Just last week the Ohio Attorney General spoke out against professional sports agents who violate NCAA rules in Ohio. Now, the October 18th Sport’s Illustrated includes an interview with former NFL agent Josh Luchs who claims Santonio Holmes admitted to taking money from an agent while a student at Ohio State.
And while it’s naive to think that these things don’t happen at Ohio State, at least the Holmes accusation is based on hearsay and Holmes is denying the charges.
In the article, Luchs names a number of former college football players with details much more specific than the allegations against Holmes. Luchs claims that he met with Holmes outside of the Oho State practice facility and Holmes told him he was already taking money from another agent.
“In November 2005, Steve and I flew to Ohio State to talk to receiver Santonio Holmes. We met him outside the football building, and he said, “Listen, I want to save you the time. We don’t need to meet. I’ve been taking money from [an agent] the last couple years, and he’s been taking care of my family too.”
Had it been 10 years earlier, I would have probably said, “Santonio, whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it.” But now, being at Gersh, I had Hollywood to sell. Let the other agents pay kids.”
Considering that Luchs names 30 players in the article, most with charges much more detailed than this, the Holmes accusations looks pretty tame. The article, told by entirely by Luchs in the first person gives explicit details and includes responses by players named. Homes responded to the article through a NY Giants spokesperson.
“Through a New York Jets spokesperson, Santonio Holmes denied taking money from any agent while in college or telling Luchs and Steve Feldman that he had taken money. Feldman confirmed to SI that Holmes told him and Luchs that an agent was paying him.
Who knows if Holmes was on the take. According to the Sport’s Illustrated article, there’s a four-year statute of limitations on NCAA agent violations and Holmes left the Buckeyes in 2005. It is however the most recent accusation in the story.
Not all of the players named were as removed from the story as Holmes. Former USC receiver R. Jay Soward, went so far as to say,
“I would do it again,” Soward said. “I have four sons, and if somebody offered my son money in college and it meant he didn’t have to be hungry, I would tell him to take it.”
Read the entire article at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/magazine/10/12/agent/index.html#ixzz12CfuRpTw
Update:The Cleveland Plain Dealer says that the Ohio State compliance office is already looking into the allegations. They also point out the four year statute of limitations but this can be expanded if there is evidence to show that there was knowledge of an incident which a university tried to cover up.
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I’m not worried. If there was any merit, it would have came out a lot sooner when the NCAA did their investigation years ago following Clarett and only found Troy accepting a check from a booster.
@TPB: Yea …. My USC buddies said the same thing. They also said ……. “the investigation has gone on soo long …… if they would have found something then it would be out by now.” Well we all know what happened there. There is some merit to the old saying ….. “where there is smoke …. there is fire”.
When was the last time that USC was investigated before Bushgate?