COACH IS AN
City hoops star struggles to get life back after he was caught in middle of FBI’s NCAA probe
It was New Year’s Eve, the day before the calendar switched to a wretched 2020, and Emmanuel ‘Book’ Richardson took a long walk after church service. For reasons he still cannot fully explain, darkness settled inside his brain. Richardson didn’t know why he stood over the Harlem River contemplating suicide. Depression is hard to understand.
“I went to church on
116th Street and I walked to the 145th Bridge and I got tired,” he tells the Daily News. “And I just said, ‘This is it. And I said, ‘If I jump, I’m not sure this is high enough.’ And I wanted it to end.”
Richardson, a longtime prominent figure of grassroots NYC basketball, made a few desperate phone calls and talked himself out of the leap. Thoughts of his son sprung to the forefront. He stepped back, decided to live.
Richardson lived to carry on as the director of the Gauchos, continuing a legacy that had carried him to the highest levels of NCAA basketball as Arizona’s assistant coach – only to have it all crumble as the target of a sloppy FBI investigation. But this isn’t a redemption story for Richardson. Not yet, at least.
He still has a lot to figure out.
Depression arrives in waves for the 47-year-old, who, on a recent Sunday afternoon, is hosting a tournament inside the Bronx’s Gauchos Gym. Within 10 minutes of our first meeting, he’s overwhelmed by an anxiety attack, breaking down in tears while retreating to the exit. The trigger was recalling that the day prior — Sept. 26 — marked the three-year anniversary of the FBI arriving at his door with a battering ram.
Everything since that 6 a.m. shock has felt like a downward spiral. Richardson lost his job. His freedom. His health deteriorated. His marriage to Erin, the love of Richardson’s life, ended because of his infidelity.
“You’ve known me for 10 minutes and I broke down,” he says. “And I have this anxiety because I don’t want to be crazy.”
Before his arrest and incarceration for federal funds bribery, Richardson was a success story of NYC basketball. He won a city title in 1991 as St. Raymond’s small point guard. In between stints coaching small college programs, he linked with the Gauchos and demonstrated a knack for connecting with star players, an invaluable tool for NCAA programs. To Kemba Walker, for instance, he was Uncle Book. To Lamont (Momo) Jones, he was his godfather. Richardson took on the persona of the assuring, relatable, funny uncle.
Sean Miller understood his worth as a recruiter and brought Richardson to Xavier as an assistant, then to Arizona. In his eight years with the Wildcats, Richardson brought three recruits from New York — Jones, Kevin Parrom and Rawle Alkins — along with a slew of top prospects from across the country.
“I got the job because my relationships allowed me to get pretty good players,” he says.
Of course, there’s a ceiling attached to the ‘relationship’ coach, and it is a system that perpetuates racism because the role typically falls on the Black coaches. It helped Richardson land a gig paying $250,000 per year at Arizona, but also kept him in a restrictive lane. Only recently, through his work training top prospects like Cole Anthony and guiding Gauchos’ youth programs, has Richardson rediscovered his greater potential as a coach.
“I didn’t want to upset anyone at Arizona. Sean Miller is arguably one of the top-10 coaches in the country in terms of X’s and O’s. And I’m like, how can you help him? Well, shut your mouth and get some players.
That’s how you can help him,” says Richardson. “The issue was I didn’t believe I could be a coach. If I believed I was good, then you know I would’ve slimmed down, and I understand perception is reality and now I now have to look the part. I just thought I’ll be the drunk uncle that’s funny, and bring everyone together.”
The Wildcats were a powerhouse during Richardson’s stint, advancing to three Elite 8’s while boasting a remarkable seven first-round picks in eight years.
Then Richardson’s world shattered over $20,000.
In the summer of 2017,
I’ll
Richardson, while secretly recorded by the FBI, accepted two payments as part of an agreement to steer players to a sports agency when they turned pro.
As detailed in HBO’s 2020 documentary, ‘ The Scheme,’ the FBI’s investigation was a botched flop. The Feds promised a hurricane that would drown college basketball. They warned cheating programs, ‘We have your play