March 20th, 2015 at 11:26 AM ^
I got to play for Coach Fracassa. Great guy.
As for the recruiting..... I transferred into BR from a public school. At the public school I stareted both ways as a frosh and was bumped up to JV from the freshman team at the end of the year. (Not that big a deal. I was okay.) When I got to BR people thought I was recruited there. I was shocked. That was FAR from the truth. I changed schools for other reasons (academic). My dad actually didn't like Fracassa (for a weird reason), but I wanted to go there. I played some for them, but only in certain defenses. The kids at Rice were much better than I had seen before and I stopped growing too.
I don't think it is recruiting as much as it is kids want to play at those schools. Really, there isn't much difference between a kid or parent contacting Rice and a Rice booster mentioning Rice to a family with a great player. The public schools get bummed about it because people rarely transfer into great coaches there (but that seems to be changing).
Anyway, Fracassa might have played at MSU, I think. I don't think he cared for Michigan all that much. He wanted his players to play college ball if they could and Michigan was pretty picky with their interest in his players. So, while I have a lot of respect for my former coach, when I see this pitcure I get the sense he was more excited to talk MSU and/or Izzo with Mooch.
My dad is class of 1975 and he always brings up stories about Fracassa and how great his teams were, and how rough he was when playing pickup basketball. Cool photo.