, and did so to Rice, taking with him Tamir Jackson, one of his Jersey Guys who had committed here (apparently part of the same package).

Rice also eventually fired Morcos. Morcos retaliated by encouraging all of his recruits to leave Rice. Two of them got waivers to play immediately (at programs with a record for buying players from runners -- see Mayo, O.J.) by calling the Rice AD a racist - yet so far, none of the coverage has mentioned whether they thought this vile racism worth reporting to anyone in authority at Rice University. And Arsalan Kazemi was so traumatized by this racism that he is returning to Rice next year to complete his degree.

We are extremely lucky that Mackin got rid of Morcos and he became Rice's PR nightmare.

If these comments were made, they are of course vile and hateful. They are not a joke. But I find it curious that these comments did not become unbearable to Kazemi and Oraby until their mentor wanted to strike back at the guy who fired him.

Agreed. As someone who defends against these claims for a living, the allegations Kazemi makes are what we call "thin air cases." They may well be true; but they may also have been created from thin air. Because it's awful easy to do.

And Kazemi does two things that are common in thin-air cases. He attributes them to the highest level so that he can then assert he had no recourse...no one to whom he could have reported the alleged abuse without risk of retaliation. And he identifies nobody outside the protected class who allegedly heard these comments. Note, in particular, that every person he contends heard these comments is a "former" something. That's the third red flag.

If Greenspan was making the comments and thought they were just jokes (and it's clear Kazemi casts them as offensive jokes creating a racially hostile environment and not directly discriminatory), it's unlikely he would have made them only in the presence of the player. He would have made them where people would hear and laugh at his joke. They're also so sterotypical as to be laughable. It's like they pulled the comments straight from "Racist Remarks About People From the Middle East for Dummies."

And you're right; the idea that you can make allegations about racism, not be bothered with actual substantive evidence that it occurred other than your own word, and the NCAA would be so spooked by the topic it would disregard its own waiver rules that it oppressively enforces against players in ordinary circumstances is a little too convenient.

My guess? Somebody made those comments to Kazemi, but it wasn't Greenspan. He didn't report it or complain because it didn't really bother him until he decided he wanted to transfer and couldn't think of a good enough reason. Somebody (Morcos?) suggested this to him, and he went with it.

Sounds like the usual MO of those that are LOOKING for an excuse.