Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PHILADELPHIA– Kansas and North Carolina State, two marquee programs with ties to a prominent sports apparel corporation, are the latest schools to be linked to the federal investigation of college basketball.
Yahoo! Sports is reporting federal prosecutors have filed additional counts against former Adidas executive Jim Gatto, Jr., including payments to the families and guardian of current and former players at perennial Big 12 power Kansas and North Carolina State from the ACC. No players nor their families were specifically named. The indictment, filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, also does not name any college coaches. But the new information “expands the scope of the charged wire fraud conspiracy,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
The indictment indicates Gatto and another unidentified Adidas consultant conspired to provide at least $90,000 to the mother of a former Kansas player between Oct. 2016 and Nov. 2017 and at least $20,000 to the legal guardian of a second player who committed to the Jayhawks in Aug. 2017.
Adidas has an endorsement deal with Kansas. The payouts to the first player include a “$30,000 payment” during a meeting with the consultant and the parent in a hotel room in New York Oct. 2016 and another $20,000 payment in a hotel room in Las Vegas on Jan. 19, 2017.The consultant also wired $15,000 to the player’s mother on June 14, 2017.
The large lump sum payments were sent from Adidas to the consultant, to then be given to the player’s parent, under headings such as “Tournament Activation/Fee,” allegedly to conceal the purpose of the money. The federal documents refer to them as “sham invoices.”
A source told ESPN the first player allegedly was Billy Preston, a blue chip forward from Oak Hill Academy who attended Kansas last fall and planned to sign a deal with the apparel company once he turned pro. Preston never played a game for the Jayhawks because of eligibility concerns.
A guardian of a different Kansas recruit told Adidas they had received illicit payments in return for a commitment to steer the athlete to a university sponsored by a rival athletic apparel company. The guardian said the player favored Kansas and needed “another $20,000 payment” to “help get the student-athlete ‘out from under’ the deal.”
The indictment alleges the player made a surprise commitment to Kansas on Aug. 30, 2017. News accounts on that date show Silvio De Sousa, a native of Angola who attended IMG Academy in Florida, committed to Kansas. De Sousa played for the Jayhawks this season as part of their Final Four team, which could place their NCAA tournament run in jeopardy of being vacated if the allegations are proven.
De Sousa, who reclassified from the high school class of 2018 to 2017, was cleared to play by the NCAA this past season on Jan. 13, 2018, Less than three months after the NCAA certified his academic and amateur status, he was implicated in a federal indictment alleging that his guardian received money in exchange for De Sousa playing for the Jayhawks.
The wording of the federal document raises another potential issue related to Kansas: The complaint states that payments from Adidas to the mother of a Kansas player were ongoing “into at least in or around November 2017.” The initial federal complaint was made public in late September 2017, indicating that the family of a Kansas player was allegedly still receiving money after the U.S. attorney’s allegations rocked college basketball.
The indictment did not say anyone at Kansas was aware of the payments to the players.
“Earlier today, we learned that the University of Kansas is named as a victim in a federal indictment,” Joe Monaco, Kansas’ director of strategic communications said in a statement. “The indictment does not suggest any wrongdoing by the university, its coaches or its staff. We will cooperate fully with investigators in this matter. Because this is an active investigation, it is not appropriate for us to comment further at this time.”
We’ve been waiting for another shoe to drop in this ongoing investigation, in which 10 people were arrested and indicted last fall. This is another black eye for college basketball and it’s time for the feds to take a hard line, reigning in rogue shoe company executives and agents before they ruin the sport.
No one knows how many football or basketball players have received money while they have college eligibility remaining, but it is hard to believe this is over.
The documents also officially pulled North Carolina State into the investigation. The feds charge that Gatto was involved in a scheme to pay a former North Carolina State player – star recruit Dennis Smith Jr, according to the timeline of events in the complaint – $40,000 in the fall of 2015 to sign with the Wolfpack. Smith had played for an Adidas-backed AAU program, and NC State is an Adidas-backed athletic program.
It added that “one or more coaches” at State “made, intended to make, or caused, or intended to cause others to make false certifications to NC State about the existence of the payments and known violations of NCAA rules.” Mark Gottfried, who was hired in March by Cal State Northridge in March, was the NC State coach at the time of the alleged payment. A subpoena from a federal grand jury in New York served this year included a request for the personnel files of Gottfried and assistant Orlando Early.
