I blog. Follow the Money

Continuing my slow read and (very biased) commentary on the NCAA Report on SU athletics...

P.10 “AT THE SAME TIME THE REPRESENTATIVE LAUNCHED THE "BACK ON TRACK" PROGRAM, HE ALSO OPENED AND OPERATED A CHECKING ACCOUNT THAT HE USED TO PAY STUDENT-ATHLETES AND ATHLETICS STAFF. THE REPRESENTATIVE NAMED THE ACCOUNT "AAU-DCCT" AND USED THE TRI-VALLEY YMCA'S TAX IDENTIFICATION NUMBER….FROM MAY 2004 TO JULY 2005…THE REPRESENTATIVE DEPOSITED MORE THAN $300,000 INTO THAT ACCOUNT. AT TIMES, THE ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT WAS INEXPLICABLE AND UNPREDICTABLE. FOR EXAMPLE, ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT INCLUDED SAME DAY DEPOSITS AND WITHDRAWALS FOR THE SAME AMOUNT. OTHER TRANSACTIONS DID NOT RELATE TO ANY PARTICULAR AAU, YMCA OR OTHER SPORTING EVENT.”

Yikes! $300 grand in Jeff Cornish’s mysterious bank account! That could have gone anywhere. Luckily, the NCAA’s crack investigative team took their time with this case and tracked down every penny…oh wait.

P.10 “…THE REPRESENTATIVE IDENTIFIED A VARIETY OF SOURCES FOR THE $300,000, INCLUDING LOANS FROM HIS MOTHER, HIS LONG-TIME FRIEND AND THE FORMER ASSISTANT ATHLETIC TRAINER AND THE BANK. HE ALSO STATED THAT HE COLLECTED CAMP REGISTRATION FEES FROM AREA CAMPERS AND DEPOSITED THAT MONEY INTO THE ACCOUNT. HE CLAIMED HE LATER USED THOSE FEES TO REGISTER CAMPERS FOR THE HEAD BASKETBALL COACH'S BIG ORANGE CAMP AND THE ASSISTANT MEN'S BASKETBALL COACH'S BASKETBALL ELITE CAMP.”

Ah, the old loan from the mother! Dorothy "Mantooth" Cornish is a saint! We used to call that an “angel investor” back in my days as a small business owner. I owned and operated a fleet of mobile shark tanks-for-hire. Our main clientele were fairs, rodeos, and birthday parties. Business was growing great until an ill-fated appearance on, ironically, TV’s Shark Tank. (I made all that up, but I did co-found an Internet webcasting business.)

Anyway, it looks like Cornish is guilty of being a little loosey-goosey with his tax exempt bank account. Still, no signs that any of the basketball campers didn’t get their basketball camp.

P.10 “THE ACTIVITY SURROUNDING THE ACCOUNT ALSO DREW THE ATTENTION OF THE NEW YORK STATE OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL (OSIG). DURING THE OSIG'S INVESTIGATION, THE REPRESENTATIVE ADMITTED THAT HE WAS INVOLVED IN GAMBLING ACTIVITIES AND AT ONE TIME HAD INCURRED $50,000 IN DEBT.”

Uh oh. When SU started investigating this, Cornish denied gambling had anything to do with this account. (Remember: so much of this information was gathered by SU, not the NCAA.)

P.11 “HOWEVER, REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE OF THE FUNDS, NO ONE DISPUTES IT WAS USED TO MAKE PAYMENTS TO STUDENT-ATHLETES.”

A footnote I just made up says, "Listen, we’re not here to figure out how some guy who we think is shady and had a shady bank account and shady connections to a high profile college basketball team and shady gambling connections and a shady history of gambling debts got his shady $300,000! Sure, there might be some illegal betting on college basketball going on here, but we’re the NCAA! We don’t want to stand in the way of America's good time! You can make money off of our sports. We can make money off of our sports. We just want to make sure college athletes can’t make any money off of their sports.”

My “Is Kaleb Joseph involved in a point shaving scandal?” jokes from earlier this year are a lot less funny all of a sudden.

But seriously, there is probably no bigger deal here with this bank account than what the NCAA unearthed. I just think it’s funny, as always, what the NCAA chooses to focus on.

We’ve finally reached the specifics of the payments Cornish made to SU athletes (pages 11-13). I’ll summarize these:

-Three football and two men’s basketball players were paid for mentoring or working at clinics, camps, tournaments, or YMCA projects.

-One of the basketball players was Billy Edelin.

-Boeheim and (I think “former assistant basketball coach” is referring to) Bernie Fine knew that they were getting paid.

-Fine(?) said Cornish would call him to say he had a check for a student athlete

-Boeheim assumed, but didn’t check, that everything was compliant

-Cornish claims the athletes earned the money and received a reasonable rate of pay. There is no evidence to support this.

-Cornish admitted that he knew the YMCA didn’t have the money to pay the athletes, but he felt they should have been paid for their activities, even though most of the programs they were involved in were volunteer.

-In a two day period, Cornish wrote Edelin a $3,100 check (the highest check Cornish wrote to any athlete) and then a $360 check the next day.

-Cornish wrote a total of 21 checks totaling $8,335 to SU athletes.

-Cornish also compensated SU staff for appearances or assistance at the YMCA.

-Cornish gave Mike Hopkins (I believe that is “an assistant men’s basketball coach”) a complementary family membership to the Syracuse YMCA which he held for a year and a half.

-Cornish also paid rent for an administrative assistant in the men’s basketball program in 2005.

-SU self-reported all of this in 2010, following its own investigation that began in 2007.

So that’s the money. My main thought (and relief) is that it really wasn’t an elaborate system for paying players. It was not even really systematic. Nor was it lucrative. It was not good and it was definitely illegal. It’s embarrassing, but it’s nothing that makes me forever ashamed of the University. Oh wait…there is more!

-From 2002 to 2007, Cornish PROVIDED LOCAL GROUND TRANSPORTATION TO THREE ATHLETES!

-In the same period, Cornish PROVIDED OR ARRANGED TRANSPORTATION OVER 750 MILES (ie not “local”) FOR FOUR ATHLETES!

-At least five times, SU staff PROVIDED TWO ATHLETES WITH AUTOMOBILE TRANSPORTATION THAT DID NOT FIT THE DEFINITION OF “LOCAL”

-Once, Hopkins(?) drove Edelin 45 MILES!

-Four times in spring 2005 someone from SU PROVIDED A FOOTBALL PLAYER WITH A ROUND-TRIP OF 128 MILES!

Road trip! Don’t forget the Pringles! Wait, it gets worse…

-Cornish also PROVIDED MEALS TO ONE OF THOSE ATHLETES!

-The meals WERE NOT AT CORNISH’S HOME!

From page 31 of the report: “NCAA Bylaw 16 permits student-athletes to receive occasional meals from representatives of the institution's athletics interest provided the meal occurs at the representative of the institution's athletics interests' home.”

Ugh.