The continuing story of Bradley University and basketball coach Dick Versace takes another turn at 11 a.m. Thursday in Peoria. Versace`s attorney will hold a press conference then to discuss his client`s side of the NCAA investigation into the Braves` basketball program.
Versace wasn`t present at Monday`s press conference, where university president Martin Abegg outlined the NCAA violations committed by his head coach and the subsequent penalties. The NCAA came down hard on Versace, accusing him of unethical conduct and of trying to mislead the investigators. Attorney Joseph Napoli, who has represented Versace in past contract negotiations with Bradley, apparently wants his client`s version aired.
Versace will be conducting basketball clinics in Italy as a representative of Nike for the next two weeks, so he won`t be at Thursday`s press conference, either. He has had nothing to say to the media about the investigation or his contract since the NCAA contacted the school last year.
Athletic director Ron Ferguson has not yet laid out a timetable for seeking a new head coach, who will replace Versace in June of 1987. With an entire school year to scout around, there`s no hurry.
Names already mentioned include Chicago State coach Bob Hallberg, who was one of the finalists for the Northern Illinois job; Bradley assistant Rudy Keeling; former Braves` assistant Tony Barone, now head coach at Creighton;
Peoria Central High School coach Charles Buescher, a Braves` assistant in the pre-Versace era; and Mike Hanks, a former graduate assistant at Indiana under Bobby Knight and now in his third year as head coach at South Alabama.
Keeling, who has been at Bradley six years, already has expressed interest in the position. ”I think I`m good in the community,” he said. ”I think I`m good with the kids, and I`ve had experience at every level.”
However, both Keeling and Barone were assistants under Versace at the time the NCAA violations were committed. Although the NCAA report didn`t mention their names, it did cite ”members of the men`s basketball coaching staff” with violations, including arranging air transportation for a prospective student (Anthony Webster) and his parents, installing a free phone in the student`s home and making more than the maximum three in-person recruiting visits to the player.
It`s possible neither Keeling nor Barone was involved in, or aware of, the violations. It`s also possible the university won`t take a chance on hiring someone who was a member of the staff during the years the violations took place.
As for Versace, his career moves probably were limited by the NCAA findings. He has made no secret of his desire to get into the National Basketball Association, and next year might be the time to try that.
”I think this is going to be a liability for him in the future,” said one Missouri Valley Conference athletic director. ”If you`re talking about pro athletics, it`s no problem. But if you`re talking about the foundation of any university being integrity, then an AD would be going in the face of the faculty and administration by hiring someone (charged with unethical conduct).”
If anyone came through the investigation untouched, it was the leaders of the Chiefs Club, the Bradley booster group. Although individual fans were involved in violations such as providing cars to a player at no cost, no names of members in the club`s hierarchy ever came up.
”No place in any of the allegations or the investigation was the Chiefs Club specifically mentioned, or any active member of the Chiefs Club board,” said Ferguson. He noted that ”those people are probably the most informed”
about NCAA regulations and therefore the least likely to violate the rules.
Abegg plans to meet with Peoria service organizations, beginning this fall, to remind them that their support is welcome but their interference in recruiting is not.
