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Bizarre NCAA basketball news

TxFrog1999

TxFrog1999

The Man Behind The Curtain
Mean Purple said:
Question that I hope is a "no" answer:

Wonder if any of this sportswear stuff went over to football?

I'm guessing no.
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Pretty sure it did if the school was sponsored by Adidas. No way they'd have this level of "success" on the court and not try something in another sport.
 
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FBallFan123

Active Member
Finally had time to finish the Schlabach article, and you can see why they're looking at Nike.

Merl Code, who was at Adidas, had just recently left Nike's Elite Youth Basketball Program....and he was involved in a lot of this.....talking about the process in detail....and also mentions a rival "apparel company" coming up with a competing offer for one of the players.

It'll be interesting to eventually see how much information Code gives the FBI about Nike and where that leads.

Schlabach said:
On July 10, less than a month after the NCAA penalties were announced and about a month before the university appealed what it called "draconian" sanctions, an unidentified Louisville assistant coach spoke on the telephone with Merl Code, a former Clemson basketball player and Adidas employee; Munish Sood, a financial adviser from Princeton, New Jersey; and an undercover agent, who was recording the call for the FBI. The men discussed how they were going to mask an initial $25,000 payment from Adidas to the father of a high school player who had recently committed to Louisville.
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Schlabach said:
Code, who was Clemson's point guard from 1993 to 1997 and until recently had worked as the director of rival Nike's elite youth basketball program, explained why Adidas was paying the player.
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Schlabach said:
"You guys are being introduced to ... how stuff happens with kids and getting into particular schools," Code said during the call. "So this is kind of one of those instances where we needed to step up and help one of our flagship schools in [Louisville], you know, secure a five-star caliber kid. Obviously that helps, you know, our potential business."
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Schlabach said:
Code further explained that by funneling the payments to players' families through third parties, Adidas "was not engaging in a monetary relationship with an amateur athlete. We're engaging in a monetary relationship with a business manager, and whatever he decides to do with it, that's between him and the family. ... We can't get involved directly in those kinds of situations and scenarios."
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Schlabach said:
After Gatto and Code had problems in obtaining the rest of the money from Adidas, Dawkins arranged a meeting with Jonathan Brad Augustine, president of The League Initiative and program director of the Adidas sponsored 1 Family AAU program in Florida, at a hotel room in Las Vegas on July 27.
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Schlabach said:
The men agreed to funnel the money through Augustine's program, and he promised them that "all my kids will be [Adidas] kids."
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Schlabach said:
He said that even though Adidas had agreed to pay him $100,000, a rival athletic apparel company was "coming with a higher number," and he needed to get more money from Adidas to secure the player's commitment to Louisville.
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Schlabach said:
With Louisville and its recruits apparently secured, Gatto, Code, Dawkins and Augustine moved on to more pressing concerns -- a second plan to land a recruit they'd been simultaneously scheming. According to the FBI, they conspired to funnel approximately $150,000 to an unidentified player who was being recruited by the University of Miami. They planned to follow a similar scheme to the one used with the Louisville recruits to keep the player from signing with a school sponsored by a rival apparel company, which they claimed had offered the player $150,000, according to the complaint.
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Schlabach said:
On Aug. 19, Code informed Augustine that Adidas was willing to do what was necessary to help the Hurricanes secure the recruit, but "everything was kind of strapped for '17. So '18 puts us in a better place to have this conversation."
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http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/20834050
 
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FBallFan123

Active Member
Frog-in-law1995 said:
A "person with knowledge of the investigation" confirmed that "Coach-2" in the federal complaint is Rick Pitino. The complaint claims wiretap evidence that Coach-2 was directly involved in funneling money to a recruit.

Ho. Lee. Shi'ite.
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That's huge. Looks like that is indeed what's being reported.



 
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f_399

Active Member
Not surprised, Kansas and Louisville are probably the premier schools that Adidas sponsors.

They just put big money down on Kansas.
 
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MTfrog5

Active Member
f_399 said:
Why is most the news on Louisville and Pitino when none of their coaches were included in the initial arrests?

Would have been a better story if they stormed Louisville and took Pitino out in handcuffs.
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Because the CEO of Sports Marketing for Adidas is a bigger deal than some assistants nobody has heard of
 
BigRedFrog

BigRedFrog

KMA
Frog-in-law1995 said:
A "person with knowledge of the investigation" confirmed that "Coach-2" in the federal complaint is Rick Pitino. The complaint claims wiretap evidence that Coach-2 was directly involved in funneling money to a recruit.

Ho. Lee..
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Scumbag either has a sincere death wish or honestly believed he was smarter than the NCAA, the FBI, and probably God.
 
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MTfrog5

Active Member
f_399 said:
But as stated, if they knew coach 2 was Pitino, isn't that a pretty big fish?

Maybe what Pitino did was not a crime but it surely was an NCAA violation?
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Of course that's a big fish and I'm not totally sure what he did was a crime or I'm still not sure what he actually did outside of know there was money being paid to players by adidas
 
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PO Frog

Active Member
HSO - the federal charges will go nowhere against the great majority of guys. I am not even convinced the alleged actions are crimes, and certainly not convinced that they should be crimes...
 

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