Indictments may be just start of scandal
College coaches accused of bribing players to play, sign
For decades, many in college basketball believed there was widespread corruption, with influential shoe companies using cash incentives to direct players to certain schools — confident that the bribery would pay off years later when those players became professionals and signed lucrative endorsements.
Now, the Department of Justice has handed down indictments that appear to confirm those suspicions and threatens to expose even more black market dealings.
On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, in conjunction with the FBI, issued a warning shot to college basketball coaches across the country after news broke that 10 men were indicted in a major scandal involving fraud, bribery, money laundering and corruption.
The list includes four prominent assistant coaches at Power Five schools and a high-level executive at Adidas.
“The bribed coaches showed little regard for the players’ wellbeing,” said Joon Kim, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “They ignored red flags, seeing only the green of the cash bribes.”
More than 100 pages of fil- ings detail the different ways cash allegedly exchanged hands from a major athletic apparel company to top-level recruits, with financial planners and agents acting as middlemen. The money, according to the filing, was given to recruits and their families with the understanding that those recruits would attend specific schools.
Four assistant coaches — Auburn’s Chuck Person, Southern California’s Tony Bland, Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson and Oklahoma State’s Lamont Evans — have been accused of taking bribes in exchange for pushing players to sign with particular agents when those players ultimately turned pro and needed representation. The bribes range from $15,000 to $100,000.
Kim said at a news conference in New York the investigation is ongoing. He added that reading the filing “you will find yourself in the dark underbelly of college athletics.”
William Sweeney Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s N.Y. office, said the charges levied against the power brokers in college basketball, “contribute to a ‘pay-for-play’ culture that has no place in college basketball. Today’s arrests serve as a warning to others choosing to conduct business this way in the world of college athletics: We have your playbook.”