Ever the picture of sartorial splendor, Gary Charles chose for the night's event an ensemble that reflected his flamboyant place in the New York basketball underworld. It featured a dress shirt with polka dots on the cuffs and collar, topped by a gray suit and matching fedora.

He is a short man. But not a man short on ideas.

"I've worn red hats, blue hats, brown hats," he said. "I haven't worn a white hat -- yet."

	“	A lot of bad things have been said for a long time about the people in this room. But the fact is everyone who is here cares. And while everyone has an opinion of Gary Charles, the one thing you can't say is Gary Charles can't dress. ”
		— Gary Charles during a summit of New York hoops insiders

He's trying one on for size, though. He wants to be the good guy now. As coach of the Long Island Panthers, the high-profile summer-league team that once claimed such current NBA players as Lamar Odom and Wally Szczerbiak, Charles said he wants to lead the charge to strip the grime from Gotham hoops.

He realizes that for many, he must sound like Bill Gates vowing to crusade against monopolies. Or Tom Green waging war on toilet humor. Charles knows what some people think of him -- that he pays high school players and doesn't care about academics. That he embodies everything that's wrong with the basketball culture.

Not true, he said. But the public impression of his industry has sunk to such a low level in recent months that it's time, he said, that the disparate, often-feuding members of the New York basketball community come together to address their problems.

That message was echoed at a New York basketball summit Tuesday night at Brooklyn College, where more than 80 participants -- AAU and high school coaches, scouts, parents and school officials -- set aside their fierce rivalries to identify key issues and propose solutions.

For some, it was like watching a meeting of Mafia dons who hadn't talked in years.

"Look at that table!" said Lincoln Sessoms, a Brooklyn College administrator and youth basketball aficionado, pointing to where Charles and other AAU coaches huddled. "When have you ever seen the Panthers, Broncos, Gauchos and Riverside sit together?"

To New York City basketball fans, these names mean everything. They represent the community-based teams that identify top young players before they reach the high school level, or are stolen by other AAU teams. Fueled by money from Nike and other shoe companies, they travel to tournaments as far away as Las Vegas and Paris (France, not Texas).

Charles gets his money from Adidas. How much, he won't divulge. "But," he notes, "let's just say there's a reason I'm Sonny's right-hand man." That would be Sonny Vaccaro, who, as the head of basketball recruiting for Adidas, funds selected elite youth teams around the country. Vaccaro uses the money to help him develop relationships with the next generation of NBA superstar endorsers.

The evils of money got a good ride at the meeting. Then again, so did the benefits.

	“	The reality is why shouldn't the AAU coaches be taken care of? Why should a coach who sends players to some of the finest colleges in the country have to take a second mortgage to send his own kids to college? ”
		— Michael A. Hickson Sr.

"The reality is, why shouldn't the AAU coaches be taken care of?" says Michael A. Hickson Sr., an accountant by day, as heads nod in the crowd. "Why should a coach who sends players to some of the finest colleges in the country have to take a second mortgage to send his own kids to college?"

Recent scandals are unlikely to aid any fund-raising efforts.

Ernie Lorch, the longtime director of the Riverside Church program, resigned April 29 amid an ongoing investigation by the district attorney's office into a claim that he sexually abused a former player to whom he later gave $2 million.

"I think it's out there, all over," Charles said, of sexual abuse by summer-league coaches.

An ESPN.com report in early May also raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the grades given out to players at Christopher Robin Academy, a small school in Queens that athletes attend on the side to get their NCAA eligibility. High school and AAU coaches have steered dozens of athletes over the past decade to the unaccredited, for-profit school, which is now being looked into by the consumer frauds division of the New York Attorney General's office.

Charles, who has had several players pick up credits at Christopher Robin, said he probably won't send any players to the school. But he wants to know that rival programs, which sometimes pay for school tuition of their athletes, are going to break the habit, too.

"It's important that we, as a group, get away from that situation," Charles said.

Privately, one AAU coach acknowledged that as long the NCAA accepts credits from Christopher Robin, it's likely to be used as an option, "just like an IRS loophole."

At least the AAU factions made one promise: No more road tournaments on weekends when the SAT and ACT tests are given. That's been a sore point of high school coaches such as St. Raymond's Gary DeCesare, who was a catalyst in calling for the hoops summit.

Only time will tell if anything more concrete comes of the effort. Its organizers are planning future meetings, fighting hard the perception that all this could lead absolutely nowhere.

For now, Charles is willing to count the victories.

"A lot of bad things have been said for a long time about the people in this room," Charles said. "But the fact is everyone who is here cares. And while everyone has an opinion of Gary Charles, the one thing you can't say is Gary Charles can't dress."

Tom Farrey is a senior writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn.com.