Report: Michigan players received more than $600,000 March 21, 2002 SportsLine.com wire reports Banned University of Michigan booster Ed Martin paid four basketball players more than $600,000 during their high school and college careers, according to a report in the Ann Arbor News on Thursday. The News reported the payments, made as gifts and loans, are detailed in gambling charges unsealed Thursday against Martin in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The payments likely will bring a new investigation into whether NCAA rules were broken, even though the players have long since left the university. The charges, handed down Wednesday by a federal grand jury, accuse Martin and his wife, Hilda, of running an illegal gambling business, conspiracy and money laundering. The indictment says that former players Chris Webber, Robert Traylor, Maurice Taylor and Louis Bullock took cash while attending Michigan, and that the loans enabled Martin to hide money earned from his gambling operations at Detroit-area auto plants. According to the indictment and the News: Webber received about $280,000 from 1988 to 1993, a period extending from his early high school days at Detroit Country Day through his sophomore year at Michigan, after which he left for the NBA. Traylor, who played at Michigan from 1995-98, received $160,000. The payments began when Traylor was in Detroit Murray Wright High School in 1994 and continued into the fall, 1998. He now plays with the NBA's Charlotte Hornets. Taylor, a star at Detroit Henry Ford High who played at Michigan from 1995-97, didn't get money until his sophomore year in college, receiving $105,000 from September 1995 until about January 1998. Taylor also skipped his senior year to turn pro and now plays for the Houston Rockets. Bullock, from Temple Hills, Md., played four years for the Wolverines, from 1995-96 through 1998-99, received $71,000. The payments started in October of his freshman year, and continued to the spring of 1999. The Martins were arrested Thursday and taken to the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit for booking, according to the News. The federal probe is the first outside investigation of allegations that have dogged Michigan for six years, and its findings likely will be turned over to the NCAA. Three previous investigations by Michigan and a law firm it hired were stymied because the players and Martin could not be compelled to talk.
It would continue to happen. Perhaps the $10.00 here and there would no longer happen, but players like Webber would still continue to be paid under the table because colleges could not afford to pay them the big bucks. Remember, college football funds the majority of the athletic budget and basketball is most often second. Other sports could not survive if that budget was wrapped up in paying players. Getting the IRS involved would certainly help. Did Webber report any of that income. Did the booster illegally claim it as a deduction somewhere on his return?
If you could pay college players different amounts, then all the top recruits would go to big schools. It would be like MLB. If you put a cap on it, then things like the above would still happen to get around the cap.
Not at all surprising about Webber. Every college team in the country must have recruited him. So obviously if Michigan came up with the dough-re-mi for C-Webb and Mo-Tay they'd play close to home. This sort of thing must be commonplace, as well as someone else taking tests for the players. What did Barkley say about his tests at Auburn U? "All I knew that as long as I led the conference in scoring, my grades would be fine."
Yes, and he also said, when asked what his first contract was like, "It was a million dollars, and that was at Auburn."
wasn't there some story about Webber not being able to afford a hamburger while at Michigan and he was upset that the school was selling replicas of his jersey and he didn't get any profits.
Sorry I couldn't find a more credible source than this one but I also heard this mentioned once by Charlie & Rich on their radio show. Better to Remain Silent and be Thought a Fool…. …than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I recently reminded of this saying after hearing of Chris Webber's most recent case of foot-in-mouth disease at a Ted Kopple-run town meeting on ESPN. Seems old Chris felt "victimized" while a student at U-M. He repeated a story about how frustrated he became when he'd walk by the bookstore and see his jersey for sale and "I didn't even have enough money to buy myself a hamburger at the student union". What a crock! Those in the know tell me that Chris was often seen tooling around campus in a late model $20,000+ Honda. Let's also not forget that Chris and his buddy Jalen Rose worked out a special summer job for themselves judging slam-dunk contests at various basketball camps throughout the state - hauling in $300 to $400 a pop. Lots of Big Macs can be purchased with that kid of jack. Chris depicted himself as a ghetto child on the show - much to the surprise and chagrin of his middle class parents. This ghetto child attended an exclusive high school - Detroit Country Day - which sits on a sprawling campus in the tony northern suburb of Birmingham, Michigan. Oh, by the way, tuition at Country Day runs about $12,000 to $15,000 annually. Hey Chris, reality check time - next you'll be telling us you were a child prodigy on the piano, but your genius was stifled by an abusive father, leading you into an emotional abyss which you've triumphantly overcome just recently, enabling you to return to the concert stage. Save it for the Academy Awards, pal.
