Auburn Tigers players celebrate a safety against the Oregon Ducks in the second quarter in the NCAA BCS National Championship college football game in Glendale, Arizona, January 10, 2011. REUTERS/Matt Sullivan (UNITED STATES – Tags: SPORT FOOTBALL)
Brooks Melchior of SPORTSbyBROOKs.com has the mother of all scoops, one that could potentially rock the landscape of college football.
Melchior received an advanced copy of HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel’s hour-long special on the business and ethics of college sports and transcribed some of the video. I can’t post the entire transcript (which you can read in-full here), but here’s just a taste of what will be on Wednesday’s airing.
(“Kremer is Andrea Kremer, the host of the segment, while “McClover” is Stanley McClover, a former Auburn player.)
Kremer voiceover: “McClover said it wasn’t until he attended an all-star camp at Louisiana State University that he realized how the game is played. A game of money and influence.”
McClover: “Somebody came to me, I don’t even know this person and he was like, ‘we would love for you to come to LSU and he gave me a handshake and it had five hundred dollars in there. … that’s called a money handshake … I grabbed it and I’m like, ‘wow,’ hell I thought ten dollars was a lot of money back then. Five hundred dollars for doing nothing but what I was blessed to do. I was happy.”
Kremer to McClover: “What did you say to the guy when he hands you five hundred dollars?”
McClover: “Thank you and I’m seriously thinking about coming to LSU.”
Kremer voiceover: “But McClover says there were money handshakes from boosters at other football camps too. At Auburn for a couple hundred dollars and at Michigan State. All the schools denied any wrongdoing. And things really started heating up a few months later when he went to Ohio State for an official visit where schools get a chance for one weekend to host prospective athletes. McClover says there were money handshakes from alumni there too. About a thousand dollars. And something else to entice him.”
McClover: “They send girls my way. I partied. When I got there I met up with a couple guys from the team. We went to a party and they asked me to pick any girl I wanted.”
Kremer: “Did she offer sexual services?“
McClover: “Yes.”
Kremer: “Did you take them?”
McClover: “Yes.”
Kremer: “McClover committed to Ohio State right after that weekend. The recruiter at Ohio State who says he dealt with McClover that weekend denied the school was involved in any wrongdoing.”
* On what caused McClover to sign with Auburn over Ohio State:
Kremer voiceover: “McClover says what he asked for was money. A lot of it. And that he got it. Delivered in a bookbag, exact amount unknown.”
Kremer to McClover: “You opened it up, what are you thinking?”
McClover: “I almost passed out. I literally almost passed out I couldn’t believe it was true. I felt like I owed them.”
Kremer to McClover: “You felt obligated to them (Auburn)?”
McClover: “I felt totally obligated.”
Kremer to McClover: “Because of the money?”
McClover: “Yeah.”
McClover wasn’t the only player that Kremer spoke with either. Former Auburn Tigers Chaz Ramsey, Troy Reddick and Raven Gray also spoke out about their recruitment experiences and what they received.
Granted, it’s not shocking to hear that recruits were given money or women in order to entice them to commit to a certain program. Former players have come out before and publicly stated that they were “taken care of” on recruiting trips, so none of what these athletes are saying is surprising. That said, for these players to go into detail is fascinating and we’re not just talking about one player. We’re not just talking about one school. We’re not just talking about one conference. We’re talking about multiple schools, multiple recruits and multiple conferences.
What does this all mean going forward? Who knows. But the NCAA has a huge mess on its hands and maybe HBO’s report will blow the cover off this whole thing. I don’t know what the NCAA can do to regulate what is transpiring on college campuses across the nation but they have to do something. They can’t sit idle knowing that future athletes are going on recruiting trips and being persuaded to commit to a particular school because he received cash and/or sexual favors – especially not in today’s society where the information is so readily available to the public now.
