Both papers have stories on Darnell Dodson committing to Pitt this weekend. As Chris Dokish had noted in breaking the news of his verbal, Dodson is still learning how good he could be.

Steve Keller, a New Jersey-based recruiting analyst, agrees with Farrello about Dodson’s potential. Dodson is not currently ranked among the top 150 prospects in his class, but Keller believes he will be one of the overlooked recruits who will shine in college.

“Darnell Dodson is just starting to scratch the surface of what he can be down the road,” said Keller, who publishes Steve Keller’s National Recruiting Report.

“He has grown in the last year and the expectations have grown. He could be a 6-6 or 6-7 two-guard. If that happens, the sky is the limit. Pittsburgh saw the upside that not a lot of other people saw. If the kid works, he can be a superstar.”

Dodson’s high school coach Glen Farrello compared him to a former player of his, Delonte West who starred at St. Joseph’s and is now with the Boston Celtics.

The credit for landing Dodson is being given to new Pitt assistant Mike Rice.

One might think that David Cox, an assistant coach for Dodson’s Maryland-based AAU team who is expected to be offically named as director of basketball operations at Pitt in the coming days, had a key role in Dodson’s verbal commitment. But Farello indicated otherwise.

“Mike Rice … that’s how they got him,” Farello said of Pitt’s newest assistant coach, who joined the Panthers’ staff in June from St. Joseph’s.

Rice, who is the son of former Duquesne and Youngstown State coach Mike Rice, has been friends with Farello since the two met at the Eastern Basketball Invitational camp in Trenton, N.J.

“It was completely unrelated to (Cox) going there,” said Farello, whose coaching staff includes Dodson’s father, David. “It was already decided before that went down.

“I know people won’t believe that, but it’s simply a bonus to have them together. David (Cox) is not really known as an AAU coach as much as he is known as an assistant principal at (Washington) St. John’s College High School.”

A suspicious cynic might chalk some of that up to the usual tensions that can exist between high school coaches and administrators and AAU operations.

I assume most of you have been reading Dokish’s Dispatches from the ABCD Camp. Lots of interesting stuff.

I honestly don’t see how David Abdul will make it back to the Pitt squad in time for this season. He is still shooting for it. Despite, not only having the needed heart surgery to repair a leaky valve. On top of that, he still needs to get his gall bladder removed this month. To get medical clearance to step on a field, a cardiologist will have to approve it. That and more in a long piece about David Abdul.

Chase can see the physical effects on his father’s body. The outside of Abdul’s right leg is badly scarred where doctors performed skin grafts and inserted a permanent metal rod after the car accident. Abdul’s chest contains an 8-inch vertical scar, the remnants of his recent heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.

His son likes to sit on his father’s knee, but until Abdul regains strength the boy must be placed there carefully.

“I can handle anything that life throws at me,” Abdul said. “But if something happened to Chase, that’s the one thing that would break me.”

The blond-haired child cannot comprehend the confluence of events that have shaped his father’s life. Adults also struggle for perspective.

“The kid has been through a lifetime of heartache in a couple of years,” said David’s father and longtime kicking mentor, David Abdul Sr. “You couldn’t make this kind of stuff up. It’s too unbelievable.”

Pitt special teams coordinator Charlie Partridge doesn’t want Abdul prematurely returning to the Panthers and further endangering his health. Partridge has watched Abdul make two other comebacks, including one from the car accident in which doctors gave him a 10 percent chance of kicking again.

“It’s a real testament to David’s perseverance,” Partridge said. “I don’t know if he has had a chance to kick with a clean bill of health — and I mean mentally and physically — since his freshman season.”

Abdul may have to seek a medical redshirt for the 2007 season. The only reason it would be a question mark is that it would be his second medical redshirt. The NCAA is somewhat, um, unpredictable in that area.

I hope he makes it.