Bizarre Lesson from Means/Lang/Young Case

[LegalEagle 22]

. . . avoid bribery and racketeering charges! Say it ain't so:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBC...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

"If Young had given money to Means, rather than to Lang, he couldn't have been charged with racketeering or bribery, Harris said."

That'll clean up college recruiting, huh?

[BamaGrad03 146]

. . . avoid bribery and racketeering charges!  Say it ain't so:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBC...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

"If Young had given money to Means, rather than to Lang, he couldn't have been charged with racketeering or bribery, Harris said."

That'll clean up college recruiting, huh?

144864[/snapback]

Legal...what do you think Universities can do to eliminate boosters getting them in trouble? I know Alabama isn't the only team that feels helpless when their boosters are around doing stuff like this. It seems to be a serious problem with no solution short of "keep hammering the schools and the boosters will stop". But i dont think the boosters care about the schools as much as they do about their "power" and "status" when they are being buddy buddy with players.

[TheGreenHornet 0]

. . . avoid bribery and racketeering charges!  Say it ain't so:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBC...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

"If Young had given money to Means, rather than to Lang, he couldn't have been charged with racketeering or bribery, Harris said."

That'll clean up college recruiting, huh?

144864[/snapback]

Legal...what do you think Universities can do to eliminate boosters getting them in trouble? I know Alabama isn't the only team that feels helpless when their boosters are around doing stuff like this. It seems to be a serious problem with no solution short of "keep hammering the schools and the boosters will stop". But i dont think the boosters care about the schools as much as they do about their "power" and "status" when they are being buddy buddy with players.

144867[/snapback]

I think that there should be a law passed, as to where if any boosters are caught providing extra benifits to a player, they should have to serve jail time.

However, that probably woudn't stop it all...

[WarTim 3,293]

Heck, they can't even stop the greek "machine" in west al.

[BamaGrad03 146]

WarTim, all kidding aside, Id be interested in what you thought schools could do as a whole to help the situation. I think it would be an interesting discussion...and Id rather not have it become one of those "bama cheats/ut cheats etc" kind of deals.

I know when I posed the question I opened myself up to highly flammatory remarks

[WarTim 3,293]

bg, unless you are ready to admit that cheating has taken place at your "school" for a VERY long time, I do not see how a "conversation" can take place between the two of us. Make no mistake, I think a degree of illegal "stuff" happens everywhere, but, it has been rampant at uat for decades and it has finally been challenged, I do not, however, think it has stopped at uat. Too many good old boys involved.

There has to be someone at the top (AD-Pres...etc) that is commited and powerful enough to make it stop. 'Till then, it will be business as usual.

[BamaGrad03 146]

bg, unless you are ready to admit that cheating has taken place at your "school" for a VERY long time, I do not see how a "conversation" can take place between the two of us. Make no mistake, I think a degree of illegal "stuff" happens everywhere, but, it has been rampant at uat for decades and it has finally been challenged, I do not, however, think it has stopped at uat. Too many good old boys involved.

There has to be someone at the top (AD-Pres...etc) that is commited and powerful enough to make it stop. 'Till then, it will be business as usual.

144898[/snapback]

Of course cheating goes on at bama...it goes on everywhere. AU, UA, UT, OSU...etc. Thats not the focus of my question though.

[quietfan 233]

. . . avoid bribery and racketeering charges!  Say it ain't so:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBC...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

"If Young had given money to Means, rather than to Lang, he couldn't have been charged with racketeering or bribery, Harris said."

That'll clean up college recruiting, huh?

144864[/snapback]

Legal...what do you think Universities can do to eliminate boosters getting them in trouble? I know Alabama isn't the only team that feels helpless when their boosters are around doing stuff like this. It seems to be a serious problem with no solution short of "keep hammering the schools and the boosters will stop". But i dont think the boosters care about the schools as much as they do about their "power" and "status" when they are being buddy buddy with players.

144867[/snapback]

While I agree there are some, I don't think all "cheating" boosters care more for their "Status" than the school. I do think there are some that would stop if violations were investigated/enforced enough that they felt like their actions were guaranteed to harm the school. For example, I would expect Bama recruiting to be about as clean as it's ever been for several years now because many potentially dangerous boosters are really sick at how badly scholarships limits have affected your football results. I agree with you that some will never change--for some, they can't give up the "boost" to their ego as you say, there are also some that just stupidly believe they could never get caught. But I also think there are boosters who are so sick about what has happened to you that they have change their way of thinking and acting. I imagine there are also some boosters at every other SEC school that are having second thoughts about their behavior as a result of what happen to Bama. If enforcement became so sure and swift that any cheating was almost a guarantee of 2 or 3 losing seasons, I think many (but sure, not all) boosters would think twice.

However, another deterent (which I've heard many suggested in the Bama case) is for the schools to pursue penalties/reparations in civil court against those that so negatively affect their program and cost them money. I honestly don't see why Bama can't sue Logan Young & all others that cost the program so dearly,including it's own employees. I don't know why Auburn couldn't/didn't sue those responsible for its loss of TV & bowl revenues the last time we were on probation.

[BamaGrad03 146]

The problem with suing boosters that burn the school...is if you do that, youd better be ready to air ALL of your dirty laundry. Because if the booster goes down, he's gonna take you down with him.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

The problem with suing boosters that burn the school...is if you do that, youd better be ready to air ALL of your dirty laundry. Because if the booster goes down, he's gonna take you down with him.

144912[/snapback]

Ah, now you have hit the nail on the head. It's not just the boosters who are the bad guys. Does anyone really believe that when boosters are cheating the coaches and some school officials don't know about it? Step back and look at the LY case. He has been a big bama booster for over 25 years. Does anyone think that Albert Means is the first kid he has been cheating with? No way. And if LY has bas been doing his thing for a long time you gotta know that coaches and some school officials have known about it. Ole LY will still be sitting a skybox at BD staduim this Fall if he's not in a pen somewhere.

So my point is you will never clean things up until you have honest people across the board........in the administration, the coaches, and the boosters.

There are lot of boosters out there today who are taking note of what's happened with LY and they will think twice about about tangling with the Feds. But if a school would do it's own internal investigation and fire one or two guilty folks, that would really get some attention. And if penalties were placed on the kids themselves that would effect their pro career possibilities, that would have an impact too.

By the way BG, who is the lady behind the three stooges in your big avatar?

[Tigermike 2,606]

There were strong rumors about Logan Young and a certain DL from Mississippi who signed and played at Bama. I think he was driving a new Ford Bronco when he showed up in Tuscaloosa. For some reason he did not play his SR year. The same year that the NCAA was investigating and before Bama went before the Infractions Committee.

[WarTim 3,293]

There you go. Cheatin' has been goin' on at the smaller school in west al. for many-many-many-many years. LY was just one of a cast of thousands.

[AUesquire 1]

I truly believe there are very few "Rogue boosters" out there. What I mean is, if a booster is giving large sums of money or benefits like cars etc, to get a player to a school, you can bet someone in the school knows full well what is going on and is more than likely orchestrating the whole deal.

When everything came out, it was blatantly obvious that LY shared no resemblance whatsoever with a so-called, rogue booster. In a previous thread, I responded to this same issue by asking the questions:

1. Why was LY at every freshman reporting day for as far back as anyone could remember?

2. Why was LY on team busses and planes and staying at team hotels?

3. Why was LY in a room with Kenny Smith and Mal Moore knew it and did nothing?

4. How did LY even know that a bidding war was going on for Means and that LL was the man to payoff?

5. Why would there EVER be a need for Ivy Williams to be in contact that often with LY?

There's a thousand more questions to ask but one thing is obvious, to even suggest that Alabama didn't know that LY was involved in this is an insult to any rational thinking person's intelligence.

[BamaGrad03 146]

:Sigh: nevermind. geez

[WarTim 3,293]

"nevermind"....The typical uat party line when it comes to questions about TRUTH.

[BamaGrad03 146]

no..."nevermind" is what people sometimes say when they figure out that they are talking to a broken record.

Anyone: "Hey WarTim! What about this great weather?"

WarTim: "It's okay, but BAMA CHEATS!"

Anyone: "Hey tell me what you think about Auburn this year."

WarTim: "Auburn good. Bama CHEATS"

It's like...you can't even have a grown up conversation and show another dimension to your character because you have Anti-Bama blinders on. I even tried to redirect the conversation BACK to something intelligent and you STILL didnt get it.

There is a reason why people who read your posts are sometimes SHOCKED to find out that you are older than 14 years old.

[WarTim 3,293]

On the otherhand, noone is "shocked" to find out that you have yet to reach puberty.

p.s. If you wish to bury your head in the sand and ignore the decades old "tradishun" of cheatin' and lyin' at uat, go for it. We all know better.

p.s.s. If you want a uat "lovefest", try a uat board. It ain't gonna' happen here.

Have a nice day!

[AUesquire 1]

BG, you're missing my point. Take it as a flame on Bama or not but I'm using the LY thing as the prime example because it's the biggest thing going. As I said, whatever school it's going on at, you can bet that someone at that particular school is aware of it.

I recently worked with a guy who was once pretty large in the sports agent business. Signed some of the most high profile players of that time, including some of the biggest ever from AU and UA. He said that every school has one go-to guy in the program that handles all the behind the scenes stuff. He named names, some of which would blow your mind. There is always one guy, usually an assistant coach, that does the dirty work like keeping player arrests out of the paper, courting boosters, meeting agents etc. The point again, is that there are very few "Rogue boosters" out there delivering cash and prizes to these kids without some direction from within. Either your program is going to be run clean or it's not. There's not a lot of things(big transactions, not $100 handshakes) going on out there that the universities don't know about.

[quietfan 233]

The problem with suing boosters that burn the school...is if you do that, youd better be ready to air ALL of your dirty laundry. Because if the booster goes down, he's gonna take you down with him.

144912[/snapback]

Of course you have to be prepared to air all your dirty laundry! Only when all miscreants are exposed and exiled from the school can cheating be stopped. That might be painful and costly at first. But once a school has completely cleaned out all the trash at all levels (and paid the penalty for it), then it can proceed to try to maintain its squeaky clean status by coming down hard and quickly on any hints of misconduct--by any boosters, trustees, administration, staff, students, alumni, etc.

Once a school has establish a policy and reputation for zero tolerance, and backed it up with pattern of pursuing violators to the furthest extent of the law, I think incidents will become few and far between. But does any school have the cojones to do that, at the risk of losing games, support, & money?

You don't cure cancer by just removing the biggest tumor and hoping nothing will come of all the other, smaller ones.

[AUesquire 1]

Okay, maybe your "sigh" was for Tim.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

no..."nevermind" is what people sometimes say when they figure out that they are talking to a broken record.

144947[/snapback]

I understand perfectly. It's kind of like asking some bama fans not to post big bama avatars on an Auburn board.

sigh.....nevermind.

[WarTim 3,293]

no..."nevermind" is what people sometimes say when they figure out that they are talking to a broken record.

144947[/snapback]

I understand perfectly. It's kind of like asking some bama fans not to post big bama avatars on an Auburn board.

sigh.....nevermind.

144956[/snapback]

"None is SOOOOOOOOOO blind as he who WILL NOT see."

uaters...Nature's losers.

[chevy0082 0]

[TitanTiger 18,218]

Guys, we generally give a wide amount of latitude to what we feel is "good natured ribbing" and such. But sometimes, it's just completely out of place on a thread. I think BG's question was a good one and snide potshots only derail the conversation.

We do have the Woodshed for starting up smack fights. Try to keep the conversations in the regular forums on a higher level of discourse. It gets old having to move thread after thread over to the 'Shed just because someone has to take any and every opportunity to make a slam on a rival. If talking to rival fans gets under your skin that much, just add them to your ignore list and don't click threads that they start. If you need to know how to do that, any of the mods or admins will be glad to help you.

Whether you like it or not, we welcome rival fans here, even from hated Alabama. There are other Auburn boards out there that moderate things with a much more biased slant toward AU fans that you may enjoy more if we aren't your cup of tea. That said, I'm not saying that any and all sarcastic remarks are verboten. Just try to actually engage in real conversation when that's what the rival is offering and try not to be the first one to break the ice with the putdowns. If a thread is going along nicely and people are having fun discussing a matter, don't hijack it with some acid-laced rant.

P.S. And Tim, I'm not really picking on you. I promise. This just happened to be the thread I finally jumped in on and said something. There are a handful of others who are much more egregious violators of this sort than you.

[chevy0082 0]

I guess the problem I had was someone here kept going into my profile and changing my signature because it wasn't something they liked and then I had to change it back. As if that weren't enough, they changed it and then banned me for no reason so I couldn't change it back. Just thought I would change it to something I liked that didn't offend any of you here. Guess I can't get away with this one either without someone whining about it.