Former UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel recruited Justin Combs to the Bruins and said Combs’ father, P. Diddy, had no idea who Neuheisel was when Harlems’s Diddy and Combs came to UCLA for a campus tour.
Neuheisel made the comments on SiriusXM’s College Sports Nation on Tuesday. Neuheisel, a UCLA alum, now does college football radio and television. Diddy was arrested Monday after allegedly confronting UCLA strength coach Sal Alosi and then attempting to go after another member of UCLA’s staff with a kettlebell. The incident happened after Combs, a redshirt junior cornerback had been removed from an offseason workout by Alosi.
“I did recruit Justin Combs and Sean as his father, I took them on their campus tour,” Neuheisel said. “As a matter of fact, like a half hour into it, he asked me who I was.”
The he in this case, is P. Diddy. Really. He apparently had no idea that he was being taken on a tour by the coach of the FBS program that was recruiting his son.
“No, Neuheisel continued. “And he said ‘Tell me what you do, Rick?’ I said ‘Well I’m the head football coach here.’ ‘Really?’ And I said ‘Yeah.’ ‘And you’re giving us the tour?’ I said ‘Absolutely, this is my school, this is where I went. I want you to get a feel of what it’s like to be a student here…'”
Neuheisel also said Diddy’s status played a role in Combs’ recruitment. He even said it was “doubtful” that Combs would be a member of the UCLA program if Diddy wasn’t his father. Neuheisel was fired after the 2011 season.
“When you’re weighing the assets of what a youngster can do for your program, there was no question that had something to do with it for me,” Neuheisel said.
UCLA and current head coach Jim Mora also added Cordell Broadus, the son of Snoop Dogg, in the 2015 recruiting class.
Jerry Neuheisel, Rick’s son, is a quarterback for UCLA. According to Rick, UCLA coaches initially didn’t want to press charges against Diddy. However, after members of the UCPD arrived and saw the footage of what happened, police decided to go ahead with charges. Diddy was charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of making terrorist threats and one count of battery.
“What I learned was they were going to let this go, because the UCLA folks didn’t want to press charges,” Neuheisel said via Coaching Search. “But when the campus police arrived on the scene, they looked at the film.”
Neuheisel also said that he had learned Combs had told Alosi he had missed workouts prior to Monday because Combs was working with Diddy’s trainer.
Tuesday, a rep for Diddy said the rapper was acting in self defense, while Mora has praised his staff’s handling of the incident. Hours after the statement from Diddy’s representative went public, Combs posted a picture to Instagram supporting his father, a move that’s likely not going to make reconciliation with UCLA’s coaching staff much easier (source).
For more UCLA news, visit BruinSportsReport.com.
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