"A small but powerful group of alumni believe a university is defined by success on the playing field. Sports become the third rail. Touch it and you fry."

"There are people who don’t want to change the status quo. These are the presidents who have some part of their garments caught in the locker room door. Frankly, they’re too involved."

"The culture of pre-collegiate basketball has lots of problems. There is a general fear that young people are given false values by the current process, and by the time they get to college, they are often times difficult to work with and have great expectations regarding their whole basketball experience. There is a false promise given about the availability of a great deal of money. I think (reform) should have started 10 or 15 years ago."

"I think we’ve long talked about this generation and the impact of video games and film and the media and even the war. I think you’re looking at a generation of young men where violence is the norm. It’s seen as a way of maintaining your masculine stature.

"If you go into a football game and you’re there to have a healthy competition, then when faced with confrontation, you’re more likely to say, ‘Let’s move on, I want to get back to playing.’ As opposed to if you’re there to protect your turf and win at all costs, then you’re going to be more likely to succumb to the challenge of a cheap shot or trash talking. Then it’s not about the game, it’s about winning the masculinity battle, the tough-guy battle, and when that becomes more important than the game, that’s when (fights) happen."

"It starts with the 5- and 6-year-olds, at the grassroots level. If we get the right start at the grassroots level and get that through, we won’t have another Florida International and Miami (brawl) again."

"You wouldn’t always respond (to a coach) right away, but you wanted to show you were interested in their school. I responded to all of them by the end of the day. I felt bad if I didn’t."

"Sometimes it’s easier to pick up a phone and shoot a text message, ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’ as opposed to pick up a phone and try to get hold of a kid.

"And that way you can sometimes find out of a kid is interested, really interested, because if a kid is texting you back, he’s probably interested."

"(One recruiter was) writing the slang words, shortened words, R for ‘are,’ or U for ‘you,’ I was a little shocked. This is supposed to be a coach, texting me like a 15-year-old kid.

"When you hear that, it’s someone trying to act my age. When you are going to a college, you want them to be a friend, but you also want them to be on a professional level."