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Summertime just isn't busy enough for Deacs' Gaudio
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Dino Gaudio can’t coach his WFU team on the court in the summer.
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Published: July 2, 2008
Dino Gaudio's fourth and final basketball camp of the summer ended last weekend.
He actually has a few days this week to catch his breath, and then the hectic schedule that goes with the job of being Wake Forest's basketball coach will get extremely hectic again starting next week.
On Sunday, Gaudio will welcome everyone on next season's roster -- the returnees and prized recruits. The second session of summer school at Wake Forest will start the next day. One of Gaudio's rules is that all of his players attend the second summer session, so they can chip away at schoolwork, get some of their tougher classes out of the way before the season, hit the weight room together and play pickup games together.
On Monday, Gaudio will head out on a whirlwind tour of various all-star camps sponsored by Nike, Reebok and others, to evaluate talent and continue the process with future recruits. In a nine-day stretch, he'll go from Charlotte to Cincinnati to Akron, Ohio, to Philadelphia to Augusta, Ga., to Wheeling, W.Va., with a one-day stop in Winston-Salem to check up on his players and make sure they're all settled in. Later this month, he'll make trips to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Orlando.
"It's crazy," Gaudio said. "It's just, boom, boom, boom, boom."
A little break in August
This is the way it has been for the most part since Gaudio was named the successor to Skip Prosser, who died last July 26. Last season officially ended March 13, at the ACC Tournament, but with conventions, the ACC spring meetings, a quick trip here and this and that, the pace has rarely slowed. Even on weekends that would seem to be free, there have been recruits coming to Winston-Salem for "unofficial" visits.
"August might be a time when we can catch our breath and get a little vacation before school starts," Gaudio said. "I think that's important for the staff to get some time then. It's almost been a one-year whirlwind for us. See, August is always a good month for us because you can shut it down a bit. But as you know last year, when Coach passed away on July 26, we went through that, and it was just a blur, so we really haven't caught our breath since. But we're looking forward to it."
All that said, Gaudio actually would like to be busier in the summer in one sense.
One of many bizarre NCAA rules is that Gaudio and his staff can have no on-court association with any of their players throughout the summer. Yes, Gaudio can make sure they're going to class. Yes, he can tell them to play in Rusty LaRue's Summer League. Yes, he can talk to their parents. Yes, Mike Tolotti, the assistant strength-and-conditioning coach for basketball, can work with players in the weight room. But Gaudio can't conduct a practice, even the most-informal of shoot-arounds.
He was allowed to work with 12-year-olds and their dads at a father-son camp last month. He can't work with Ish Smith or James Johnson or any of the recruits until after the fall semester starts.
Funny how Johnson could have worked with NBA coaches and personnel had he entered this year's NBA Draft and then pulled out. But Johnson couldn't have worked out with Gaudio.
"I think there's a little bit of a fight among the college coaches with the NCAA to get a little more access to the guys in the summer," Gaudio said. "I think that might be one reason why the European guys are catching up with our players, because they're working with their kids 12 months a year.
"Now, I don't know if I want to work with our kids 12 months a year. They'll get sick of me. But from when school ends for some of our guys, May 1 or 2, when their exams are done, until Sept. 1, I have no contact with them in the gym."
Gaudio would like for the NCAA and coaches to come up with a sensible happy medium.
At the ACC spring meetings in Florida, he had a conversation with North Carolina's Roy Williams on the very topic. At the time, Williams had three players -- Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green -- who were off working with NBA personnel, going through the kind of workouts that college coaches are prohibited from holding.
"I think if they gave you a certain number of days, you could interact with your players, it would be a good thing," Gaudio said. "I was talking to Roy when Lawson, Ellington and Green had their names in the draft. Those guys are out trying out and working with these workout gurus, and their coaches don't have access to them. So these guys are working out our players. See what I mean?
"You know, supposedly it's a good thing. Many of those guys are great coaches and have the very best interests of the player at heart, and really are interested in their development. But there are also a very small minority who are tied in with agents or people you have to be careful of. So I wish there was a happy medium where you could work with them in the summer and have a little more control over the situation."
He'd give up some free time in August to do it.
Or he'd find a way to work it into his busy schedule before then.
The NCAA allows spring football. Why shouldn't it allow summer basketball?
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
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