As I was cleaning out my closet tonight, I came accross some old newspapers that I had collected over the years, some for unknown reasons to me now. As I look through them a very strange Headline caught my attention:Sunday, Dec. 31, 1995 Longhorns uncover imposter on roster 30-year-old posing as CB McKelvey faces arrest; sanctions unlikely for Texas....... "WHAT THE HELL?!" is my first thought. As I read on, the article describes how Ron Weaver, 30, was a cornerback with atleast six years of College Football experience played under the name Ron McKevley. He played for at least three other schools since the mid 1980's. .... How weird is that? I guess I missed this because I was about ten years old at the time, but who else remembers this? I did a quick check on his name on google and only got two related articles: 1st result 2nd result I have never seen such a bizzare thing concerning College Football.... Does anyone else have other info on this?
i remember when it happened...it truly was bizarre. All that ever came out of it was that he was just a guy who really loved football, and wanted to continue to play. So, he came with an alias, and I guess no one ever really did a thorough job of checking him out.... He never really played much, and if i remember correctly, he was a walk-on. it's not like he was a high school recruit or anything. It's just hard to believe that a 30 yr old guy could pass as an athlete out of high school for a couple of years, but i guess certain people just have a younger look to them....Or the longhorns just REALLY needed help at DB at the time! Actually, the secondary was pretty tight back then, with westbrook, carter, allen, etc.
Yeah, it happened the day of the Sugar Bowl vs. VTech. Most people just thought it funny. The guy never played or anything, I don't think. The NCAA didn't care because he had apparently fooled everyone, so it wasn't UT's fault. I never saw a picture of the guy though.
Not being a fan of the Houston Chronicle, I found an article from the Boston Globe dated January 19, 1996 (I love Lexus-Nexus): SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 85 LENGTH: 1563 words HEADLINE: When impostor Ron Weaver; launched a plot to prolong his college; football career, it left two schools with an . . . Identity crisis; Globe correspondent Amy Hettenhausen contributed to this report from Austin, Texas. BYLINE: By Adam Pertman, Globe Staff DATELINE: LOS ANGELES BODY: Thinking back today, Jim Rose realizes he overlooked some vital clues to his former roommate's true identity. Why, for instance, did Ron McKelvey sometimes get mail with the name Ron Weaver on it? And why did McKelvey almost sound like he was boasting about his own exploits during his reminiscences about a "buddy" who excelled in football at Sacramento State and tried out for the British Columbia Lions? "If you look hard at it, you'd have to say there were some,indications," Rose recalled last week. "But it's just so bizarre. There was just no reason to get suspicious. Nobody's ever heard of anything like this." Certainly nobody outside a mystery novel convention. It turns out that Ron McKelvey, the 23-year-old friend Rose used to live with during their days at Los Angeles Pierce College, is really Ron Weaver, a 30-year-old football fanatic whose masterful deception now embroils the NCAA, two of the four colleges he attended, the Texas Justice Department and an array of publishers and producers who want to pay McKelvey/Weaver a lot of money to write a book or make a movie about him. After attending (or, more to the point, after playing ball at) Monterey Peninsula College and then Sacramento State in the mid- to late 1980s, Weaver went to work at his parents' liquor store near their home in Monterey, Calif. He still had the bug to play but was ineligible because NCAA rules generally prohibit student-athletes from participating in more than four seasons of football over five years. So Weaver concocted a clever, if unorthodox and unethical, solution. He assumed the identity of a casual acquaintance from his health club, chosen primarily because McKelvey was also black and, most important, was young enough to seem legit for the masquerade. With just the sketchiest details about his new life, and with no identification whatsoever containing his new name, Weaver enrolled as McKelvey at Pierce, a junior college in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. There, for two years, he got his regular fix - playing football - again. McKelvey, as he was now known by all, worked harder than most of his young teammates and,after switching from wide receiver to defensive back, grew into a far better player than he'd ever been during his first collegiate career. He became so good, in fact, that he was recruited with a full scholarship by the University of Texas, where he mostly warmed the bench last year but exulted in being part of a Division 1-A college team. "He was such a nice guy and so well liked," said Kyle Richardson, a fellow Longhorn who echoed the sentiments of everyone interviewed about Weaver/McKelvey. "In two-a-days, he would make plays, and I would think, 'He's really going to be a good player.' " Weaver was so well respected and trusted that when a small newspaper in Salinas exposed his charade a couple of weeks ago, it set off a high-magnitude earthquake of disbelief among his past and present teammates, friends, coaches and teachers. It also jolted Texas and Pierce institutionally by demoralizing their athletic departments, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the games in which Weaver played, and provoking serious questions about the ability of any college to monitor its incoming students. Dealing with fallout The shock seemed particularly intense for Longhorn coach John Mackovic, who was in the middle of negotiations with Texas before getting a contract extension and is still struggling to digest his team's 28-10 collapse in the Sugar Bowl. Moreover, two of his players - backup quarterback Marty Cherry and walk-on running back Rick Hinnant - were suspended recently in the midst of an NCAA investigation into alleged gambling by Longhorns on NFL and college football and basketball games. Texas officials at first suggested Weaver himself placed bets for teammates, and hired a former FBI agent to investigate the whole charade, but they've offered no proof of illegal behavior so far. Weaver, who expresses profound regret at hurting anyone, denies he did anything wrong beyond perpetrating an essentially victimless fraud. The NCAA has looked into imposing sanctions on Texas or forcing it to forfeit some games; there's no evidence that the school knew it was involved in a hoax or that Weaver's participation affected any outcomes, however, and the athletic association has no jurisdiction over Weaver as a private individual. Unless Weaver turns out to have participated in gambling, or crossed some line by signing another person's name on legal documents, it appears the worst that will happen is that he will have to repay Texas about $ 6,000 for his scholarship. And that shouldn't present much of a problem, assuming Weaver snags one of the many contracts he's being offered to tell his tale. "Oh, they're pouring in," said his sister, Bonita Money, an aspiring actress and model in Hollywood who also is acting as her brother's spokeswoman while they shop for a lawyer/agent. "He's gotten offers for books, movies, features, television, you name it." Weaver, who's remained mostly incommunicado in Money's apartment since being exposed, refused to grant an interview last week. His sister said that was because of "the allegations" he's still trying to iron out with Texas, whose lawyers plan to come to Los Angeles this week for a face-to-face negotiating session. If neither Weaver nor Texas winds up suffering from more than embarrassment and bruised egos, the same can't be said for the junior college where Ron McKelvey materialized and became an all-star cornerback. Piercing jolt Officials at Pierce have been deluged with media inquiries, some almost accusatorily asking why the admissions office and the football coach didn't discover the scheme before it fully unfolded. The simple answer: California doesn't require its junior colleges to get transcripts or conduct background checks of any sort, and Weaver/McKelvey was such a good student, nice guy and hard worker that no one had any reason to become suspicious. He was also very clever. He used his associate's degree from Pierce as a means of transferring to Texas, which created an official record for McKelvey based on his junior college materials rather than high school transcripts. The kinesthesiology major then deliberately showed up at school too late to have his picture taken in the Longhorns' media guide. And since his fictitious age was 23, he was old enough that his parents' signatures weren't required on admissions documents. Even as they insist they followed all pertinent procedures, Pierce administrators are considering several options to keep anything like this from happening again, including such basic steps as requiring would-be students to show a photo ID. They reckon that will have a chilling effect because anyone considering a similar scam would risk being prosecuted for breaking a state law (forging a legal document), not just expulsion. Pierce also is fighting an order from the commissioner of the Western States Conference, who has told the college that it must forfeit all the games in which Weaver played. Talk about kicking someone when they're down: The school's team, the Brahmas, won just five games in 1993 and two in '94. "Personally, it's not a big deal," said the dean of students, Robert Garber. "But I don't want to demoralize the football coach, I don't want to hurt the football program and I don't want to admit we did anything wrong because we didn't. We're victims, too." All for football? Two things come off as most striking about this extraordinary ruse, beyond the fact that it was executed by someone universally praised as honest and affable. First, that it's so easy to create a new identity and, perhaps reflecting this country's can-do ethic, that so many of those deceived or negatively affected nevertheless admit a grudging admiration for Weaver. "I guess he really loves football . . . and he made his dream happen, so it's kind of tough to fault that," said Anthony Florence, who recalled that his former teammate at Pierce was a more diligent student and a more dedicated gym-goer than anyone else he knew. To boot, Weaver scored points with those around him by working full-time as a waiter and regularly counseling fellow students to keep their grades up and their attitudes positive. Without a doubt, though, it was his love of football that everyone noticed most. The 5-foot-10-inch, 200-pound Weaver talked constantly about the game, and his aspiration to make the pros ran so deep that even detractors tend to believe his only goal was to pursue his obsession. Indeed, Weaver called a few of his Texas roommates after he disappeared from the Longhorns' hotel in New Orleans - as soon as the story broke Dec. 30 - to apologize and explain he had only wanted to prolong his playing career. News accounts had quoted him as saying he had gone undercover to write a book on corruption in college football, but he adamantly denies that. "Ron understands that people out there, especially in Texas, feel betrayed, deceived and hurt . . . and he feels just terrible about that because he was never out there to hurt anybody," said Money. "The only reason he did this was that he wanted to play ball again, and this was the only way he could think of to do it."
