By Kevin Armstrong
New York City hoops are no stranger to basketball scandals & this federal NCAA probe is no different
One night in October, Lamar Odom stands up, straightens his 6-foot-10 frame and strides to a podium inside Bryant Park Grill on W. 40th St. Dressed in a black suit and tie with white polka dots, Odom is sober, two years removed from a cocaine binge at a Nevada brothel that left him in a coma and breathing through a ventilator. Odom, 38, looks around the room. The occasion is the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame Dinner, and he is about to be inducted. To his right is Tom “Satch” Sanders, a retired Celtic in a bow tie. To his left is “Jumpin’” Jackie Jackson, an old Boys High Kangaroo who used to hand out business cards with four words on them: “Have Converse, Will Jump.” Sneaker laces remain the ties that bind many in the city game. In the back sits Gary Charles, a 5-foot-5 businessman who wears a black three-piece suit and matching fedora. Charles coached Odom with the Long Island Panthers, an AAU program sponsored by Adidas, when Odom was the nation’s top prospect with Christ the King High in 1996. Odom leans in to the microphone.
“I never thought I would be received as a great New York City bas- ketball player after I left Christ the King,” Odom says before turning his attention to Charles. “My AAU coach is here. You can ask him questions about that.”
Charles, 58, is known as “Short Riley.” He no longer works in systems programming for Bank of New York, but still wields influence as a power broker on the grassroots basketball scene. He guffaws at the finger pointing. On the dais, Odom outlines his path: a father addicted to heroin, a mother lost to colon cancer when he was 12 and his attendance at three schools in two states as a high school senior in search of academic eligibility. His recruitment is in the record books for having triggered three college investigations that landed two NCAA programs on probation in his wake. Famous since 16, Odom, a southpaw from South Jamaica, recalls coaches, sneaker company operatives and runners for agents circling the scene.
“I learned the game,” he says. “I learned life.”
It is not lost on Odom that he is being enshrined at a time of reckoning for college basketball. He knows 10 men are under arrest in a corruption sweep that included predawn roundups one week ago. Four assistant coaches, two Adidas executives, an AAU coach, a middleman, a financier and a runner for an agent face federal charges. Fifty blocks south, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York examines the unregulated commerce long conducted to secure top players. Odom testifies about the choreography, as well as the code of silence in a multibillion dollar war between sneaker makers for the soles of America’s youth.
“Hell no, I’m not surprised,” Odom says after receiving a standing ovation that lasted 30 seconds. “The coaches all know what they do. It seems a little weird with all the FBI and s--- involved, but it is what it is.”
New York is at the nexus of the probe into bribery and fraud regarding recruiting arrangements. Several of the accused parties trace their roots to city bandboxes. One is a former director of the Gauchos AAU program in the Bronx; another is the son of a legendary CHSAA coach. One N.Y.C. Basketball Hall of Fame member —- Jim Larranaga, Class of ’09 — is linked to a conspiracy to route $150,000 from Adidas to a recruit, yet still is employed at the University of Miami. Another enshrined coach — Rick Pitino, Class of ’06 — was fired by the University of Louisville for his alleged part in a plot to channel $100,000 from Adidas to a recruit’s family. Andy Miller, who was representing Knicks star forward Kristaps Porzingis, has had his office raided across the Hudson. The center is not holding.
“The easiest solution is to pay the kids,” Odom says. “It is so funny because I don’t know why they feel they shouldn’t. If you had to buy tickets to take a science test or something, then I’d say, ‘F--- it,’ then it is the same, but yeah, you should pay them. The school makes money off them. It seems fair. Why not?” Looking at the market of finders’ fees, extra benefits and corporate enticements, Odom weighs his worth. “The going rate for me, if I had took money, would have been like $200,000,” he says. “Know what I’m saying? I also wouldn’t want anybody to touch my money that I wasn’t supposed to be getting anyway. I would want it straight from the man.”
Greg Vetrone, another old friend, sits stage left. Vetrone, who goes by “Shoes,” is now the director of player development for Rutgers, but is best remembered for his role in the Odom sweepstakes. As an assistant at UNLV, Vetrone convinced Odom to commit to the Runnin’ Rebels, but Odom’s ACT score was later questioned and the NCAA deemed a gift of $5,600 from a booster improper. When faced with a UNLV probe, Odom refused to cooperate and left the school.
“I remember the words my grandmother