Meet Renardo Sidney.
Sidney is a senior at Fairfax High in Los Angeles. He’s 6 feet10 inches tall, 245 pounds and plays power forward. He happens to be very, very good at it.
On April 30, Sidney officially committed to play ball at Mississippi State.
Normally, this would not be any more newsworthy than any other high profile athlete. But Sidney is special.
For the past few months, he’s been shopping his basketball skills to the highest collegiate bidder. The only problem? That’s not really an exaggeration.
But before I get ahead of myself, let’s go back a bit.
Before landing with Mississippi State, Sidney was considered to be the prize of a recruiting battle between UCLA and USC. He plays in Los Angeles. His family lives here. It was considered a given he’d end up in either Pauley Pavilion or the Galen Center, come fall. Everybody wanted the kid who could bang on the inside and still hit jumpers that most bigs only watch from under the hoop.
Then something funny happened.
Details about Sidney’s life began to emerge like cockroaches out of the woodwork.
Like how Sonny Vaccaro ““ a high-powered shoe executive with tremendous influence on amateur basketball ““ gave $20,000 to Sidney’s father to help facilitate their move from Mississippi to Southern California in 2006. When they got here, Sidney began playing on an Amateur Athletic Union team coached by Pat Barrett, one of the most controversial amateur coaches in the country. This is a man who has intertwined himself with collegiate coaches and sports agencies, essentially trading access to players for big money. He reportedly received $250,000 to deliver Kevin Love to a New York sports agency called Ceruzzi Sports. Love didn’t sign with Ceruzzi. Who knows where the money went.
Together Vaccaro and Barrett are like Marv and Harry from “Home Alone,”. They’ll come into your house, take advantage of your children and leave the sink running.
On top of Sidney’s connection to the Wet Bandits of high school basketball, details about Sidney’s new homes throws even more confusion onto the situation.
Since moving to Southern California, the Sidney family has moved several times into upscale houses. Despite earning what the Los Angeles Times perceived as a “limited income,” the Sidneys were renting a $1.2 million home in Hancock Park.
Sidney’s father was an assistant at a medical center in Mississippi. He now works for Reebok and his wife is his personal assistant.
On the other hand, Hancock Park is one of the most affluent communities in the nation. Antonio Banderas lives there. So does David Schwimmer and William H. Macy.
Oh, and Fairfax High School, one of the biggest basketball powerhouses in the state, is one of the public schools in the district.
It just doesn’t add up.
And if that wasn’t all, the Los Angeles Times reported that Sidney’s father gave university officials a “strong indication” that he expected compensation in exchange for delivering a commitment from his son.
After those reports surfaced, it’s no surprise why UCLA and USC both backed away from Sidney despite showing plenty of initial interest.
UCLA jumped off the Sidney train a few days before he verbally committed to USC in front of more than 100 family and friends on Feb. 22. Then the Trojans did the same a couple months later, rescinding his scholarship offer.
Both schools dropping one of the best players in the country like a sack of kryptonite? There have got to be some serious liabilities with taking this kid.
Now he’s going to what seems to be the only school left that’s willing to take a chance on him.
On the surface, Sidney’s case looks like one of the most blatant cases of corruption in amateur sports in recent memory. Who knows how many more high school athletes out there are like Sidney? But UCLA can give itself a pat on the back for steering clear of this one.
No matter how good he may be in the future, this kid just isn’t worth it.
E-mail Feder at jfeder@media.ucla.edu if you would’ve taken the risk.