Sunday, July 10, 2005 STEVE KIRK News staff writer Saying University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer was consumed by jealousy toward the University of Alabama, former Crimson Tide signee David Paine denied Fulmer's allegation that UA booster Logan Young was involved in his 1999 recruitment.
The 25-year-old Paine, once a standout defensive tackle at Memphis Melrose High School, is one of 13 former Alabama players or recruits whose signatures Fulmer accused Young of buying or trying to buy in 1998 memos to then-Southeastern Conference Commissioner Roy Kramer. Young, who has denied involvement with any Alabama players, was sentenced to six months in federal prison last month after being found guilty of paying Memphis Trezevant High coach Lynn Lang $150,000 to get lineman Albert Means to sign with Alabama. Fulmer's memos are among court documents in Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams' defamation lawsuit against the NCAA. Several of the players whom Fulmer cited - Michael Myers, Rod Rutledge and Deshea Townsend - declined to comment. Efforts to reach the others - Curtis Alexander, Fernando Bryant, Steve Harris, Chris Howard, Eric Locke, Freddie Milons, Kindal Moorehead, Dwayne Rudd and Kenny Smith - were unsuccessful. Tom Jones, whose tenure as Alabama faculty athletics representative from 1985 to 1995 included the recruitment of some of the players cited by Fulmer, said Young "always tried to be around the program." But Young's reach, Jones said, was limited as far as he knew. ``Coach Bryant got nervous about (boosters). He'd tell them, `We'll do the recruiting, and that's just what the coaches did.' Coach (Gene) Stallings pretty much took that same attitude." It was common, Jones said, to see Young attend Alabama games. When Alabama played in Memphis, Young once hosted a dinner for the school's official traveling party. ``But as far as I'm aware, that was the extent of his involvement" with the program during Jones' tenure. `Straight down the line': In a memo to Kramer dated April 13, 1998, Fulmer wrote, "Recently at a restaurant, (Young) `sent word' back to `those boys at Tennessee' not to bother trying to recruit David Paine from Memphis Melrose because he already had him wrapped up." "My first time seeing Logan Young was on television dealing with Albert Means," Paine said by telephone from his home in Memphis. "I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't even hear his name until I got to college." Asked if he knew of anything unethical about his recruitment by Alabama, Paine said: "No. Everything with me was straight down the line." Paine did not qualify academically and never played for the Crimson Tide. "It was all jealousy from the University of Tennessee," said Paine, adding that Fulmer called him numerous times in 1998 and 1999 with allegations about Alabama's recruitment. "Phillip Fulmer made a comment to me, `How can Alabama constantly get my football players out of my own back yard?'" Paine said. "He said there's something fishy about that." Paine quoted Fulmer as saying that "Alabama was sending my whole family down (to Tuscaloosa) on a private jet. Which wasn't true." Paine also denied another of Fulmer's allegations in the memos to Kramer - that Young "bought" Moorehead by "coming through for the Mooreheads with a new house." Fulmer said in the April 13, 1998, memo that former Memphis Melrose and UT player Jerome Woods told him about the house. But, according to Paine, who is a longtime friend and former high school teammate of Moorehead's, Moorehead's mother Claria stayed in the same two-bedroom house in the lower-income Orange Mound area throughout Moorehead's career at Alabama from 1998 to 2002. During Young's trial in Memphis, Tennessee booster Duke Clement said Young bragged of paying Melrose High coach Tim Thompson $25,000 to ensure that Moorehead signed with Alabama, and $500 to ensure that Paine did. Lang, the former Trezevant coach, said Young told him he paid Thompson $10,000 for Moorehead. In March 2001, Paine told The Birmingham News that in January 2001, Lang's assistant coach, Milton Kirk, offered him a car, $25,000 and a chance to play football again if he would tell the NCAA that Alabama illegally recruited him. Paine made the same statement in his most recent interview. "(Kirk) was telling me that he can get me back all my playing time if I'd just say Alabama had illegally recruited me. He said he could get me in a nice automobile, a good job - all different things. And I was telling him none of those incidents are true. He said, `Don't think like that. Just follow what I'm saying and I'll get you the same deal I got Albert Means.'" Paine attended Northwest Community College in Batesville, Miss., then entered the NFL Draft in 2003 but didn't make a roster. He spent time with the Memphis team in arenafootball2 but didn't like it. This fall he plans to serve as defensive coordinator at Fayette-Ware High School in Somerville, Tenn., about 30 minutes outside Memphis. Thompson is the first-year head coach there. Thompson resigned from Melrose in 2001 and was handed a three-year coaching suspension for accepting money from a University of Kentucky coach in a recruiting scandal that landed UK on probation. News staff writers Doug Segrest, Steve Irvine and Charles Goldberg contributed to this report. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ RTF mailing list RTF@rolltidefan.net http://rolltidefan.net/mailman/listinfo/rtf_rolltidefan.net
