View full sizePortland-area basketball coach Michael Abraham is a former assistant with the Los Angeles Sparks.Michael Abraham is caught between an American comeback story and enduring suspicion of the largely unregulated world of summer basketball. And he's not alone.
Abraham, whose
basketball program features some of the area's top girls high school players, is suing the NCAA to regain his certification to coach at prominent summer tournaments. The NCAA denied him approval -- after having certified him multiple times previously -- recently after enacting a rule banning anyone convicted of a felony from staging or coaching in an NCAA-sanctioned event.
Abraham, 51,
He has spoken openly about his past legal troubles and says he has been sober since the mid-1990s.
At a scheduled hearing today, Abraham's lawyer will ask a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge for an injunction to reinstate the coach's status to NCAA tournaments. Abraham hopes to coach this weekend, the first of the year that allows college coaches to view high school players.
"I think Michael's got a great case," said Carl Tinsley, a former coach at Oregon City High School and operator of the End of the Trail Tournament, one of the recruiting hubs for women's college basketball. "Michael's served his time. He's paid his debt to society. Should he still be punished for that? The NCAA's saying, 'We're never going to forgive you.'"
ran in The Oregonian last month, a handful of coaches in similar situations contacted him or his lawyer. All had drug convictions from years ago and had been certified under the NCAA's previous rules, which allowed nonviolent offenders whose felonies occurred more than seven years ago.
Stuart Oberg, who coaches at Indiana Elite in Evansville, Ind., recently was denied certification -- after being certified repeatedly by the NCAA -- because he had a 1995 drug conviction.
"Ever since then, I've been trying to do what's right," Oberg said. "I'm not trying to brag, but I've been pretty much a pillar of the community for the past 15 years. We're devastated by this -- my wife and I both. This is what we do."
Antonio Davis, a former NBA center/forward who runs Georgia Ice youth basketball in the Atlanta area, said the rule would not affect his program but that it might hurt coaches at other programs who have turned around their lives. Davis said the NCAA should consider offering an appeals process.
"I understand where the NCAA is coming from," Davis said. "But I just don't know that that particular change is going to do what they're trying to get done."
Abraham and the other coaches are part of a 1990s spike in convicted drug offenders, who more than tripled to 22 percent of the population in state prisons and doubled to 60 percent of the population in federal prisons, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The NCAA and parents of players have reason to be cautious about summer-league coaches -- often called "AAU coaches" because of their participation in competitions run by the Amateur Athletic Union. They typically are self-employed -- earning money through private training, clinics and travel teams -- and largely unregulated. A handful of cases nationwide have surfaced in which AAU coaches sexually abused their players.
The NCAA is one of the few bodies that attempt to regulate the coaches, doing so by requiring certification for NCAA-sanctioned tournaments. Without the ability to coach there, AAU coaches fear losing top players to other teams.
It's not clear what spurred the rule change. Spokeswoman Stacey Osburn said the NCAA aims to ensure safe environments for athletes who are evaluated by Division I coaches and regularly reviews the criteria for a mandatory background check of coaches seeking tournament certification.
"An evaluation of the criteria was conducted after the July 2010 events and it was determined that the 'No Felony' standard for both event operators and those involved with coaching activities at NCAA-certified basketball events would be the standard applied beginning in 2011," Osburn said in an email. "Both the Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Issues committees approved this change in the criteria."
Abraham noted that losing his certification would keep him off the bench and hurt his business, but it wouldn't keep him away from his players. He still would travel with his team and coach them in practice, he said.
"The rule is not protecting anybody from anyone."
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