In the perpetually gray world of basketball recruiting, one question in recent years has always doubled as a punch line: Whom does William Wesley work for?
Wesley, a ubiquitous basketball power broker, has strong ties to everyone from NBA owners to LeBron James to Michael Gilchrist, who is among the country’s top-rated high school players. Part aura and part laugh track, the mystery surrounding Wesley, known as Worldwide Wes, was that he never had a formal employer.
That appears to have changed, as Wesley’s ties to Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which is making a push to get into college sports, have become more formal. And with that new role, the question about Wesley on the recruiting trail this summer has changed.
Now that he has more formal ties to CAA coaching clients like Kentucky’s John Calipari, Auburn’s Tony Barbee and Rutgers’ Mike Rice, many are wondering if Wesley’s ability to engage with top recruits will become more limited.
During a summer when agent issues have provided the dominant story line in college football, Wesley’s new role has generated some buzz on the summer basketball circuit.
“I really don’t know if there’s an issue yet,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said of Wesley’s role with CAA. “But you can see the potential for one.”
Barbee and Rice, who are entering their first seasons with new programs, said Wesley was not their agent. However, both said Wesley was affiliated with CAA; Barbee said he was a “consultant” and Rice said he was “connected with CAA.”
The NCAA would not comment specifically on Wesley, but the enforcement director LuAnn Humphrey said someone in a role like his would be limited.
“NCAA rules specifically limit the people who are allowed to recruit on behalf of our institutions,” Humphrey said. “Therefore, the use of agents in the recruiting process would violate our rules.”
Wesley declined to comment for this article. His ties to high-profile recruits like Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans and Dajuan Wagner, who all played for Calipari at Memphis, have been well documented.
Calipari said he did not know if anything would change with Wesley’s more formal role.
“He doesn’t recruit for anyone,” Calipari said. “Who he knows and the relationships he has, they’ll be the same way they’ve been for 20 years.”
When Wesley’s position was more ambiguous, it allowed him access to more levels. While ties to CAA and Nike were always suspected, the NCAA struggled to get a handle on Wesley in part because it could not define his role. However, his new role with CAA could limit his effect on grassroots basketball.
The NCAA has strict rules on how often college coaches can speak with prospects and people affiliated with programs are not allowed to talk with recruits on behalf of those programs. Even season-ticket holders who pay a donation to the university are not permitted to talk with a potential recruit.
Although Wesley was absent this year from Nike’s annual July camp for the country’s top prospects, the LeBron James Skills Academy, he typically has a credential that gives him access to the college and high school players there.
Illustrating the reach of his influence, Wesley encouraged James, a CAA client, to have lunch with Gilchrist a few years ago, when Gilchrist was in the eighth grade.
More recently, Wesley sat with Gilchrist’s family at a recruiting event in Los Angeles during the Memorial Day weekend. Gilchrist considers Wesley his uncle; he has been a family friend for years.
“I really don’t know the specifics,” Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said. “But the more anyone either becomes an agent or becomes officially tied into an agent, it really limits that access as an individual who can be associated with a prospect.”
In the college basketball world, Wesley went from a behind-the-scenes power broker to a household name when he became a presence in the lives of Rose and Evans. (Neither Rose nor Evans signed with CAA after their lone seasons at Memphis.)
Wesley’s name became even more familiar as the drama surrounding James’ free agency unfolded this summer. Barbee strongly denied that he had become a CAA client because of Wesley’s reach in the recruiting world. He said he had gone with CAA because he had known Leon Rose, an agent with CAA, since Rose recruited him as a college player at the University of Massachusetts.
“Because he’s a consultant for CAA, I guess there’s a relationship tied to him,” Barbee said of Wesley. “But that’s not the way that I work with CAA.”
About Wesley’s power in the grassroots world, Barbee added: “I’ve never seen him in that capacity. There are probably some misconceptions out there about the guy, that he’s involved with prospects and funnels players to different schools.”
Rice, who struggled to keep from laughing during an interview about Wesley, said he switched to CAA before getting the Rutgers job after missing out on opportunities at St John’s, Seton Hall and Fordham. He said he thought CAA could market him better.
He said his agent with CAA was Terry Prince, who worked on his Rutgers contract. At the same time, he acknowledged Wesley’s expertise as part of the CAA package.
“I BBM him every once in a while,” Rice said of communicating with Wesley via BlackBerry Messenger. “We talk and certainly have a relationship and a communication line of how things are going. Basically, that’s what we do.”
He dismissed the notion that he went to CAA because Wesley could jump-start his recruiting.
“Again, I know he works and does things in some capacity for CAA,” Rice said. “My assistant coaches and I are pretty much in charge of our recruiting.”
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