The Sports Sermon: Rotten apple falls far from tree

When talking about John Thompson III’s lineage, the mind instantly jumps to his namesake. But in terms of coaching, Princeton’s Pete Carril may be JTIII’s more important progenitor. Carril, who pioneered the vaunted Princeton offense, has one of basketball’s most illustrious coaching trees, with protégés such as Houston Rockets coach Rick Adelman and Oregon State coach  Craig Robinson.

With his initial success as a head coach, Thompson may one day have his own robust coaching lineage. But for now, JTIII’s coaching tree has borne rotten fruit.

The most successful product off of JTIII’s bench has been Kevin Broadus, the current coach at Binghamton, who took his program to the NCAA Tournament for the first time last season. The Bearcats likely won’t be repeating as America East champions this year, however, and Broadus’s name may soon be accompanied by the word former.

That’s because Broadus has presided over a program embroiled in enough scandal to make the Georgetown baseball team blush. You know your basketball team is in trouble when the local zoo writes a letter asking people to stop comparing your players to their animals.

The latest wave of controversy began last Thursday, when junior guard Emanuel “Tiki” Mayben was arrested for selling cocaine, prompting a thousand sports blogs to joke about Binghamton’s assist leader dishing the rock. The ensuing fallout included the dismissal of five more players and the resignation of Binghamton’s athletic director. Broadus may not be far behind him.

In just two years, Broadus has managed to turn Binghamton into a tournament team, largely thanks to his recruitment of talented transfers. Broadus is noted for his recruiting prowess, but his silver tongue alone didn’t get those players to come to central New York. Most of Broadus’s players, including those recently dismissed, were damaged goods, cast-off from more prestigious teams for academic or criminal reasons.

Unfortunately, Broadus didn’t seem to pick up his lax recruiting standards in New York. While at Georgetown, Broadus was instrumental in recruiting Marc Egerson, a product of notorious diploma mill Lutheran Christian Academy. However, in 2007 The New York Times reported that Egerson failed twelve courses while enrolled in public school. Nevertheless, Egerson enrolled at Georgetown and played basketball for one and a half seasons before transferring to Delaware.

Once he arrived at Binghamton, Broadus continued to bring in questionable characters such as Mayben, who was recruited by Syracuse and played for UMass before joining the Bearcats from community college. Another player, Malik Allen, was a playground legend in Philadelphia, but ended up at junior college before coming to Binghamton. He didn’t last long—he was dismissed from the team last November after knocking over a 66-year old woman while stealing condoms from a Wal-Mart.

Broadus defends himself by saying that giving players a second chance is part of his job.

“Look back at Georgetown. Allen Iverson has been a model citizen in America,” Broadus told the Times last February. “We’re in the business of giving kids opportunities to better themselves in life. That’s my job.”

But when Iverson came to Georgetown he had the strong hand of John Thompson Jr. to guide him. Broadus clearly doesn’t have the same presence Big John had with his players.

In light of the continuing revelations coming out of Binghamton, it seems likely Broadus’s reputation will be permanently tarnished by the Bad News Bearcats. For Georgetown and JTIII, Broadus’s time on the Hoya bench will be a blemish, albeit a minor one, on an otherwise spotless record. But it should serve as a reminder of the dangers of one bad apple in a basketball program. If Thompson’s coaching tree is to bloom, he must be wary of who is holding the clipboard next to him.