Frank Gore says he doesn’t know if any of the attendees at his May 15 party at his home in South Florida were college football players. But the NCAA isn’t about to take Gore at his word.
According to a report by ESPN.com, the NCAA is investigating two separate parties that players had attended in May. One of them was at Club Liv in the Fontainebleau hotel at the end of the month, while the other was held by Gore on May 15.
If NCAA players were at his party, Gore says he wouldn’t have known. But even if they were, he wants it made public that he paid for the party himself.
“I don’t even know those guys. There were a lot of people there; it was crazy,” Gore said, according to the Sports Business Journal.
“I paid for my own party,” Gore said, adding that no agent or financial adviser contributed.
Call me a cynic, but it seems farfetched that Gore wouldn’t know there were college athletes at his party. I could understand if he didn’t know if I were there, because I’m a nobody (ouch…self-inflicted). But word would have traveled fast if there were college players in attendance and something tells me Gore isn’t telling the whole truth.
But that doesn’t mean that he or any of the players did anything wrong. As long as nobody paid for the players to attend the party, then everyone is in the clear. If runners or agents paid for the athletes to attend, then NCAA rules were broken and the players could have their eligibility stripped. (Or worse, the NCAA could go USC on another program.)
Of course, how is the NCAA going to prove whether or not the players paid their own way? If there’s a paper trail of purchases that leads back to a runner or an agent, then the NCAA can nail someone for breaking rules. But other than finding receipts, it’s going to be hard for them to prove that a player was given cash at the party unless the player admits to it. And considering their playing careers are on the line, I highly doubt any of them will admit to any wrongdoing.
