FBI Witness in Hoops Scandal Says He Paid M Football Players
Good, hopefully some of that money went to pay utility bills and rent for their families.
Right, because it’s always for “electric bills”. SMH
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:34 PM ^
I got free tuition and a paycheck for teaching accounting when I was a student at Michigan.
That money got split fairly evenly between rent, utilities, beer and whiskey. I don’t think that is unusual for a college student.
Does that make you shake your head?
Yeah... and if it was Staee on that list instead of Michigan we'd be ripping them a new ahole over getting paid.
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:08 PM ^
Not me. Rich people voluntarily giving money to mostly poor families is never going to be a big problem for me.
April 24th, 2019 at 11:01 AM ^
Me neither.
But in this context it's not an apples to apples comparison.
Don't confuse integrity with charity.
Right - breaking the law in the name of mostly poor people and families ain't no big thing. I say break more laws as long as it means possibly poor families are accepting bribes or payments in a quid pro quo manner. What could possibly go wrong?
If only such a law existed. Now breaking an NCAA rule...
If he was paying from 2010 to 2014 he definitely did NOT get his monies worth on that investment.
I guess they can vacate our championships from those years. /s
I know you're making a joke here, but I'm curious if he would have gotten his money's worth or not. His goal was to get players to choose him as a financial advisor once they went pro, not to get players to play at Michigan (at least that's not out there yet). Is there any way to see what players chose him as a financial advisor?
@FINRA maybe .But they won't care.
If the wins are vacated, are the games played vacated too?
If so, vacating these games may raise our overall win%.
I think it is just wins and not games.
Nothing is going to be vacated but even if it did it would be worth it to shush the vocal minority of our base who are perpetually out of touch and think we are an empire beyond reproach. I don’t care who you are, when you have a chasm of inequality in wealth between the players and those who are profiting from them, people will find a way. They generate the revenue but are held to a higher standard than a regular student....try telling a 19 year old kid it’s wrong if he gets a few $$, either at UM or elsewhere.
Dude you took the words right out of my pie hole. The next words were, why?
I knew somebody (like mGrow) would make a comment along these lines! I was thinking the same...
They were paying for that? What a horrible investment. /s
Saw it and checked the board again just before I hit send.
What this is: Testimony under oath (with significant penalties waiting if the witness lies or misleads) that someone paid cash to a player or players on Michigan's football team.
What is is not (yet): Testimony that Michigan staff had any knowledge or any organized system of rulebreaking.
What it means: The idea that Michigan's program is squeaky-clean is no longer tenable.
If anyone was under the impression that any program is squeaky clean I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
I hope, and believe it's possible, that Michigan tries to run a program "as clean as it can be" (that's a direct quote from... Doug Karsch on WTKA around the turn of the century describing Lloyd Carr). But it is simply inconceivable that there's not some stuff going around in today's environment. Even if Michigan itself does nothing, we've landed a couple of top five recruiting classes, and athletes that get recruited in that range get money practically thrown at them.
Let's say star offensive prospect X is a top 75 player from somewhere like Maryland. He and his family don't want to demand cash payments, but they're not super-rich. One morning in his sophomore year, the week after he scored four TDs in a high school game and produced a viral highlight video, a bag appears on the front porch. There's a note in it that says "Roll Tide!" and $500 in cash.
There's no way that his mom doesn't take that cash and pay their overdue electric bill, right? Of course not.
Later on, Alabama has extended an "uncomittable" offer to the kid, but he's getting chased hard by Michigan. There are no surreptitious meetings with boosters offering $1000 handshakes organized during his visits, and no discussion with the staff about any sort of extra financial benefit. It's all clean. The guy comes to Michigan.
He has still taken cash.
Simply no way that doesn't happen a lot everywhere.
You also have the independent actors like Ed Martin (pre-1992), or Jamal Crawford's benefactor, who aren't affiliated with a school but give gifts to up-and-coming players, probably to establish a future business relationship with them. It sounds like the guy mentioned in the OP was along these lines.
Yeah, my scenario here is not the only one around. What this guy is describing is, at least in some cases, a private effort to pay players in order to persuade them to retain his services when they become a professional. There are dozens of different relationships like this that can exist that don't require the knowledge of the team at all.
Garland Rivers comes to mind.
Agree, I think some people have the wrong impression of the 'bagmen'. Although basketball seems to want to prove me wrong, I've always assumed it is random well-off fans and alums of each school doing the cash payments. The schools probably try, to a lesser or greater extent, to keep the athletes away from these people, but there is only so much you can do.
The bigger the alumni base, the wealthier the fanbase, the more the fans care about winning, the more it happens. It would be foolish to assume it does not happen at Michigan at all. What we can hope is Michigan tries their best to keep it out of the program and recruit players and coaches most likely to resist the temptation.
I'm sure hyper competitive Jim Harbaugh hiring a recruiting ace from Alabama and Penn State means he's definitely not ok with cheating. If Michigan wants to really stomp out cheating, they'll recruit in the 40's and 50's in the rankings.
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:37 PM ^
WTF is this shit? ?♂️?????♂️
No, bagmen are often working with full knowledge of at least some members of the coaching staff.
If you haven't read it before, this article is 5 years old, but still a great read: https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/10/5594348/college-football-bag-man-interview
you do not seem like other buckeyes. appreciate the post.
I can promise you with 100% certainty that Michigan recruits are paid. This doesn't mean it's necessarily the coaches leaving $5,000 on the recruits couch when leaving a visit, but they are without a doubt complicit in ignoring it. And that makes Michigan similar to 63 out of the 65 Power 5 schools, because the only ones I'm not sure about cheating with absolutely certainty are Vanderbilt and Northwestern. I can promise you cheating is prevalent and not cared about in the slightest.
Well this dude lists Northwestern so make that 64 out of 65.
Beat me to it!
Touche
Anchor Down!
It lists Northwestern in the OP. I guess it's 64 out of 65 now!
Stanford?
I can tell you with a 100% certainly that Stanford pays players, and not just a little bit either. Stanford has some DEEEEEEEP pockets that care a great deal about football. Having great academics doesnt mean that teams don't cheat.
"...with absolutely certainty are Vanderbilt and Northwestern."
Too bad Northwestern was cited in the report; so much for for your "certainty".
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:18 PM ^
Re-read what I said. I didnt say that I was certain they didnt cheat. I said I wasn't certain they cheated, I never saw players paid from there and never knew of any dudes that got paid. Obviously it turns out they did, but I've seen most schools get pretty blatant.
LMAO about you thinking Vanderbilt is squeaky clean. Vandy is in the SEC. Their athletes have far, far lower academic standards than the rest of the school and athletes are steered to blow off classes and "helped" in more difficult ones. James Franklin did his best to overlook/ignore/cover up a rape scandal involving football players. The basketball team has pulled in a few 4 and 5-star recruits who had offers from some of the best Power 5 schools. They be cheating, too.
The admission standards at VU are the same. That's why they struggle to compete. There simply aren't enough academically and athletically eligible SEC-level recruits to fill out a depth chart There are athletes overrepresented in the Peabody school, but even that HOD coursework and degree are legit.
-Signed,
Vandy alum, class of '99, and former classmate of Corey Chavous and Eric Vance
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:20 PM ^
I don't think they're squeaky clean. I would assume they cheat. I just haven't seen it. I probably worded it wrong, but the absolute certainty wasnt that they didnt cheat, its I'm 100% sure the other 63 schools cheat, and probably just 60-70% sure Vanderbilt and NW cheat.
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:58 PM ^
What'd you do in college sports that would have given you access to see those type of things? Curious.
That's a really good question.
I paid and currently pay players at different schools for different reasons. Never Michigan though, I don't mix business with pleasure.
Also a good friend of mine was a coach at an elite JuCo and he personally helped facilitate payments to players to play at certain schools. The BagMan article is incredibly accurate.
Totally agree. But I'll go beyond that and say that I don't care one single bit if that is common and goes on everywhere. We've heard of this from the 1950's on, (Bear Bryant supposedly told his assistants "I don't want to be involved, just pay whatever the going rate is."). It's the ultimate victimless crime, and to make it even less objectionable to me it often benefits poor kids. I'm completely fine with it.
April 24th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
" hope, and believe it's possible, that Michigan tries to run a program "as clean as it can be" "
I believe that too.
I'm a homer. No question. But honestly I can't get all that bugged about this. Now, if we had bagmen paying players directly to play at Michigan, and RR/Hoke/Harbaugh knew about it? That's a bigger problem. It makes me sad and makes me question our integrity. But in the end it's not an offense where someone is really hurt that I can see.
The giant thing I want to avoid is a situation like 'Girl/Child was raped and Harbaugh knew about it and swept it under the rug' or 'Person X was assaulted and injured by 5 star starting running back Y, and Harbaugh knew about it and swept it under the rug.' or 'Player Z has been abusing hard drugs and skipping classes for 3 years and Harbaugh knew about it....'
That to me is firing materiel, not wins/losses.
How much are you asking?
How much are you asking?