The Agent

Full Title: The Agent Subtitle: The FBI, the B-Movie That Started It All, and the Underground Economy of College Basketball Series Name: Off the Court: Basketball's Criminal Cases Series Number: Book 5 Author

von T. Scott

52 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

"If we take care of everybody, we control everything, you can make millions off of one kid." - Christian Dawkins, aspiring sports agent, recorded by FBI undercover agents"That Marty Blazer could bring down the NCAA basketball system is ironic to me. Almost comical. A multibillion-dollar system, brought down by some nickel-and-dime financial guy in Pittsburgh." - Anonymous sports agent, to ESPNThe biggest college basketball corruption scandal in modern history started with a B-movie that bombed.A Resurrection was a low-budget sci-fi horror film released in 2013, starring Mischa Barton and the late Michael Clarke Duncan. Almost nobody saw it. Marty Blazer, a Pittsburgh-based financial adviser, had helped finance it using $2.35 million stolen from his professional athlete clients. The SEC caught him. And in late 2014, facing charges that could have carried a 67-year sentence, Marty Blazer agreed to become FBI cooperating witness CW-1 - and offered the Bureau a map of the underground economy of college basketball.The FBI followed the map for two years.On September 26, 2017, acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim held a press conference in New York City and announced the arrests of ten individuals, including four Division I assistant coaches: Lamont Evans (Oklahoma State), Chuck Person (Auburn), Emanuel "Book" Richardson (Arizona), and Tony Bland (USC). Also arrested: James Gatto, a senior Adidas executive, who had conspired to funnel $100,000 from Adidas to the family of top recruit Brian Bowen II to steer him to Louisville. And Christian Dawkins, a 24-year-old aspiring sports agent who had been recorded saying: "If we take care of everybody, we control everything, you can make millions off of one kid."Kim called it the "dark underbelly of college basketball."Rick Pitino was identified as "Coach-2" at "University-6" - Louisville. He was fired sixteen days after the arrests. Brian Bowen II, the recruit whose family received the $100,000, ended up playing professionally in Australia. Gatto received nine months in federal prison. Code and Dawkins received six months each. The four coaches received probationary sentences.Marty Blazer received one year of probation. He had avoided prison entirely.The Agent tells the complete story: the failed movie that started it all, the two years of FBI wiretaps and undercover operations, the specific mechanics of college basketball's underground economy, the ten convictions, and the specific question the scandal raised about whether the underground economy was the product of individual corruption or of an institutional structure whose incentives made this corruption essentially inevitable.Book 5 of the Off the Court series: basketball's criminal cases told in full.

• Reihe: Independently published
• ISBN: 9798176154788
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 21.09.2026
• Größe: 279 x 216 mm
• Verlag: Independently published