University of Michigan basketball scandal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The University of Michigan basketball scandal was an incident in which the men's college basketball program at the University of Michigan was investigated and punished for NCAA rules violations, principally involving payments booster Ed Martin made to several players to launder money from an illegal gambling operation. It is the largest scandal involving payment of college athletes in American collegiate sports history.
Contents |
[edit] Background
In the early morning of February 17, 1996, Michigan stars Maurice Taylor and Robert Traylor, along with recruiting prospect Mateen Cleaves, were involved in an early morning rollover accident in Detroit (40 miles west of Michigan's campus in Ann Arbor). Taylor was driving a Ford Explorer, and questions were immediately raised about whether Taylor actually owned the expensive sport utility vehicle. The questions became even louder after it surfaced that Taylor had visited Martin, a retired electrician with Ford Motor Company and longtime Wolverine booster.
In September, athletic director Joe Robertson learned that Martin had tried to place deposits on apartments for Traylor and another Michigan star, Louis Bullock, a month earlier. Martin had also offered airline tickets to Bullock's parents so they could attend a tournament in Puerto Rico. It emerged that coach Steve Fisher had known about Martin's actions. He'd ordered the deposits retrieved and made sure the tickets weren't used, but didn't tell anyone in the athletic or compliance offices, as he was required to do.
Robertson also learned that during the 1992 Final Four, Martin had given a hotel room paid for by Michigan to the father of Wolverine freshman phenom Chris Webber--a violation of NCAA rules. Martin had also been present during Fisher's official recruiting visit to Traylor's home in Detroit and presented Traylor with a cake.
For his part, Martin denied any wrongdoing when questioned by an NCAA enforcement representative. However, he later refused to cooperate with the university or the NCAA, forcing Michigan to ban him from any contact with the school in March 1997. [1]
[edit] Complementary tickets, Fisher fired
Martin had developed a close friendship with Bill Frieder, Michigan's coach from 1981 to 1989, and this continued under Frieder's successor, Fisher. In return, the coaching staff made complimentary tickets available to Martin.
An investigation triggered by the Taylor accident revealed that Fisher had made out passes for 16 complimentary tickets from 1994 to 1997, and that his secretary and other clerical workers made out 10 more. Following this revelation, Fisher was fired on October 11, 1997--just a week before the start of practice. [2] Michigan subsequently admitted to minor NCAA violations.
[edit] Federal indictment
In April 1999, the FBI and IRS raided several Detroit-area homes to stop a gambling ring in the area's Ford plants. Martin's home was one of the targets; he was found with a loaded gun, gambling records and $20,000 in cash in his home. In the course of a federal investigation, evidence turned up that Martin had given cash payments and other benefits to several Michigan players and Detroit-area high school prospects starting in the early 1980s.
In late 1999, Martin originally agreed to a plea bargain in which he agreed to disclose information about the payments. He backed out in early 2000, preferring to take his chances at trial. Later in 2000, Traylor and Bullock, by this time in the NBA, were suspected of taking payments from Martin. The two players cooperated with federal authorities. Fisher, now the coach at San Diego State University, testified before a federal grand jury investigating Martin. Also testifying were former Michigan assistants Perry Watson (now coach at the University of Detroit Mercy) and Brian Dutcher.
On March 21, 2002--after almost three years of testimony--the grand jury returned an eight-count indictment charging Martin, his wife Hilda and their friend Clarence Malvo with running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and conspiracy to launder money. According to the indictment, Martin made illicit loans totalling $616,000 to Webber, Taylor, Bullock and Traylor to launder money from an illegal numbers game at Detroit-area auto plants. The loans were made with the understanding that they would be repaid once the players turned pro. The breakdown:
- $280,000 to Webber from 1988 (when he was a ninth-grader at Detroit Country Day School) to 1993 (his sophomore year at Michigan, after which he turned pro)
- $105,000 to Taylor from 1996 to 1997--his sophomore and junior years at Michigan (he turned pro after his junior year)
- $160,000 to Traylor from 1994 (his senior year at Murray-Wright High School in Detroit) to 1998 (his junior year at Michigan, after which he turned pro)
- $71,000 to Bullock from during his four years at Michigan, from 1995 to 1999
Additional media investigations revealed that Martin had given gifts and meals to Detroit-area high school players from the early 1980s onward.
The NCAA launched an investigation into the Michigan program, and was free to go outside the four-year statute of limitations since Martin made payments to Taylor, Traylor and Bullock after he'd been barred from the athletic program. Michigan launched an investigation of its own.
On May 28, Martin pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder money. He agreed to cooperate with investigations by the government, Michigan and the NCAA. The charges against Hilda were dropped; Malvo pleaded guilty to grand jury perjury a month earlier for testifying that he did not work for Martin.
[edit] Sanctions
On November 7, 2002; Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman and athletic director Bill Martin announced that the school was imposing sanctions of its own on the basketball program. Among them:
- No postseason play in 2002-03, even though the players who took Martin's money were no longer at the school.
- The school forfeited its victory over Cincinnati in the 1992 NCAA Final Four. It forfeited the entire 1992-93 season and every game it played from the 1995-96 season through the 1998-99 season. This included the 1997 National Invitation Tournament title (which was forfeited to Florida State) and the 1998 Big Ten Tournament title (which was forfeited to Purdue). It also vacated its two Final Four games in 1992 and its entire NCAA tournament record in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 1999. All told, Michigan forfeited 112 wins.
- Returning $450,000 received from the NCAA for postseason play in 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
- Banners commemorating the 1992 and 1993 Final Four runs, the 1997 NIT title and 1998 Big Ten Tournament title would be removed from the rafters at Crisler Arena.
- Two years' probation.
Coleman described what happened as "wrong, plain and simple." She also said, "I am determined that nothing like this will ever happen again at Michigan."
Four days later, the athletic department officially deleted all mention of Webber, Taylor, Traylor and Bullock from the school's athletic records. These included Traylor's MVP awards in the 1997 NIT and 1998 Big Ten Tournament, as well as Bullock's standing as the school's third all-time leading scorer and all-time leader in 3-point field goals. The deletions came because the payments may have compromised their amateur status.
On May 8, 2003; the NCAA accepted Michigan's sanctions. It also imposed an additional two years' probation and docked the school one scholarship a year from 2004 until 2008. It also ordered the school to disassociate itself from Webber, Traylor, Taylor and Bullock until 2012. The NCAA also imposed a ban on postseason play for the 2003-04 season, but this was overturned on appeal. Infractions committee chairman Thomas Yeager, who had come very close to imposing the "death penalty" on the University of Alabama football program a few months earlier, called the Martin/Michigan affair "one of the three or four most egregious violations of NCAA bylaws" ever.
[edit] Fallout
Martin had died of a heart attack in February 2003. His death largely took the air out of a federal perjury case against Webber. In July 2003, Webber pleaded guilty to criminal contempt for lying to the grand jury investigating Martin.
Traylor's alma mater, Murray-Wright High, forfeited its entire 1994-95 season--Traylor's senior year.
Fisher was largely cleared of wrongdoing, though the NCAA severely criticized him for allowing Martin to have access to his players.
