![]() At Georgetown, UCLA, or Michigan, this would have precipitated Swift sitting out the 1998-99 season under NCAA eligibility rules, but SEC schools always seem to find a way around regulations, and Brady had a plan.Ī player with insufficient test scores was ineligible when he actually enrolled at a Division I university, so Swift simply did not enroll, auditing courses instead. The Swift family was all-in on LSU, but Stromile could not sign the letter of intent until the test scores came in, but the score remained insufficient. The only thing that would have made it better was if he sung a little Al Green." John said the blessing, and he sounded like a preacher doing it, which also made an impression on Stromile's mother. That's family, and that's what they were looking for. He made himself at home because they made him feel like he was at home. "Stromile's mother had made dinner for everybody, and John just walked in the kitchen and lifted a lid off one of those pots and smelled the food, and then got himself a drink out of the fridge, telling her how hungry he was. "John made one of the all-time greatest recruiting moves I'd ever seen," Pierre said. In a story in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, former LSU assistant Butch Pierre recalled first year coach John Brady's visit to the Swift household, hoping to close the deal before Thompson, Michigan's Brian Ellerbe, or UCLA's Steve Lavin could change his mind. Swift did not secure a qualifying standardized test score, which kept a final list of four schools (LSU, Michigan, Georgetown and UCLA) awaiting a decision well into the spring.Įven a visit to Georgetown might not have been enough to get Swift out of Louisiana, however. Swift was the Louisiana Player of the Year, a Parade and McDonald's All-America, and a finalist for the Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award. When the school district rejected the offer, Nike offered then to outfit every high school in the city. Swift was such a rising star that Nike offered to outfit his high school team. Averaging 21 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks a game, he seemed an ideal candidate to reinvigorate a Georgetown front line that had been increasingly sluggish since the departure of Alonzo Mourning in 1992. Standing 6-10, Swift was the most dominant player to come out of the Shreveport, LA basketball scene since Robert Parish in 1974. By contrast, Swift would become the second selection in the 2000 NBA Draft and complete a nine year career in the NBA. Young skipped college altogether for what would become a NBA career of just 15 minutes over one season. Neither, however, would play for the Hoyas. The year before, Thompson went after two of the top five players in America, a pair of rising stars with high risk and high reward: 6-7 Korleone Young and 6-10 Stromile Swift. ![]() A long time recruiting analyst, speaking under the cover of anonymity, remarked: "It's the big men. Eight days before his John Thompson's sudden resignation in 1999, the Washington Post reviewed Georgetown's recent slide and pronounced the cause as recruiting.
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