A Basketball Prospector Mines the West

Like a lot of people caught up in the home-computer craze a few years ago, Don Mead bought a system.

But it just sits there virtually unused in his Irvine apartment. He doesn’t have much time to fool with it. In fact, Mead has little time for anything but his all-consuming passion--basketball.

No one in Southern California spends more time in gyms--pursuing, gathering and recording information for what is both Mead’s hobby and his business, the influential Western Basketball Prospect Scouting Service.

College coaches subscribe to any number of national scouting services and newsletters to keep track of the players worthy of their attention when it comes time to offer scholarships. Mead’s service, which gives reports on players in seven Western states, is the only regional service of its kind on the West Coast. His subscribers include more than 170 college coaches at all levels, who pay from $100 to $250 annually for the information.

A retired manufacturer’s representative for an aerospace firm, Mead, 64, has been running his service for 25 years--the first 15 as a hobby and the last 10 as a business. He estimates that he travels 30,000 miles a year in his car to see high school and junior college players in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho and Utah.

“Don is something that we coaches in the West needed for a long time,” said Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick. “He fulfilled that need by providing an information service. But as a coach, you have to remember what a scouting report really is. It’s a gauge, not a compass. You read a gauge. You follow a compass.”

Mead played football and semi-pro baseball while growing up in Massachusetts but never played competitive basketball. He thinks his inexperience as a player is an advantage because it allows him to be objective.

“Some of the worst evaluators in the world are former players because they only see things from the perspective of how they did things themselves,” Mead said. “I learned my craft by going out and doing it. I talk to coaches, go to clinics and watch what’s going on. Some of the best basketball coaches in the country weren’t the greatest players, and it’s the same in football and baseball.”

Mead’s reports typically list a player’s height, weight, position, and grade-point average. The grade information is based on information provided by the player or his high school coach. The reports also include symbols that indicate the player’s strengths in certain areas of the game. Finally, Mead rates the players on a scale of 1 to 10.

He says the best players he has seen are Bill Walton, who played at Helix High in La Mesa, Crenshaw’s Marques Johnson and Verbum Dei’s Raymond Lewis and Roy Hamilton.

The last player to earn a 10 rating was Charlie Sitton, who went to high school in Oregon and played at Oregon State.

“I very, very rarely see a 10--maybe once every five years,” Mead said. “He has to be a lead-pipe cinch to be one of the top three to five prospects in the country. We come close every year.”

Players who rate 9s must be among the top 25 to 30 prospects in the country. Eights are just a step below 9s, players worthy of being recruited by any top Division I school in the country.

Sevens are still major college prospects, 6s have lower Division I ability, 5s are Division II caliber and 4s are ticketed for Division III and NAIA schools.

“There are very few sleepers anymore, but people are always looking for them,” Mead said. “There’s a lot of wishful thinking in this business. Coaches want to be able to say they made a player.”

The information business is popular in college sports. Coaches want to know what players are out there and where they can be found. Ten college basketball coaches were surveyed by The Times and every one said they subscribed to at least two scouting services. Some subscribe to as many as 15.

Coaches like Mead’s service because Mead himself is so accessible. It is not uncommon for Mead’s telephone to ring at 7 a.m. More often than not, a coach from the East Coast is on the other end of the line, calling to discuss a particular player’s strengths and weaknesses.

Another point in Mead’s favor is that he personally sees the vast majority of the players that make his lists--a claim that cannot be made by most national services.

Opinions vary, however, on the usefulness of the evaluations given by Mead and other services.

“Don has a good reading on the West Coast kids,” UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard said. “Since we’re really concentrating our efforts here in the West, he’s a valuable source of information. We’ve had a difference of opinion on players but not many. As far as we’re concerned, he’s always given us accurate information.”

Said Kansas Coach Larry Brown: “The best thing Don does is bring out if the player is major-college potential. If a kid can’t play Division I, Don indicates what level he’s suitable for.”

USC Coach George Raveling is skeptical of all scouting service evaluations, remembering the low marks given to current NBA players Craig Ehlo and James Donaldson, both of whom had exceptional careers playing for Raveling when he coached at Washington State. Still, Raveling is a subscriber.

“We subscribe to most of the services,” Raveling said. “I don’t think you can ever get too much information on a kid you’re going to invest $15,000 a year in.

“We take them primarily to get the names. I’m always interested in other people’s opinions, but to me they’re exactly that--another opinion.”

Said Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim: “We don’t use scouting service reports in any way, shape or form for evaluation. By subscribing to these services we can get names.”

The true benefactors of Mead’s service are the Division II, Division III and NAIA schools where Mead’s service is often the lifeblood of the program’s recruiting efforts.

Jim Newman became coach at Cal State Los Angeles, a Division II school, after stints as an assistant coach at New Mexico and Arizona State, where he helped recruit players such as Laker stars Michael Cooper and Byron Scott.

Now, Newman said, with the limited funds he has at Cal State, it makes sense to pay heed to Mead’s opinion.

“We don’t have the finances to do national recruiting,” Newman said. “I’ve been there and it’s very expensive. An assistant coach’s budget at a lot of Division I schools would swallow our entire budget.

“That’s why Mead’s service is so valuable to us. He deals with California kids. Tuition for an in-state student is almost one-third less than out-of-state tuition.”

Finally there are schools like Occidental College, a member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, which forbids off-campus recruiting. At Occidental, grade-point average is more important than points per game of a potential recruit.

“One of the first things we have to look for is the academics, and Mead provides that information,” said Occidental Coach Bill Westphal. “I’ve heard some people say that he doesn’t have great evaluation skills, but I don’t think that’s a fact. It’s also irrelevant from my perspective because we’re just trying to get the best players we can who have the grades to attend school here. He serves our needs very well.”

Mead spends his time before the season talking on the phone with coaches, visiting college practices and filling out reports. In December, when tournaments are played, Mead will watch as many as eight games a day.

“It’s a lot of work and nothing about it is easy,” Mead said. “To do it right is a year-round, full-time job. Some kids I see once, some twice and some up to 25 times by the time they’re through with high school.

“I miss occasionally when rating a player, but my percentage is pretty high for seeing as many kids as I do. The serious misses are very rare.”

Mead maintains that the entire purpose of running the service is for the benefit of the players who have the academic and athletic ability to attend college. He makes it a point not to tell the players what he rates them because high school coaches, the players and their parents invariably think the rating is too low.

“You have to be careful not to get caught up in the general gossip or listening to too many people who have opinions that don’t count,” Mead said. “You have to maintain perspective. You can’t just look at the kids that play in the run-and-gun leagues because there are plenty of other kids who can play, too.

“The kids are the most important thing.”