FBI Witness in Hoops Scandal Says He Paid M Football Players
Yeah, it is Larry Johnson and Aaron Maybin.
Weird story though. Maybin was the 11th pick overall! And not a surprise #11 pick - he was always mocked in or near the Top 10.
$10K isn't exactly much incentive to pass over the millions a 1st round draft pick gets.
So that means he was coming back to school regardless. And the extra $10k is just icing but not enough to raise flags.
True. Maybin family is/was solidly middle-class in suburban Maryland. Family didn't need the $10K to survive but it would pay for some nicer hotels and meals on those trips to see the son play football.
I certainly do believe that Larry Johnson Sr would do something like this. That guy always struck me as shady. Only really looked out for himself. He raised a thug of a son too.
Only people who should be surprised this is true is people who really feel Michigan is "Clean" in football. They aren't and have never been all the way back to Bo in the 70s.
Next time pay more and better!
...back to the 19th century, really. We were in a bidding war with U of Chicago for Walker Eckersall, amongst other shenanigans.
Shenanigans? Were there NCAA rules back then on not paying players?
Cool. You take the testimony of one guy who said HE paid players, no connection to the University of Michigan, and then taint Bo with it.
Trolling hard, you are.
Now this makes me sad IF true.
We allegedly have had “cheating” and we still didn’t win the big ten?
Come on! We need to have a bag men success commission.
Coffee is for closers!
This doesn't look like players were paid to go to any of these schools. This was a financial advisor paying players already at these schools to pick him as their advisor when they went pro. If true, it still means ineligible players were played.
Thank you for clarifying.
I, for one, feel better. (No sarcasm)
More concretely, he didn't pay players to go to Michigan. He paid players who went there.
Correct. This isn't like what happens at OSU and Alabama.
Does this mean we can erase those years from the record books and our memories?
I have it on good authority that this is precisely how it works.
So go ahead and just forget all about...uh, wait what time frame were we talking about?
Msu is smart. Don't pay the players, just keep them from being charged with crimes 24/7 and save them thousands in attorney fees and fines.
Thank God Alabama is on that list or I would be worried we might be in trouble.
My thoughts exactly... then saw ND and Penn State as well.
@ Gucci below:
CA legislature is already trying to do this with one third of PAC12 schools.
[Wyd, can't post links on mobile?!?! Ok, just Google "fair pay to play act CA"]
The primary reason football isn't as big of a story is because the money is substantially less (the overall number of players just makes that a reality). But yes, every school has people giving out money handshakes or improper benefits. UM, MSU, CMU, are all on that list, among all other D-I schools.
The reality is that you don't recruit at the level Michigan recruits in football without being a little dirty. Now look at the schools that recruit even better, and see where there is even bigger money being used. This really shouldn't surprise anyone.
Its not surprising but it is frustrating. Im so sick of this system. I wish an entire conference would announce they will be openly paying players and ignore anything the NCAA says about it.
Yes. Or even better, get a group of schools like Michigan, UVA, Ga. Tech, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. and withdraw from the NCAA to form their own new organization.
Why? So the nerds can cheat and not play with shit schools? This is dumb
I would rather watch a college sport that doesn't make me feel dirty afterwards. If UM pulls the same antics that the less-than-ethical schools are doing, then I will probably reconsider my interest in this sport. If I wanted to watch paid players I would stick to NFL. The appeal of college ball is these the are/were legit students going through much of the same deal as everyone else on campus - otherwise what is the distinction?
Why do you think the NCAA defends "amateurism" more vigorously than any other aspect of college sports? If it weren't for the facade of the "student athlete," then the only distinction is that the college product is unarguably inferior because the players aren't as good, heh.
What part of young, primarily black, athletes monetizing their most fleeting and valuable skill makes you feel dirty? Because legit students can monetize their talents without oversight. The biology major can release a song on iTunes if he wants to. The Anthropologist can try and act in TV shows if he's good enough. Theyre still legit students. It's ok to allow kids to make money, it doesnt make you a bad person.
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:29 PM ^
I got paid to teach accounting when I was at Michigan- nobody gave a shit or felt dirty to my knowledge.
People are citing a number of nice (selective) examples of students working outside of class to make money - which is fine. However, none of those situations are where tge students received incredibly generous benefits and preferred admission status to attend a highly competitive university (for free, plus stipends and perks) for an activity that has absolutely nothing to do with classroom work or their field of study. If someone wants to monetize their athletic ability while they can (and still be a student), that is absolutely fine - join some outside organization and play outside of class (even if that means being a part time student or taking classes online to accomodate travel and other obligations). Or just go to a minor league of some sort straight out of high school. Options exist - these kids don't need to "pretend" to be students for a year (or two or three) while they focus all their emphasis on the field/court/gym. This applies to all socioeconomic backgrounds. If a kid is good enough to get thousands of dollars cash under the table to go to a school, there are definitely other buyers for their talents outside of "academia". Besides, if all of this was so fair and innocent as some people claim, why are they hiding it from everyone (not just the NCAA, but the general public and state/federal governments - including the IRS). Especially for biblically funded universities - this can easily become a large conflict of interest if the situation comes to public universities bidding against for-profit companies for the services of athletes (if pay to play ever become a legal).
If someone wants to pay someone thousands of dollars to do something, why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? Plus, spare me on the biblically funded shit, Baylor proved that God comes after winning in football, so they can cheat or do something else too.
You're welcome to join me at next year's Oberlin/Kenyon game. There'll only be a couple of hundred people in the stands and the football's pretty bad but at least you won't feel dirty.
April 23rd, 2019 at 10:41 PM ^
Hasn’t the SEC been doing that for about 25 years?
I listen to the Ole Miss radio show from time to time and they talk freely about Georgia, Tennessee and Texas A&M joining Bama and LSU in terms of their bag men openly bidding for players.
Exactly. I know of Division 3 players given impermissible benefits. As long as winning correlates to wealth, cheating will be prevalent.
That's not just hearsay. There are actual controversies and penalties for D-2 and D-3 schools from time to time. Ferris State just narrowly avoided one that would have torpedoed their run to the D-2 Championship Game.
DIII isn’t really a good comparison. Nobody is checking what they do at DIII, nobody. A D1 P5 impermissible benefit is far different than the free cheeseburger the DIII guy got. The drug tests at DIII are a joke too. No need to take Sarms like Dabo’s boys, you can inject the good stuff anytime of the season.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me. I mean, I worked somewhere we had a state Congressman on the payroll. He was there so infrequently, and it was so "well known but not talked about" that I only found out about when we closed the facility and another poor sucker business had to find him a paycheck.
Always thought if our 4th estate wanted to really earn their paychecks they wouldn't have to dig hard to find nearly every politician is getting paid to do nothing from someone.
If anybody was under the impression that nobody on our team was getting paid, you're delusional.
We do not do this as flippantly as the schools down south. But our goals are to win championships, and we make more money than anybody else - some of it will make its way to a select few guys. And that has always been completely alright with me.
We have not sold our soul to the football devil in order to win championships, however. Northwestern being named just shows you that it's a game nearly everyone is playing.
Although I doubt any Power 5 program is truly clean (or even a G5 program at that), I don't think this is a bagman situation, where the schools were working with this guy. I think it's more that he targeted players at these schools to be his future clients.
True. Although, as shown with basketball, there is strategy involved to send them to certain schools. And there is always a fall guy assistant coach
Good, more evidence that he players are being paid anyway. It's all a big lie, we don't need that lie anymore. NCAA member schools, Pay that man his money.
I'd want a refund if I were him.
Have to laugh at the same people who make the money excuse for recruiting now are saying "good" "he didn't get his money's worth" "everyone is doing it" etc.
April 27th, 2019 at 12:10 PM ^
Maybe the reason why all the players you (1201/Mfrank/Maizen) constantly list for leaving the program is that we didn't pay them enough?
So does this mean we can't use the other teams are cheating but we're clean excuse anymore?
Nope. When we suck, we have to just admit we suck.
So far, there is NO evidence of the Michigan football program paying players. NONE.
Well that applies to pretty much every other football program as well, so we're back to where we started.
There is no way OSU is not on that list.
I demand a refund!
Ugh. Doubt anything comes of this, but the whole system is corrupt. Sick of the charade.
Worst case scenario, this is investigated and it's embarrassing. Zero chance we're vacating wins or anything.
Meh. If you didn't know this already you're naive. Every major college program has players getting paid.
Also apparently the alleged PSU assistant in this case is current OSU assistant Larry Johnson Sr.