This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It is a known fact that prep basketball phenom Jabari Parker, who is LDS, visited BYU's campus a few weeks ago and met with basketball coach Dave Rose. Several witnesses have confirmed to The Tribune that they saw Parker and Rose together on campus. I was also told that Parker attended the BYU-Washington State football game, and was in the LaVell Edwards Stadium press box, but I did not see him myself. Now the world is finding out that Rose is one of eight coaches who has been invited to visit with Parker's family at their Chicago-area home. Evan Daniels of Scout.com reported Wednesday that Parker's mother, Lola Parker, said Jabari will meet with eight coaches in their home the next few weeks. He apparently met with Florida's Billy Donovan on Tuesday and will meet with coaches from BYU, Kansas and DePaul later this week. The 6-foot-8 senior will meet with coaches from Duke, Michigan State and North Carolina next week. Stanford, Kentucky and Georgetown are also invited to visit, according to Daniels. Scout.com says Parker is the top overall recruit in the country from the class of 2013. My take: Even if Rose comes up short on his against-all-odds bid to land Parker, just being in the picture this late in the game and having BYU's name in there with the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina has got to bring some benefit to his program. Rose is in a pretty good situation here: If he lands Parker, he will forever be remembered as the greatest recruiter in BYU team sports history (actually, that might already be the case). If he doesn't, he can easily be forgiven, given the quality of the programs, and the coaches, that he's going against.