looks like bama is not the only one paying players...

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Ex-coach: 7 offered money for Means
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
DOUG SEGREST
News staff writer
MEMPHIS - A former Memphis high school coach testified Monday in the criminal trial of booster Logan Young that seven schools offered money to sign defensive lineman Albert Means before he signed with Alabama in February 2000.

Former Trezevant High coach Lynn Lang said Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan State, Ole Miss and Tennessee all offered him money for the services of Means. He offered specifics about only Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky.

Lang said when it came to Means' recruitment, "I set the rules ... I took the calls because Albert wasn't a (good) student."

Lang, the prosecution's chief witness, said he received $150,000 from Young, a prominent Memphis businessman and longtime University of Alabama booster, for directing Means to Alabama.

Young is on trial on federal bribery and money laundering charges.

Lang's testimony differed from his original guilty plea in 2002. At that time, Lang said he solicited payoffs from Arkansas, Florida State, Georgia, Memphis, Michigan State, Ole Miss and Tennessee. In that 2002 court appearance, Lang also said former Alabama assistant coach Ivy Williams suggested he contact Young about a payoff.

Young's lawyers contend Lang is lying to save himself from a long prison sentence.

Means, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, testified earlier in the day that he let Lang choose his college.

Lang testified he began shopping Means to various colleges when he realized in 1999 how many schools wanted him. He said he began the bidding for Means at $75,000, and Young "took to it like water."

He said he kept upping the price until it topped out at $150,000.


Making a deal:

At a meeting at Young's home, Lang said Young agreed to the price and paid $1,500 before Lang left. The two would communicate after that in phone calls and in person. Lang said his assistant coach at the time, Milton Kirk, first suggested the payoff scheme.

Lang said the starting price ($75,000) was enough to buy each coach a car, plus a new home for Means' mother. He said he received the entire $150,000 in a series of cash payments that didn't exceed $10,000 and he spent much of the money on a Ford Expedition, a Chevrolet Impala SS, trips to strip joints and to help make payments for support of his child born out of wedlock.

"The more money you get, the faster it goes," Lang explained.

In January 2001, Kirk went public with the scheme. Lang said Young told him that "if people asked me about it, deny it because it was cash" and could not be tracked. Young also agreed to take care of his legal fees, if necessary, Lang added.


Lang also testified that he received cash from Kentucky and Georgia for taking Means to their campuses for visits. He said Claude Bassett, then the Kentucky recruiting coordinator, paid him $3,000 and that Jim Donnan, then Georgia's head coach, gave him $700 cash, in addition to $100 Georgia booster Bill Harper sent him.

In his cross-examination, defense attorney Jim Neal spent almost an hour putting Lang's credibility on trial.

Neal said Lang faced nine federal counts of extortion and a maximum sentence of 135 years in the original indictment. Neal said that by pleading guilty and cooperating with the government in its case against Young, Lang traded down to a maximum sentence of five years.

The government's first witness was Alabama Athletics Director Mal Moore, who testified Young "is a very big fan" and had been generous to the football program over 20 years.



`I trusted him':

In his testimony, Means said he depended on Lang to deal with college recruiters. "He took care of everything else," Means said. "That's why I trusted him."

Means also said someone else, who was not identified in court, took his ACT exam for him, and he acknowledged lying about that to a grand jury. "I was afraid," he said.

While entering his guilty plea in 2002, Lang said he arranged for a stand-in to take Means' entrance exam. Means, who stayed at Alabama for one season, transferred to the University of Memphis after reports of a payoff to Lang became public.

Alabama's recruitment of Means became part of an NCAA investigation that led to sanctions against the program in 2002 that deprived the team of scholarships and banned it from going to a bowl for two years.

Young's former girlfriend, Lisa Mallory, testified later that Young told her Means was "mine," when drinking with friends.

On cross-examination, Mallory said Young made similar claims of other Memphis athletes who did not sign with Alabama.

Mallory painted Young as someone who drank to excess and was a gambler who made trips to casinos and placed bets with sports bookies.


E-mail: [email protected]

 

Everyone's fault but Bama's

 

This booster for Bama was a dirty rogue. I think the trial shows it although he may get off since the evidence appears somewhat weak. Its just the uneven handedness of the NCAA that chaps my azz.

I've watched the NCAA and their hypocrisy ever since they invaded BR on a witch hunt for Dale Brown. I admired Coach Brown for being one of the the first to call out the NCAA even though we took it on the chin from those NCAAZI'S. The continued exposure of this disfunctional mob can only help college football and facilitate change in a group thats equally as rogue as this booster is.

I agree....Fug em.

 

I'm anxious to see what Terry Bowden has to say about all of this now.

 

This article also appears to be written for the benefit of VOL fans.

The Georgia involvement, for example, is being portrayed as a payback.

The fact is, Donnan reported the money exchange to the NCAA the same day, to report payment for legitimate NCAA sanctioned purposes.

But you can always say that there were strings attached, because you can not actually prove it one way or the other.

By the way, how much did Tennessee pay him to fly to Knoxville?


And the Alabama - Tennessee love fest continues.

 

And here is more nonesense from the NCAAZI'S. Just what is it they are trying to hide?

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=ap-neuheiseltrial&prov=ap&type=lgns

By TIM KORTE, AP Sports Writer
January 28, 2005

KENT, Wash. (AP) -- Rick Neuheisel's lawyers can present evidence showing NCAA president Myles Brand ignored his own staff's advice to stop talking publicly about an investigation into the coach's gambling.

King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman on Friday rejected a motion by NCAA lawyers to bar that information at the former Washington football coach's trial.

"This is relevant to the issue of whether the NCAA's conduct was 'improperly motivated,' "Spearman wrote in a five-page letter of findings.

......

Rest of article at the link.

 

Michigan State is implicated by Lynn Lang yet this scum bag slides in under the radar screen and finds a job in the state of Michigan as an Assistant Principle after he is fired in Tennessee! How does that happen? Do they not conduct background checks of their ass't principles in michigan? My guess is they do but for whatever reason Lang's app was allowed to slide. Hmmmmmm....


Heres part of the articel...the rest is at the link.


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http://www.wsjm.com/shownews.asp?id=12855

Benton Harbor High School assistant principal Lynn Lang has resigned from that position after he appeared in a Memphis, Tennessee courtroom this week to give testimony against a college football booster.

Superintendent Doctor Paula Dawning says, in light of the news, the district will review some of the questions on their applications to try and prevent similar problems in the future.

Dawning also says the search for a new assistant principal will start as soon as possible, but she says they will not turn away people from other states inspite of recent problems. Dawning adds that the reason Lang's past was never discovered was because he was only arrested and not sentenced for the crime.

Lang says that Alabama millionaire Logan Young gave him 150-thousand dollars to make sure a star defensive lineman signed with the University of Alabama in 2000 while Lang was a football coach in Memphis.

He is scheduled to be convicted and sentenced on February 8th on federal racketeering charges after he entered a plea agreement for his testimony against the booster.

The former assistant principal also named other schools including Michigan State who offered money for the defensive player.

 

You guys can say that the NCAA was on a witch hunt and "invaded" Baton Rouge, but I hate to say this...Dale had more bag men than Dr. Redfield Ryan & Johnny Jones...

I've hinted at some of this stuff before, but we were guilty...and we were guilty as sin...

You guys act like Dale was a saint, and it was a frame-up from Lester Earl-a disgruntled former player...Well, it wasn't...It was payback for the Edwin Edwards-like ability of Brown to flaunt the NCAA and get away with it...

He was guilty of paying players. Period.

 

The Logan Young trial is just a warm-up for the one coming this summer. Tommy Gallion is the one the NCAA doesn't want to go to court with.