Joe
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-- G. Gordon Liddy
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ricky Mac" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "RollTideFan" <rtf@rolltidefan.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 7:26 AM
Subject: [RollTideFan] Federal Jury...
ROLL TIDE!! Rick
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/sports/columns/050203b.shtml
MARK EDWARDS
Federal jury hits against Alabama, too
It's getting tougher to argue that the NCAA Committee on Infractions shouldn't have penalized Alabama's football program.
If you want to question the fairness of the penalties Alabama received two years and two days ago, that's a valid point. If you want to argue Tennessee's role in Alabama's case, that's another good point.
If you want to complain about whether the NCAA should investigate the Vols, well, only those looking through orange-shaded glasses would pipe up about that one. Tennessee should be in line for its turn on the NCAA carousel that seems to catch up to every SEC school, except Vanderbilt.
But Wednesday's verdict in Alabama booster Logan Young's federal trial only adds to the validity of the Committee on Infractions' decision in the Alabama case.
A federal jury of seven women and five men apparently believed that Young paid $150,000 to secure the services of Memphis-Trezevant High defensive lineman Albert Means for the Alabama football team. They convicted Young of all counts he faced, including conspiracy to commit racketeering, crossing state lines to commit racketeering and structuring a financial transaction to evade reporting requirements.
The star witness against Young was Means' high school coach, Lynn Lang, who said he negotiated the amount.
However, it doesn't seem as if Lang's testimony got Young. Just like in the Alabama case, this didn't boil down to the word of one untrustworthy high school coach.
Instead, it was bank and phone records.
Prosecutors presented 13 different instances in which Young made large withdrawals from his bank and within a reasonable amount of time Lang made large deposits in his own account. Prosecutors also showed where Lang and Young kept in touch consistently by telephone.
Lang's testimony alone wouldn't have been enough to convict Young. Why should anybody believe a coach who was asking for as much as $200,000 to direct his star player to a certain school?
He's been caught in lies before, and even the prosecutors warned beforehand that he's not a paragon of virtue. Young's lawyers didn't appear to have any trouble presenting witnesses who contradicted parts of Lang's testimony.
But Lang apparently wasn't needed to convict Young.
The NCAA didn't rely upon him, either. In fact, the enforcement staff never spoke with him officially. In the report on Alabama's case, the enforcement staff said that Lang declined to be interviewed "on advice of counsel."
Whether the bank and phone records were reason enough for a federal jury to convict Young is an issue worth raising.
The phone records presented in Young's trial came after Means signed with Alabama in 2000. Also, the bank records are circumstantial. Young's accountant testified that they don't prove that Young gave Lang the money he deposited.
In the NCAA case, Alabama explained Young's withdrawals by saying that it isn't unusual for a man of his wealth to take out that much money that often.
However, when applying this to Alabama's case, it's still awfully damning. Also, remember that the $150,000 violation accounted for only one of the 12 in which the Crimson Tide was convicted.
That violation added to the Committee on Infractions' belief that the Tide was fostering a booster culture, and Young's federal case only appears to confirm that.
Again, if you want to argue the fairness of Alabama's NCAA penalties, go right ahead. You've got plenty of evidence, especially the recent Michigan basketball case.
Even though Michigan's violations appeared at least as questionable as Alabama's, the Wolverines were banned from postseason play only one year, instead of two like the Crimson Tide. Also, it came in a year in which Michigan wasn't expected to make the NCAA tournament anyway. Michigan's scholarship reductions weren't nearly as damaging as Alabama's, either.
But none of this changes what a federal jury confirmed Wednesday — the NCAA enforcement staff was right to be suspicious of Alabama and booster Logan Young.
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