S.I.com Exclusive On Okla St..."The Dirty Game"

[FirefightnRick]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/SIs_five_part_series_on_OSU_The_Dirty_Game_to_begin/20130909_93_0_STILLW93818

We wanted to take a comprehensive look at a big-time program, particularly one that made a rapid ascent, Wertheim said in the release. Theres obviously a steady drumbeat of scandal in college sports -- improper benefits here; a recruiting violation there -- and plenty of rumor and hearsay about the unseemly underbelly. For this piece, we were more about venturing inside the factory and seeing how the sausage is made.

--Part 1: Money (on SI.com Tuesday and in this weeks issue). Said the release, SI finds that OSU used a bonus system orchestrated by an assistant coach whereby players were paid for their performance on the field, with some stars collecting $500 or more per game. In addition, the report finds that OSU boosters and at least two assistant coaches funneled money to players via direct payments and a system of no-show and sham jobs. Some players say they collected more than $10,000 annually in under-the-table payouts.....

Wow.

Rick

Edited September 10, 2013 by FirefightnRick

[NT03]

I know someone who signed with OSU several years ago. I'll l just say that this story doesn't shock me

That said , these things happens at every major program. If you don't think so , then you probably still believe in the tooth fairy too

Edited September 10, 2013 by NT03

[North Texas Shep]

Oklahoma Lite really started to build a program during this time. It is possible that because of these actions they were able to slowly build a reputation with recruits. Players are probably there now that would not have been if OSU had not committed infractions to get better players in the past.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Remember the sad story of former OSU Cowboy and Redskin Dexter Manley?

GMG!

Edited September 10, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[GreenFlag]

I knew a guy that started at Center for OSU in the 70's. He basically told me these same stories. Money in his locker, BS jobs, selling his complementary tickets at four times the value, etc.

I knew a baseball player at Texas Tech in the 90's who told me his old coaching staff contacted him a couple of years after he got out to tell him the NCAA would be sniffing around and what to say to them. I asked him if the program broke the rules. His response "let's just say I was taken care of"

I know a former OU player of the 80's era and he told me similar stuff. At OU there was a married secretary who would enjoy the company of various players.

There was a UH player I met that played there in the late 90's and early 00's. He was bitter that he had to buy a car since his last one was taken of by boosters while was in school. U of freaking H!

I laugh when alums of Big XII schools tell me "that stuff doesn't happen anymore" .

[Quoner]

The death of Kramateur college athletics is going to be tough to swallow...

[KRAM1]

The death of Kramateur college athletics is going to be tough to swallow...

Already died...did you miss the obit?

[Quoner]

Already died...did you miss the obit?

The story even names a deep snapper. I mean, OSU and deep snappers are 2 of your 5 main categories on the Family Feud board.

[KRAM1]

The story even names a deep snapper. I mean, OSU and deep snappers are 2 of your 5 main categories on the Family Feud board.

Indeed...can you name the others?

Where the heck were you guys Saturday night? Missed you at Oktoberfest.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

These articles are stupid. EVERY big program has this happening. Hell, I went to law school with a guy who played linebacker at UNLV in the mid/late 90s. They sucked horribly and still would come back to the locker room to find $100 bills stuffed in their shoes if they made plays...even in losses (hey...you do what you can when the team you are bending the rules for is going 1-10 year after year).

I hate all of this pretending that players aren't getting stuff on the side.

Sex? Oh, my word! Girls having sex with recruits! This is unheard of.

Come on. Schools like UT, Oklahoma State, OU, Bama, Michigan...they are making millions off of these kids. And, especially at these bigger schools you have guys constantly overcompensating for their small pensises by befriending 18 and 19 year athletes and showering them with cash and prizes.

Look at that sawed off little runt that was giving all the money to the Miami players all those years.

Unless you sequester the football players 365 days a year and forbid your alumni from ever coming back to campus you are always going to have these stories.

Donna Shalala and every other Miami administrator within butt sniff distance were photographed with that rodent. If they really were honest, they'd be sitting in jail with him. Bottom feeding, hypocritical scumbags.

How do the dildongs at the NCAA expect these football players, many of whom come from poor backgrounds, to roll onto campus where every non-athlete is trying to get laid and getting money from mom and dad at home not to get what they can?

I still say this, and I'll always say - drop the damn charade: treat FBS football like a minor league. Let the NFL teams draft the rights to kids out of high school and split the cost of their scholarship with the school the kid commits to.

Look at these guys who get baseball money out of high school, fail in the minors, then come back to play college football. THEY WERE PAID PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES for crying out loud, yet the NCAA lets them play football!

But, I mean, if an alumni so much as buys a poor kid who is helping the school make millions a sandwich and a glass of ice tea, there is thunder from above.

It's bullsh*t. I could care less about Oklahoma State as a school, but who really cares? This isn't new or even newsworthy. If I'm a poor kid and a school is using my body for four/five years in a dangerous sport so that they can market the hell out of me and make money, damn right I'm taking every dollar the alumni flash at me...and I'm dicking every coed who ever so coyly offers it up.

Sorry for the brashness. But, NCAA...and the NFL...need to get real about what little the vast majority of these football playing kids get for what they give.

And, spare me "they're getting a degee." Baloney. The schools steer them into crap degree plans to keep them eligible. They aren't forcing these kids to learn anything valuable.

Look at Vince Young. You think Mack Brown and UT's army of butt wipe academic advisors pushed Vince Young into studying something useful like finance, accounting, chemistry, engineering? Something to cover his ass in case his NFL career didn't pan out?

For f*ck sake, they took every last nickel they could squeeze out of those #10 jerseys they sold and sent him off with no degree at all. He didn't know a damn thing more when he left Austin than when he first stepped foot on campus. And, people want to laugh at him because he lost millions of dollars? The kid didn't know anything. But, did that stop Texas and the NCAA from selling all the Vince Young stuff they could stock? Hell no.

Go to the ghetto and hand a random kid a million dollars and see how long it lasts. Stupid. Think of the thousands and thousands of guys who have played NCAA football and are suffering through lifelong knee, back, neck, shoulder, etc. ailments and other physical problems. And, their school are still selling their "winning tradition" t-shirts, videos, and posters and whatnot without these guys ever seeing a red cent.

SI is a sorry ass publication for doing what they are doing. Get real.

You want to tell me NCAA and its member universities gives a flying f*ck about these kids? Baloney. It's a business. Cut the crap and give the kids a cut of it.

Edited September 10, 2013 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[Army of Dad]

Indeed...can you name the others?

Where the heck were you guys Saturday night? Missed you at Oktoberfest.

Contracts and why both parties should honor them?

[GrandGreen]

Yes this stuff has went on since the beginning of football, but that does not it right. Even forgetting the moral issues and the absurdity of supposed academy institutions being involved, competition is already lacking without someone always going around the rules for that extra advantage.

if as presented, I would be for the NCAA throwing the book SMU style against OSU and everyone does it is no defense. It is well pass time for universities to take over their atheletic programs and mandate compliance to the spirit and intent of NCAA rules.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Yes this stuff has went on since the beginning of football, but that does not it right. Even forgetting the moral issues and the absurdity of supposed academy institutions being involved, competition is already lacking without someone always going around the rules for that extra advantage.

if as presented, I would be for the NCAA throwing the book SMU style against OSU and everyone does it is no defense. It is well pass time for universities to take over their atheletic programs and mandate compliance to the spirit and intent of NCAA rules.

You must be kidding. NONE of them do. Don't you recall the Ohio State president during the Tressell/autograph and tattoo scandal? Stupid.

You're dreaming if you think the Genie is going to be stuffed back in the bottle. They aren't going to SMU anyone ever again. USC screamed out for it a few seasons back. The Miami guy gave thousands upon thousands more than SMUs boosters dreamed of giving kids back in the day. Do you see Miami getting the death penalty?

Reality has to take hold someday. The president of UT isn't going to go down the the athletic department and tell them that it's for the moral good if they break their contract with LHN and steer the players toward degrees that will help the guys once their playing careers are through.

It's a joke. Give the players a cut of what they are earning the school. Hook the NFL in as well because they benefit from the players that come out of college.

Give up the charade. Give it up.

[Mean Green 93-98]

I suppose the NCAA can do what they want, but if college football players start getting regularly paid, I will quit supporting, watching, or following college football, and there are many others who feel the same. There is already a good professional league in the U.S. . . . Why would I care what some crappy developmental league does?

[GrandGreen]

You must be kidding. NONE of them do. Don't you recall the Ohio State president during the Tressell/autograph and tattoo scandal? Stupid.

You're dreaming if you think the Genie is going to be stuffed back in the bottle. They aren't going to SMU anyone ever again. USC screamed out for it a few seasons back. The Miami guy gave thousands upon thousands more than SMUs boosters dreamed of giving kids back in the day. Do you see Miami getting the death penalty?

Reality has to take hold someday. The president of UT isn't going to go down the the athletic department and tell them that it's for the moral good if they break their contract with LHN and steer the players toward degrees that will help the guys once their playing careers are through.

It's a joke. Give the players a cut of what they are earning the school. Hook the NFL in as well because they benefit from the players that come out of college.

Give up the charade. Give it up.

Maybe dreaming, but tired of watching essentially rigged games. You really want to see a game with no caps on anything, I don't. Your agrument lacks common sense IMO. Give players a cut of what, the vast majority of schools lose money on sports. I have no probrem with giving players an amount like the proposed couple of thousand a year. You are aware I assume that many players receive Pell grants on top of their athletic sholarships, so there are ways for the really needy.

I really don't need a lesson on what goes on, but I don't have to be happy about it. It is interesting that you bring up the NFL, which is one pro sport that seems to understand that parity works much better than the big continue to eat the weak. Reality is that there will always be those that cheat, but sports cannot work without rules even if they are continually abused.

Edited September 11, 2013 by GrandGreen

[Graddean]

It runs deeper than the athletic program. I have read it will include incidents of grade changes. Grade changes are not going to happen without the implicit or explicit support of the provost and president. When that happens it cheapens everyone's degree including yours and mine.

[TIgreen01]

Maybe dreaming, but tired of watching essentially rigged games. You really want to see a game with no caps on anything, I don't. Your agrument lacks common sense IMO. Give players a cut of what, the vast majority of schools lose money on sports. I have no probrem with giving player like the proposed couple of thousand a year. You are aware I assume that many players receive Pell grants on top of their athletic sholarships, so there are ways for the really needy.

I really don't need a lesson on what goes on, but I don't have to be happy about it. It is interesting that you bring up the NFL, which is one pro sport that seems to understand that parity works much better than the big continue to eat the weak. Reality is that there will always be those that cheat, but sports cannot work without rules even if they are continually abused.

QFT.

[CMJ]

This isn't Nam, there are rules.

[JesseMartin]

There are two very different ways some of this can be viewed that provide a slippery slope. On one hand, if the kid doesn't come from money and all of their clothes are tattered or they don't have anything to eat on weekends, you kind of want there to be a way to provide them with some jeans, t-shirts and a couple of sweaters or a couple of bags of groceries. If they really need to get home for some reason and don't have a car, you can't loan them yours.

Then on the other hand you have people teaching them to be spoiled little shits that never earn anything off the football field or get to "borrow" new cars from boosters who own dealerships, which could be another contributing factor to the woes of those who never go pro. The stipend thing is, to me, its own side-discussion. But though you don't want to train them to be idiots that expect never to work for what they're paid, the possibility of missing too many meals or never having decent clothes to wear to class is bothersome.

I may be thinking way too optimistically here, but it would be interesting to see if the NCAA would be open to setting up a system that allows the coaches or AD to identify "hardship players" who may be in need of food or clothes during the season (it's important to have REAL jobs in the offseason so you can pay for it yourself). Then have a donation log/drop-off system where "donations" can be written down before being picked up by the player. "August 30th, Bobby Smith received 2 pairs of 32/38 jeans and a bag of groceries from booster, Mr. Rustbucket." Then you erase the possibility of worrying about the players that need to be worried about. Of course this won't stop the attempts to hand out cash or the desire to take it.

But you have to wonder if sometimes the possibility of an investigation comes up and somebody tugs on someone else's heartstrings about how some of the kids come from families of little means and really need essential items. That possibility would be removed from the equation if there was a legitimate way to help out those who really need it. You'd still have to deal with the BS jobs and such, but with some sort of system in place for those who need help, you could be almost completely certain that everything else taking place isn't an attempt to "lend a helping hand" so much as it is the real reason the rules are in place - the bribery to play for the boosters' alma mater.

I wonder how many who benefitted from the "pay for no work" scams told their parents about it. If any of my boys earned a spot on a college team but then tried to take money they didn't earn, I don't care how old they are, I'd take them over my knee just like they were a bratty toddler. If you're lucky enough to find a great job that you like and pays well but isn't very hard, that's one thing. But if you accept a thinly veiled attempt at bribery, that's completely different.

That's why I think the stipend issue is so different. If you want to pursue that for periods where the kids can't have jobs because practice and competition and studies take up all their time, I'm open to the possibility. Depending upon the cost of living in the area, $1,000 - 2,000 per semester isn't unreasonably high. Yes, it may be harder for the non-power-conference "also rans" to come up with in their budget, and that bothers me a bit, but that's less than a hundred bucks a week for meals that may not be covered by their cafeteria meal plan, clothes, transportation, and God forbid maybe a couple of movie tickets or visits to Olive Garden.

That's entirely different from having money slipped into your locker or, during times when you're actually allowed to work and have the time to do so, getting paid for nothing. Even beyond the issue of violating regulations is the fact that this teaches a terrible set of lessons to those who you're supposed to be preparing for life after college. In that sense, these "educational institutions" are anything but.

[SSP]

It runs deeper than the athletic program. I have read it will include incidents of grade changes. Grade changes are not going to happen without the implicit or explicit support of the provost and president. When that happens it cheapens everyone's degree including yours and mine.

Now this is true. But, I know a few of the OSU players from Denton and don't believe everything you read.

[KRAM1]

Now this is true. But, I know a few of the OSU players from Denton and don't believe everything you read.

No current players or coaches involved....so they say. Lot of the article is speculation, but enough is supported with documentation and witness that it is very disturbing. Sad for my Cowboys, but if the program got into this. Well, you did it...take your medicine and move on.

By the way......Can we get some photos of the coeds escorting those prospective players? Just sayin......ride 'em Cowboy! :-)

Too much....too early?????? :-(

[SSP]

No current players or coaches involved....so they say. Lot of the article is speculation, but enough is supported with documentation and witness that it is very disturbing. Sad for my Cowboys, but if the program got into this. Well, you did it...take your medicine and move on.

By the way......Can we get some photos of the coeds escorting those prospective players? Just sayin......ride 'em Cowboy! :-)

Too much....too early?????? :-(

Didnt they accuse Deforest of running that bonus program in like 2011? Im sure SI would have those kind of pics, actually.

[KRAM1]

Didnt they accuse Deforest of running that bonus program in like 2011? Im sure SI would have those kind of pics, actually.

Yes, but DeForest is no longer coaching at OSU. Really bummed about this....had always felt OSU ran a clean program and turned the corner to a "big time" Big XII contender within the rules and with a bunch of Boone's money!

[greenminer]

JesseMartin is a future PMG. Just needs some color coding, and his posts will be there.

[JesseMartin]

JesseMartin is a future PMG. Just needs some color coding, and his posts will be there.

Haha sometimes when I look at my posts I'm afraid of that. But I try to cover as much as I can in one post instead of posting twenty times in one thread. I think UNT trained me too well in writing papers and essays. Hopefully it'll lead to a book deal someday :/