Damning Texts from Kansas' Bill Self to Shoe Rep Expose Accepted 'Recruiting' Tactics
There’s been some interesting news this week out of a professional basketball league for athletes too young to play in the NBA that serves as a marketing vehicle for overpriced shoes.
No, not LaVar Ball’s Junior Basketball Association. I’m talking about the NCAA.
It’s something of an open secret that shoe companies are the shadow government of college sports, doing what the NCAA ostensibly condemns in order to keep the spice flowing in the form of recruits delivered to big-time power conference schools for an obligatory season before moving on to the NBA.
Thanks to a federal court, on Monday the world got to see text messages sent between Kansas coach Bill Self and Thomas “T.J.” Gassanola, a consultant from Adidas, in which the latter thanked Self for his role in getting a lucrative extension done on a partnership between the shoe company and the school in September of 2017 that will keep Adidas kicks on Jayhawk players for another dozen years.
Self told Gassanola that he was happy with Adidas and “just got to get a couple real guys.”
The real guys, of course, being the kinds of basketball players who are spoken of in the same breath with recent top NBA draft picks like DeAndre Ayton and Jayson Tatum, key pieces of Arizona’s and Duke’s 2017-18 seasons during their one year in school.
Gassanola’s reply sealed the quid pro quo arrangement beyond any doubt.
“In my mind, it’s KU, Bill Self. Everyone else fall into line. Too (expletive) bad. That’s what’s right for Adidas basketball. And I know I’m right. The more you win, have lottery picks and you happy. That’s how it should work in my mind.”
When Self concurred, Gassanola even threw in a little cherry on the sundae that got Arizona in hot water when it got caught paying-for-play for Ayton’s services.
“I promise you I got this. I have never let you down. Except (Deandre). Lol. We will get it right.”
The use of “lol” in a transactional business text between two grown men shows just how flagrant the disrespect for the NCAA’s authority gets; Self and Gassanola couldn’t have flouted the law any worse if they conducted a drug deal in front of a police station.
But therein lies the rub in this story. That courtroom wasn’t some silly NCAA kangaroo court.
This was all going down in federal court in New York, the kind of court where people end up in prison for flagrantly flouting the law.
Gassanola, in fact, has already been rung up for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the broader scandal that has rocked college basketball over the past year.
Gassanola is offering testimony in exchange for leniency as the feds hope to pin charges on Adidas executive Jim Gatto and two other defendants in his case.
Meanwhile, the NCAA watches with more egg on itself than a house that hands out apples to trick-or-treaters instead of Snickers bars.
The federal corruption investigation and trials are winding down, but it appears they’re not done coming up with juicy and lurid details about just how far this rabbit hole goes.
The rabbit was unavailable for comment, however.
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