Baker Told to Handle Recruit With Care

Brooklyn Tilden High basketball Coach Eric Eisenberg offers some advice to UC Irvine Coach Rod Baker: Handle Kevin Simmons with care.

Simmons, a 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward, signed a letter of intent with Irvine, although he still needs to pass his college entrance exams.

Eisenberg coached Simmons during his senior year, his only season at Tilden, in which he capped a four-year prep career that included stops at three schools and a well-publicized transfer ruling in New York City.

“Kevin has had a tough time growing up,” Eisenberg said. “He (had) been in the foster care program for several years until he was adopted by his foster mother (Emily Duran) in 1989.

“You see Kevin at his worst when he is frustrated. But he is bright and is a very good kid. What Rod Baker needs to remember is that Kevin just needs someone to love him.”

Simmons began his prep career at Christ the King High in New York, but left midway through his junior season because of academic reasons. He transferred to Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., at winter break. But he never played for Oak Hill, a nationally ranked program.

He lasted only five months at Oak Hill, where he was strongly disciplined for fighting with another student. Simmons and Eisenberg said Simmons was never suspended, and Oak Hill officials refused comment on the matter.

“They disciplined him,” Eisenberg said. “They made him shovel horse (manure), and they let him stay in school and go to summer school. If they had wanted to kick him out, they could have done it then.”

Instead, Simmons left.

He returned to Brooklyn last summer and moved back in with Duran, who lived six blocks from Tilden.

“I wanted to come home for my senior year,” Simmons said. “I wanted to be back with my family and my friends.”

Simmons enrolled at Tilden, but the Public Schools Athletic League, the governing body for high school sports, ruled him ineligible based on its transfer rules.

League rules state that players can’t transfer from one New York school to another based solely on athletic reasons. Eisenberg argued that Simmons transferred from Oak Hill to Tilden, and that the league had no rules governing out-of-state transfers.

The PSAL denied an appeal by Eisenberg, so he and Simmons filed suit against the board of education and received a temporary injunction that allowed Simmons to play.

A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge reserved the decision on the case in February. The case never went to trial, and Simmons played out the season, earning all-city and all-state honors.

He led Tilden to a 19-7 record and the quarterfinals of the state tournament while averaging 21 points, 17.1 rebounds, five blocked shots and 4.2 assists.

Simmons was highly recruited his senior year. Basketball Weekly magazine ranked Simmons 65th nationally in its list of top recruits at the start of the season, and his stock shot up with his impressive play.

He considered Cincinnati, Florida State, Georgia and Syracuse, but his final decision came down to two coaches with New York ties--Nebraska’s Danny Nee and Baker.

Baker, a Philadelphia native, was an assistant coach at Columbia University from 1979 to 1982. Assistant Coach Greg Vetrone played at Long Island University. Nee grew up in Brooklyn, where he played at Power Memorial Academy with Lew Alcindor.

Eisenberg said he was somewhat surprised by Simmons’ decision to attend Irvine.

“I thought Kevin would go to Nebraska,” Eisenberg said. “I think the fact that he still hasn’t made his SAT scores scared a lot of schools off.”

Whether or not Simmons plays for Irvine next season depends on his test scores. He said he did poorly on the Scholastic Aptitude Test the first time he took it, and he took it again two weeks ago. He said he plans to take it again June 5.

“I’ve been doing a lot better in school lately,” he said. “I’ve been working hard.”

Said Eisenberg: “Kevin’s academics are a cause for concern. Prop 48 might be a reality. But he knows he needs to pass to play basketball. He needs this for his life.”

*

Add recruiting: Besides Tilden, Simmons plays for Riverside Church, one of the nation’s top traveling teams. One of Simmons’ Riverside teammates is Ed Elisma, a 6-10 center from LaSalle Academy who strongly considered Irvine before signing with Georgia Tech.

“Ed and I never played against each other in high school,” Simmons said. “But we’ve scrimmaged against each other a lot in practice.”

Riverside players are known as “The Basement Kids” by many recruiters because they practice in the church’s basement. The program has produced such players as Kenny Anderson of the New Jersey Nets, North Carolina’s Brian Reese and Syracuse’s Adrian Autry.

“Playing for Riverside has helped Kevin,” Eisenberg said. “He’s a veteran, very media-wise. He has traveled all over the world with that team.”

So what kind of Big West player will Simmons make? Eisenberg thinks a darn good one.

“He’s the perfect player for Irvine,” he said. “Kevin makes everyone around him better. He’s as strong as hell, and he is a great passer. He has one of those Dave Winfield-type bodies, so he can post up inside.

“At a big-time program, he would be the perfect second player with a good small forward or a center. He’s very poised, very polished. He’s a Billy Owens-type player.”

*

Fund raising: Irvine’s Athletic Foundation is only a few weeks into its annual membership drive, but the Anteaters already are about halfway to their goal of raising $350,000, said Greg Bistline, associate athletic director for development and marketing.

“We’re very positive about reaching that goal,” he said.

Bistline said the fund-raising drive has been boosted by large contributions from Jim Remmey, executive director of the Amateur Sports Training Centers, and Jamie Trevor, vice president of Irvine’s Athletic Foundation.

Remmey donated $20,000 earmarked for the women’s volleyball program. Trevor, president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, has donated $10,000, the drive’s first full-scholarship donation.

*

The Irvine men’s crew team will be the only West Coast squad at the Champion International Collegiate Regatta Sunday in Worcester, Mass. Irvine is entered in the varsity eights and novice eights competitions.

Anteater Notes

Ninety-seven Irvine athletes will be honored as 1993 Big West-UCI scholar-athletes at a banquet Sunday at Irvine’s Airporter Hotel. Requirements for the honor include maintaining a 3.0 grade-point average during the previous three quarters or a 2.3 over the previous two quarters for freshmen. The student-athletes also must have lettered in their sport.

Tennis player Aaron Stolpman, basketball player Yvonne Catala, water polo player Steve Gill and Randy Lake of the sailing team will be honored as senior athletes of the year by the Exchange Club of Irvine on May 20.

The men’s track and field team received the school’s faculty athletic representative’s award for the highest team GPA (3.02). The school’s male undergraduate average is 2.92.