NCAA Basketball

FedEx May Have Botched the Delivery of a Point Guard to Memphis

Posted Aug 01, 2008 11:48PM By Chas Rich (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Memphis, Conference USA, Recruiting

Print
Text Size A A A
Proving that even the smartest, wealthiest CEOs can lose their minds when it comes to college sports, please say hello to FedEx Express President and CEO Dave Bronczek. Mr. Bronczek is also a major booster of for the Memphis Tigers, an original "ambassador" level donor.

Oseye Gaddy is an 11-year employee of FedEx. She is a customer service rep based in Tacoma, Washington. Oh, and her son Abdul Gaddy is considered the 2d best point guard in the country for the 2009 class, and being recruited by schools such as Washington, Kansas, Arizona, UCLA and Memphis.

So Mr. Bronczek decided to place a call to one of his loyal employees just to congratulate her on her son's achievements. Just a short 10 minute conversation.
When the secretary notified Gaddy that Bronczek was on the phone, Gaddy said she "was a little nervous."

Recalling the conversation while watching her son play in a tournament in Las Vegas last week, Oseye Gaddy told FOXSports.com, "I was like, 'Why would he want to talk to me?' But the whole time he talked to me, he talked about my son.

"He was just talking to me a little bit about (John) Calipari and the program and then he was telling me about The FedEx Forum and how he goes to a lot of games and sits on the floor," she added. "How Calipari is a really nice guy."
That's a big no-no.
Goodman contacted the NCAA about this -- whether to report it, find out what they knew about it or to get a comment is unclear (though, Memphis fans seem pretty sure about the intent). Memphis found out that the NCAA found out and have set about the self-report on the episode -- treating it like a minor incident.

"I think in this case, he was talking to an employee, who is a longtime employee," Calipari said. "I don't think he did it with any intention of anything except to say, 'Hey, I'm excited about you and your son.' There was no intention of anything else, from what Dave said to me, so I think it was an innocent thing. If you want to take a shot at me, or our program, you make a huge deal out of it. But in reality you're talking about an innocent call from a boss to an employee."

Sure, because customers service reps at FedEx often get the random phone call from the CEO just to see how things are going. That's just how they roll. Nope, nothing to see here.

At least that's how Coach John Calipari hopes the NCAA will treat it. One of the penalties for this kind of impermissible contact would be for Gaddy to be ineligible to play for Memphis (PDF, pg. 77).

13.01.1 Eligibility Effects of Recruiting Violation. The recruitment of a student-athlete by a member institution or any representative of its athletics interests in violation of the Association's legislation, as acknowledged by the institution or established through the Association's enforcement procedures, shall result in the student-athlete becoming ineligible to represent that institution in intercollegiate athletics.

The good news for the the Gaddy family is that Oseye is probably very safe in her job status regardless. There's no way FedEx even considers laying her off for the foreseeable future.

Related Articles

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Featured Writers