MsProudSooner
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If the only company involved is Adidas, we wouldn't have been involved. Haven't we always been with Nike?
College coaches in corruption scheme
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If the only company involved is Adidas, we wouldn't have been involved. Haven't we always been with Nike?
MsProudSooner
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I wonder if there could be former assistants who aren't currently coaching charged?
Soonerinkc
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will the asst coaches start singing...or get paid or threatened to keep their mouths shut?
SoonerTraveler
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Lamont Evans was hired by Underwood at OSU. I'm hearing one of the players that received the benefit in Stillwater was recruited before the Underwood regime.
The KU ticket scandal from 10 years ago was the ticket office getting tickets to an agency which then sold them for huge profits to help fund AAU basketball teams. Then all of the star players signed with KU.
The KU ticket scandal from 10 years ago was the ticket office getting tickets to an agency which then sold them for huge profits to help fund AAU basketball teams. Then all of the star players signed with KU.
SoonerBounce13
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Pretty sure nike is involved as OSU is a nike school i thought
Anyone sent Durant a tweet to ask him how much his mom was given to sign with Texas?
Lol.
I don't know the amount but did hear that even the cheating college coaches were stunned at what Durant received to go to Austin.
I also heard boosters offered his mother a house in Austin if he would stay more than one year.
I've heard it was at least $200k.
Wouldn't shock me.
Story I heard was that when it looked like KD was possibly a flip to North Carolina, Texas upped the ante, leaving other coaches shaking their heads to the amount.
MsProudSooner
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https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/sports/fbi-brings-armageddon-college-basketball-just-tip-iceberg-184524346.html
FBI brings Armageddon to college basketball, and it's just the tip of the iceberg
Dan Wetzel Columnist
Yahoo Sports
The federal government dropped a bomb on college basketball Tuesday, indicting 10 men in a wide-spread fraud and bribery scheme involving top recruits, college programs, agents, financial planners and the shoe and apparel company Adidas.
It’s thorough. It’s ugly. It’s unprecedented.
“Fraud and corruption in the world of college basketball,” Joon H. Kim, Acting U.S. Attorney said at a press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Assistant coaches at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and USC were all arrested and their programs are almost certainly in dire straights with both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and NCAA. The evidence here is based on an undercover FBI agent, wiretapped phones, recordings, written communication and financial transaction data. The feds win nearly every case for a reason. And the indicted haven’t even started flipping yet.
Also in the crossfire is so-called “University 2” which in the complaints is describes in a way that resembles the University of South Carolina and only the University of South Carolina – “a public research university located in South Carolina … with over 30,000 students …”
Then there is “University 6” which is described in a way that resembles the University of Louisville and only the University of Louisville, linking it to a $100,000 payout for one recruit and a potential $150,000 payout for another, all while on probation for a scandal involving using prostitutes to lure other recruits. “University 6” doesn’t appear to be in any legal trouble, yet, but the NCAA is another story.
The above alone consist of a national championship program with a Hall of Fame coach (Louisville), a Final Four team from 2017 (South Carolina), historic powerhouses (Arizona and Oklahoma State) as well as major schools (USC and Auburn) with a history of NCAA problems.
Death penalty. Postseason bans. Mass firings. It’s going to be a scorched earth, the bill coming due on a sport that has operated in the shadows of corruption for generations.
Yet for college hoops none of it represents the scariest part of the three complaints laid out by the DOJ Tuesday. This, a statement by said undercover FBI agent, should terrify every coach in America:
“Because this affidavit is being submitted for the limited purpose of establishing probable cause, it does not include all of the facts that I have learned during the court of the investigation.”
Meaning, this is the tip of the iceberg.
“Our investigation is ongoing,” Kim, the Acting U.S. Attorney, warned. “And we are currently conducting interviews. … If you yourself engaged in these activities, I’d encourage you to call us. I think it’s better than us calling you.”
The operation that the feds laid out is college basketball recruiting 101. It began when a prominent financial planner from the sports world was ensnared in a securities fraud case and turned into a cooperating witness. He was able to bring an undercover FBI agent along as a supposed assistant for meetings, payouts, recorded conversations and so on.
Top basketball talent is worth more on the open market than the NCAA limit of scholarship, room, board and a small stipend. NCAA limits are an attempt to stop the wheels of capitalism, which like floodwater will simply readjust and go where it wants.
A top high school player can make a school and its coaches millions. His future potential can make shoe companies and others even more. His likely NBA earnings in this era of the one-and-done make him a coveted future client for agents, financial planners, even clothiers, real estate agents and car salesmen.
Families, aware of their son’s worth, have their hands out.
“The mom is like … we need our [expletive] money,” sports agent Christian Dawkins is alleged to have said during a July 27 meeting in a Las Vegas hotel room about the mother of a top recruit in the class of 2019, according to the indictment.
It came during a meeting between Dawkins, Brad Augustine, a prominent Florida-based travel team basketball coach, an assistant coach from “University 6”, the cooperating financial planner and the undercover FBI agent, who recorded it and bugged the room.
Paying the family to go to a certain school not only aids the school’s team on the basketball court, it builds up the relationship between the player/family and the assistant coach. The school gets a great talent, while the assistant coach creates additional trust with the player/family.
Those college coaches then receive kickbacks ($13,000 here, $9,000 there, according to the indictments) from Adidas or the agents/financial planner to steer the player to them when he reaches the NBA. A young player turning pro will almost always seek guidance who should represent him, or who can give him a good deal on a car or a draft night suit.
One hand washes the other. Rinse and repeat.
None of this is any surprise for anyone who follows the sport. Proving it, though, has always been nearly impossible … neither the NCAA nor investigative reporters have the resources of the FBI, nor the ability to provide the legal pressure that flips someone into a cooperating witness.
So now the lid is off the jar and where this ends is anyone’s guess.
Tuesday, college coaches were calling emergency staff meetings and coaches at all levels were consulting attorneys. This is an entirely different level than anyone has seen before, not a mostly toothless NCAA, but a motivated FBI and U.S. Attorney in New York looking to make a big media splash.
And splash they will. Even if there aren’t legal ramifications for everyone, the recruiting dirt that is about to get turned over will be unprecedented. The code of silence that has protected the sport and the NCAA’s system of “amateurism” is about to be cracked in a million pieces under FBI questioning, where a single lie is a felony.
The NCAA may be backed into a corner where it needs to blow up one of its signature revenue producers. And financial planners don’t just care about basketball. Football players make big money, too.
In basketball, nearly everyone has recruited Brad Augustine’s “1 Family Hoops” out of Florida, which is annually loaded with talent as one of Adidas’ signature programs. Nearly everyone knows powerful adidas executive Jim Gatto, who was arrested, too. All of the indictments Tuesday stem mostly from the acts of one financial planner and one agent.
There are many more who operate the same way. Who knows when the heat shifts to them.
Big, bigger … biggest scandal ever.
Tuesday was Armageddon for college basketball. Tomorrow and the tomorrow after that and the tomorrow after that promise to be worse.
FBI brings Armageddon to college basketball, and it's just the tip of the iceberg
Dan Wetzel Columnist
Yahoo Sports
The federal government dropped a bomb on college basketball Tuesday, indicting 10 men in a wide-spread fraud and bribery scheme involving top recruits, college programs, agents, financial planners and the shoe and apparel company Adidas.
It’s thorough. It’s ugly. It’s unprecedented.
“Fraud and corruption in the world of college basketball,” Joon H. Kim, Acting U.S. Attorney said at a press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Assistant coaches at Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and USC were all arrested and their programs are almost certainly in dire straights with both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and NCAA. The evidence here is based on an undercover FBI agent, wiretapped phones, recordings, written communication and financial transaction data. The feds win nearly every case for a reason. And the indicted haven’t even started flipping yet.
Also in the crossfire is so-called “University 2” which in the complaints is describes in a way that resembles the University of South Carolina and only the University of South Carolina – “a public research university located in South Carolina … with over 30,000 students …”
Then there is “University 6” which is described in a way that resembles the University of Louisville and only the University of Louisville, linking it to a $100,000 payout for one recruit and a potential $150,000 payout for another, all while on probation for a scandal involving using prostitutes to lure other recruits. “University 6” doesn’t appear to be in any legal trouble, yet, but the NCAA is another story.
The above alone consist of a national championship program with a Hall of Fame coach (Louisville), a Final Four team from 2017 (South Carolina), historic powerhouses (Arizona and Oklahoma State) as well as major schools (USC and Auburn) with a history of NCAA problems.
Death penalty. Postseason bans. Mass firings. It’s going to be a scorched earth, the bill coming due on a sport that has operated in the shadows of corruption for generations.
Yet for college hoops none of it represents the scariest part of the three complaints laid out by the DOJ Tuesday. This, a statement by said undercover FBI agent, should terrify every coach in America:
“Because this affidavit is being submitted for the limited purpose of establishing probable cause, it does not include all of the facts that I have learned during the court of the investigation.”
Meaning, this is the tip of the iceberg.
“Our investigation is ongoing,” Kim, the Acting U.S. Attorney, warned. “And we are currently conducting interviews. … If you yourself engaged in these activities, I’d encourage you to call us. I think it’s better than us calling you.”
The operation that the feds laid out is college basketball recruiting 101. It began when a prominent financial planner from the sports world was ensnared in a securities fraud case and turned into a cooperating witness. He was able to bring an undercover FBI agent along as a supposed assistant for meetings, payouts, recorded conversations and so on.
Top basketball talent is worth more on the open market than the NCAA limit of scholarship, room, board and a small stipend. NCAA limits are an attempt to stop the wheels of capitalism, which like floodwater will simply readjust and go where it wants.
A top high school player can make a school and its coaches millions. His future potential can make shoe companies and others even more. His likely NBA earnings in this era of the one-and-done make him a coveted future client for agents, financial planners, even clothiers, real estate agents and car salesmen.
Families, aware of their son’s worth, have their hands out.
“The mom is like … we need our [expletive] money,” sports agent Christian Dawkins is alleged to have said during a July 27 meeting in a Las Vegas hotel room about the mother of a top recruit in the class of 2019, according to the indictment.
It came during a meeting between Dawkins, Brad Augustine, a prominent Florida-based travel team basketball coach, an assistant coach from “University 6”, the cooperating financial planner and the undercover FBI agent, who recorded it and bugged the room.
Paying the family to go to a certain school not only aids the school’s team on the basketball court, it builds up the relationship between the player/family and the assistant coach. The school gets a great talent, while the assistant coach creates additional trust with the player/family.
Those college coaches then receive kickbacks ($13,000 here, $9,000 there, according to the indictments) from Adidas or the agents/financial planner to steer the player to them when he reaches the NBA. A young player turning pro will almost always seek guidance who should represent him, or who can give him a good deal on a car or a draft night suit.
One hand washes the other. Rinse and repeat.
None of this is any surprise for anyone who follows the sport. Proving it, though, has always been nearly impossible … neither the NCAA nor investigative reporters have the resources of the FBI, nor the ability to provide the legal pressure that flips someone into a cooperating witness.
So now the lid is off the jar and where this ends is anyone’s guess.
Tuesday, college coaches were calling emergency staff meetings and coaches at all levels were consulting attorneys. This is an entirely different level than anyone has seen before, not a mostly toothless NCAA, but a motivated FBI and U.S. Attorney in New York looking to make a big media splash.
And splash they will. Even if there aren’t legal ramifications for everyone, the recruiting dirt that is about to get turned over will be unprecedented. The code of silence that has protected the sport and the NCAA’s system of “amateurism” is about to be cracked in a million pieces under FBI questioning, where a single lie is a felony.
The NCAA may be backed into a corner where it needs to blow up one of its signature revenue producers. And financial planners don’t just care about basketball. Football players make big money, too.
In basketball, nearly everyone has recruited Brad Augustine’s “1 Family Hoops” out of Florida, which is annually loaded with talent as one of Adidas’ signature programs. Nearly everyone knows powerful adidas executive Jim Gatto, who was arrested, too. All of the indictments Tuesday stem mostly from the acts of one financial planner and one agent.
There are many more who operate the same way. Who knows when the heat shifts to them.
Big, bigger … biggest scandal ever.
Tuesday was Armageddon for college basketball. Tomorrow and the tomorrow after that and the tomorrow after that promise to be worse.
sheepdogs1
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We might be playing OBU 8 times a year if that occurred.
I believe the charges against the OSU coach involve his relationship with two financial advisers and not an apparel company.
AdaSooner
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Wow! If the headline and quote below from the article MsProud posted isn't enough to scare the bejeebers out of a coach who ever even thought about committing a violation, nothing will.
I think we all know college basketball has been a dirty business in a lot of high-level circles for a very long time. If an investigation like this is what it takes to weed out the corruption and create a level playing field for coaches who run a clean program, I'm all for it. Looks like it could get really ugly before it's over.
I think we all know college basketball has been a dirty business in a lot of high-level circles for a very long time. If an investigation like this is what it takes to weed out the corruption and create a level playing field for coaches who run a clean program, I'm all for it. Looks like it could get really ugly before it's over.
MercedeSooner
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Waiting for the fall out before I get too excited - everyone knows the top kids are getting paid and sorry I don't see Duke and Kentucky on that list who are both signing 5 of the top 20 kids every year. Broken system is broken and until I see the top dogs brought down don't believe we'll see any real change.
Guys, I was with the FBI for 27 years, this is going to take a lot of people down, some big names and schools will fall like the leaves on a tree. Grab hold and hang on tight because people are going to jail and schools are going on probation. I wouldn't be surprised if this also falls into the women basketball community as well as some of the private schools were the top high school players go for their final year of school.
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