Calhoun says mistakes may have been made

[March 28, 2009]  HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun has acknowledged that he or his staff may have made mistakes in recruiting basketball player Nate Miles.

Calhoun said it's sometimes hard to determine what is or is not permissible under the NCAA's recruiting guidelines.

"Do I know if any has been made? No, I'm not making judgment one way or the other," Calhoun said Friday, as the top-seeded Huskies prepared for the West Regional final against Missouri in Glendale, Ariz. "I said could there have been a mistake made.

"I have done this for 37 years," he added. "I truly believe that everything I have tried to do, I have done with a good, clean conscience and if we made a mistake, we'll find out about it. If we didn't, we will also find out about that."

Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday that Miles, a 6-7 guard from Toledo, Ohio, was given lodging, transportation, meals and representation by sports agent Josh Nochimson, and that a UConn assistant coach knew about the relationship between the player and the agent. The story cited interviews, documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws, and other sources.

Nochimson, a former student manager at Connecticut, was considered a representative of UConn's athletic interests by the NCAA and was prohibited from having contact with Miles or giving him anything of value, Yahoo reported. Documents obtained by the Web site showed pages and pages of phone and text message correspondence between Nochimson and Miles.

The Yahoo report also alleged that UConn coaches exceeded limits on the number of phone calls that can be made to recruits during Miles' junior year of high school.

Miles was expelled from UConn in October without playing a game for the Huskies after he was charged with violating a restraining order in a case involving a woman who claimed he assaulted her. He played this season for the College of Southern Idaho.

Meanwhile, Tampa radio station 1010 CBS Sports Radio, and the Tampa Tribune reported Friday that Nochimson paid for Miles to have surgery in December 2007.

Asked about that report, Calhoun replied, "I have no response."

Dr. M. Christopher MacLaren, a specialist in sports medicine and arthroscopic surgical reconstruction of the shoulder and knee, said the surgery was performed at the Tampa Bay Surgery Center.

MacLaren, citing federal medical privacy laws, would not disclose the type of surgery, but told the Tribune that the average cost of it ranges between $8,000 and $10,000.

He said Nochimson planned to pay for the procedure.

"Miles had no health insurance, I do know that," MacLaren told the Tribune. "Josh called me and said, 'How much is this going to cost?' I said, 'I don't know the exact cost, I don't do the billing. I gave him the number for the billing department.'"

[Associated Press]

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