Louisville reportedly hires Milt Wagner in hybrid off-court role

Milt Wagner is reportedly being hired at the University of Louisville in a role that will allow the school to continue recruiting 2023 No. 1 recruit DJ Wagner.

According to Ty Spalding of CardinalSports.com, the five-star guard’s grandfather is being brought on in a hybrid Director of Player Development/Alumni Relations position with the university.

Source tells @UofLRivals that Milt Wagner has been hired in a hybrid Director of Player Development/Alumni Relations position with the school.

— Ty Spalding (@TySpalding) May 24, 2022

Wagner won a national title for the Cardinals in 1986 alongside Kenny Payne, the program’s new head coach. The two are best friends and have been for decades. There was talk when Payne was hired that Wagner would be hired as an on-court assistant, a move that would allow the program to recruit his top-ranked grandson.

Instead, Payne opted for Oregon staffer Josh Jamieson to fill that third seat on the bench, joining Nolan Smith and Danny Manning on the staff. At the time, it was seen as a potential hit to Louisville’s chances with Wagner, especially considering the prized recruit’s ties to John Calipari and the Kentucky program through his father, Dajuan.

With this move, though, Louisville has found a loophole to not only bring on Milt Wagner in an off-court role, but allow the school to continue recruiting Dajuan Jr.

“In men’s basketball, during a two-year period before a prospective student-athlete’s anticipated enrollment and a two-year period after the prospective student-athlete’s actual enrollment,” NCAA bylaw 11.42 states, “an institution shall not employ (either on a salaried or volunteer basis) or enter into a contract for future employment with an individual associated with the prospective student-athlete in any athletics department noncoaching staff position or in a strength and conditioning staff position.”

Milt is officially listed in the school’s directory as Director of Player Development for the men’s basketball program. Also joining in an Alumni Relations role, it’s a university hire, not an athletics hire, thus creating the apparent loophole. In short, because Wagner is technically a school employee, not a member of the coaching staff, it’s legal.

That’s Louisville’s argument, at least.

What does this mean for Kentucky? Well, Calipari now has to compete with his former right-hand man in Payne and the grandfather of a recruit he’s been recruiting since he became a blue-chip prospect. It’s a prospect UK has been seen as a near-lock to land for years now, a player who has been attending camps in Lexington since he first started playing basketball.

Calipari had essentially a 17-year headstart on this recruitment as Dajuan Sr.’s former coach at Memphis. Will he be able to hold on down the stretch?