Ron English is on WTKA telling recruiting stories
December 21st, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^
You are splitting hairs. Ed Martin wasn’t regularly going to Iowa games with AD tickets. He didn’t stay at the Iowa hotel on the road. Michigan/Fisher allowed and even encouraged a relationship between the program and Ed Martin for the benefit of strengthening recruiting relationships. It is the exact same thing as Les Miles allowing a booster to give Jai Eugene’s dad a job and get his mom a house.
December 21st, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^
"It is the exact same thing as Les Miles allowing a booster to give Jai Eugene’s dad a job and get his mom a house." No not at all. Would the LSU booster also have given him a house if he went to Texas? Did said booster give money to players that went to other schools?
Ed Martin was not exclusive to Michigan - he gave to Detroit/Flint players that went many places. No excuse for Michigan or Fisher. He was more like an agent who gave impermissible benefits to everyone. He did have a relationship with Michigan but find me a player he specifically paid to come to Michigan or withheld money of the player chose Iowa or Iowa State over Michigan.
December 21st, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
Ed Martin was not a Michigan booster. Ed Martin was an Ed Martin booster.
He got in with kids early in anticipation of a big payback later.
But Michigan let him get too close to the program and rightfully paid the price.
(BTW, the actual NCAA penalties were pretty moderate, and over with within a couple of years. It was the sefl-imposed ones that tanked the program for a decade.)
December 21st, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
By definition, Ed Martin WAS a Michigan booster.
December 21st, 2018 at 5:43 PM ^
The mistake was Fisher let Ed Martin have free tickets and access to the program. Because Fisher didn't want Martin steering kids away from Michigan. I don't think Fisher ASKED Martin to send kinds to Michigan. But he didn't tell him to stay away. And if I was in his position, I don't know if I would have done things much differently either. He was a brand new coach, with a completely depleted roster. He NEEDED talent desperately. Burning a bridge with the biggest amateur talent broker in SW Michigan would have seemed stupid at the time. Of course, Fisher most likely had no idea that Martin was basically a mobster.
I'm sure if he had to do it over again, he would do things differently. It was a big mistake, made by a guy who was actually a really, really good coach and seems like a good guy too.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:34 PM ^
"Pay for play" is a mis-characterization of what happened with the Fab 5. Pay for play means "but for" the payment, the player would not have gone to Michigan. At no point in that saga did that situation come to light. Instead, players who were already going to Michigan participated in a money laundering scheme. Ed Martin didn't really care where you went to school. He just cared that you were able to give him clean money after cashing some NBA or Euro league checks down the road and that you made him feel important and that he had baller friends.
I'm not excusing what happened, I am saying that it is different from pay to play.
I also differentiate when there is institutional involvement and when there's not. If on my own accord I drive across town to a DeMatha football game, chat up a player, tell him how great he would look in a winged helmet and slip him a few $100 bills in hopes he goes to Michigan, that's on me. I don't think Michigan or any other school can do much to catch that. I can imagine that this does happen with some Michigan players. I believe that it doesn't go above that. I'm not saying it never has, but I choose to believe that those cases have been the exception and are generally cut off as soon as known.
December 21st, 2018 at 8:02 PM ^
Lol, this guy cannot be serious. The fucking tattoos those dingleberrys traded their golden crotch medallions to get, were worth more than $500. How about TP’s car(s)?
December 21st, 2018 at 10:40 AM ^
Seems that someone else drives 696 and the Lodge on a regular basis also. Speed limits? Lol
December 21st, 2018 at 11:01 AM ^
I've been saying this for years. The quickest way to get those gritz-snorting gumps to lobby the NCAA for better enforcement would be for us to direct our considerably deeper pool of resources:
Don't like the winters in A2? Here's a Rover with heated seats. Worried about missing out on Grandmama's cooking and you want her to see your games? Here's new condo on Pauline. Need some walking around money? Grandma's also just been hired for a no-show job to help make ends meet.
December 21st, 2018 at 10:20 AM ^
Ron English is such a great dude.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:05 AM ^
It seems that he provided some interesting content today, but it's a reach to say he's a "good dude." Read about what he did and said near the end at EMU.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:38 AM ^
My comment is based on a few personal interactions but mostly knowing people who know him well.
The rant was really bad, the language used was worse. He deserved to pay a price professionally for it and he did.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
He may be re-thinking some of those comments with the way he talked about turning down Marshawn Lynch.
December 21st, 2018 at 10:23 AM ^
Epic Segment!
December 21st, 2018 at 10:53 AM ^
all the people saying Michigan is paying players too...do you have any evidence or do you just get off on committing libel vs the school and program you claim to be a fan of.
what im saying is...gtfo and start focusing on your posting career on your MSU/OSU site of choice.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:06 AM ^
I want to be kind about this, because for a long time I did too, but you probably believed Lance Armstrong was clean because he said he had never tested positive.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:18 AM ^
Well. A little bit of controversy. I wonder what John U. Bacon thinks about this?
My opinion: Since my Alma Mater is a great academic university; and Ann Arbor is a great place to live; and we have an all around fantastic athletic program: I'm okay with a ten or eleven win season. Football is headed in the right direction.
Who's got it better than us?
December 21st, 2018 at 11:36 AM ^
SRJK, i can tell you that it was non-existent in the '80's and that my football contacts in the interim have never given me contrary information. i would believe, though i was never privy to this, that as mentioned the occasional booster gives a player a $$ hand shake now and again. but that is so much less on the order of magnitude, like comparing small arms fire with a tactical nuke. or sipping wine at communion vs. drinking a case at Christmas dinner.
JH would never, ever, give a wink and a nod to an asst. or a booster to go ahead and give grandma [fill in recruit's last name] a new house or car, etc. heck, look at that funny video reaction when jamies winston tells him about stealing crab legs. JH is a maniac, and that includes being maniacally ethical.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
I'm confident that Michigan was clean in the 80s; Bo was pretty big on that, and it hurt Michigan's competitiveness nationally with what is now widely acknowledged to have been going on in other parts of the country (the Marcus Dupree documentary is a good source for this stuff).
But I don't believe there has been a time when football as a whole has suddenly become more ethical just because, any more than I believe that athletes have stopped doping just because.
I don't think there's anyone on this board who doesn't think that Auburn is dirty. They wound up with Cam Newton when Newton's dad was soliciting and receiving six-figure offers from Mississippi State. I have no doubt that Auburn cheats.
If the recruiting period ended today, Michigan would have bested Auburn in class rankings three out of the last four years.
Is Clemson clean? They've never had a top five class. Michigan had better-ranked classes in 2016 and 2017.
Most players don't seem to care that other players get cash. They believe the system is unfair. If they don't care (how many call out other athletes for taking money at rival schools? zero) then who among them is going to turn down benefits that are freely offered?
Not many.
How, then, are we winning these recruiting battles?
I'm not saying that Michigan has an organized system of cheating, though the NCAA's deliberately lax enforcement of the rules seems to actively encourage this; I AM saying that there isn't much that can be done to stop well-to-do fans from bumping into athletes on a regular basis, and that Michigan likely has a fair amount of that, and that there are people who could watch closer who aren't that interested in knowing about it. I'm saying that when someone from the athletic department notices that a certain athlete has a nice car (for example, one seen several times associated with a skill player who got some footage in the Amazon special) they don't ask too many questions about where it came from.
EDIT: BTW, XM, how close are you to Clare? I'm visiting family in that area soon and I'd be interested in sharing a cup of coffee. If you're so inclined, my email is this username at gmail.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:23 PM ^
would absolutely love to meet up. we are about an hour, hour 15 north of clare. that said, depending on your route to clare you have to drive within a few miles of my office or the farm. count on an email from me soon.
December 22nd, 2018 at 6:33 PM ^
What about that (ugly ugly ugly) brown 280z that Leroy Hoard had or the no show jobs at car dealerships or cars loaned from dealerships in those days?
In bball how about those Clyde Cool style full length mink coats that Turner, Tarp and The Judge had, or the fancy SUV I don't know which one owned but they were driving?
December 21st, 2018 at 11:50 AM ^
That's not really kind, it's just a bad argument. Analogy fails to hold here, because we have no real idea of the scope of what's going on and how it compares.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:05 PM ^
If you're responding to me (hard to tell with the site formatting across two pages) it's a great analogy. We didn't know the scope of the doping issue in cycling, either. Yeah, it was thought to be widespread, but not universal. We later found out it was universal (specifically, just before the first Tour after Lance's first retirement, several favorites were linked to doping. It eventually came out that every rival Lance ever shared a podium with in any of his 7 victories was linked to doping. That's when I knew). Jonathan Vaughters made it pretty clear that in the 90s it wasn't just winners who doped; riders (like him) had to dope just to finish in the back of the field.
Right now we think cheating in college sports to be widespread; I suspect that if the veil is lifted we will find it to be, in one form or another, basically universal.
December 21st, 2018 at 1:09 PM ^
So you got no evidence and you just nonchalantly accuse your own school of major violations based on some vague ‘everyone’s doing it’ notion. Gee im such a pollyanna for not believing in making speculative accusations of considerable wrongdoing in a matter of fact way about an institution I support. Penn State and MSU fans are denying shit thats actually been determined in investigations and trials and here is a group of Michigan fans who don’t even need any hint of evidence to accuse their own of wrongdoing.
This is just a part of a sort of ‘woker than thou’ self-righteous pose common among Michigan fans. After all noone can take that precious moral high ground from you if you are your own harshest critic, right? Stupid.
December 21st, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
Heh. The idea that I am “woke” is hilarious.
December 22nd, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^
That fucking Noone motherfucker again! He stirs up all kina shit and nobody (Not Nobody the character from Dead Man) ever capitalizes his name for some reason!
December 21st, 2018 at 11:24 AM ^
I was naive when I was 12 too.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^
I guess some of the naysayers will turn this around and ask for proof of the bagmen in columbus. Sure, there was something in the Clarett BS...but when has Meyer been accused of paying players to go to OSU?
Its not out of the ordinary for players to want to play for a sure HOF coach, even if he is a prick.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
The Ronald Johnson recruitment was wild.
December 21st, 2018 at 11:27 AM ^
That early 2000s was my prime era for following recruiting. I was nuts about it.
The WR we passed on Jackson for was LaTerryal Savoy, a WR from Louisiana that did very little here. I'm sure he's a good guy and I honestly can't imagine Jackson being happy under Carr (really think about it) but it's still amazing that they told the best player in California AT LONG BEACH POLY no because of Savoy. Even then it seemed insane.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
Jackson had Gave his verbal to USC early on and the day of signing flipped to Cal!
December 21st, 2018 at 1:51 PM ^
Yeah, I recall he chose Cal due to a perceived slight by USC. They were THE program at the time and LB Poly was damn near untouchable in that Carroll era (as English mentioned).
He felt USC assumed they'd sign him and "only' sent 2 coaches to his in-home. Cal sent the entire offensive staff and he signed with Cal.
I still contend that he'd have likely clashed with Carr anyway. An outspoken player that had many demands and makes them known wouldn't have flown under Carr. He'd have arrived in Fall and transferred by January.
December 21st, 2018 at 5:10 PM ^
I doubt it because LC had Braylon Edwards who are just as bad and he dealt with him.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
I said this elsewhere, but since the topic has come up again, I’ll repeat. There is unequivocally NO CHANCE that Michigan uses bagmen, mama’s houses, cars, etc. that other programs use to recruit football players. Michigan is, first and foremost, one of the elite public universities in the world. It’s position as such is supremely paramount to the success and prestige of its sports programs.
Yes, Michigan takes athletics seriously, but not to the point that its going to allow extracurricular activities (which is what they are) to damage its academic prestige. There is absolutely no way Schissel (nor his predecessors) would allow it. Michigan — unlike many other schools — is a university with a football program, NOT a football program that happens to be attached to a university.
I was very disappointed with the sunset of Coach Carr’s career at Michigan. But, the thing that I respect him for above all else is that he didn’t not ever stoop to OSU’s level to try to beat them. Carr knew exactly what was going on down there once Tressel arrived — OSU hired a KNOWN cheat to get past Michigan — yet he held to Michigan’s ethics.
I spent a great deal of time on the golf course with a big Alabama booster. He bragged about the shenanigans that he and other boosters pulled, and he openly mocked the players, their families, and other programs. He said OSU was “just like them” but that Michigan, ND, Stanford, etc. were “clean as a whistle”, and according to him, that’s why those teams weren’t winning as much. He also went said that Michigan can’t compete for those kids because their academic standards are too high. Again, he mocked how stupid some of their players are, but how they didn’t care because they can flat play. Take that for what it’s worth, but the guy flies his own jet.
Michigan has some wonderful advantages, for kids that want them. But, if they’re only looking for an NFL factory that will “play the recruiting game” like Alabama, Michigan isn’t for them. With this in mind, I think it’s very impressive that Michigan does as well as it does recruiting, and for me, it’s a source of pride in our program. OSU showed their true colors this summer by not firing Meyer this summer — something I know Michigan would have done immediately. But, they may have shown some semblance of morality in forcing Meyer out — if that’s actually what happened.
Harbaugh would never allow bagmen, etc. I promise you he’d rather lose every game that win one game by cheating.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^
sten, again, for the win.
en fuego, and not /s, either
December 21st, 2018 at 12:08 PM ^
Every school is different wrt bagmen. Michigan is no exception. Fab 5 skank has not dissipated rancor even here. This culture is as old as football and higher ed for that matter. Miami (ntm) mandated that all faculty play football in the day (that would be my great-great grandfathers day btw - plus or minus a great.) Sport runs deep in the weirdest places.
This money doesn't come from school funds save a few inappropriate bagels and swag. It comes from people like many of us.
Let's divorce sports from education. That will rid us of these bagmen.
December 21st, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
Facts say otherwise. The Fab 5 scandal, as is detailed above, was NOT a bag man bringing players to Michigan. Michigan was guilty by association. Martin was buying influence with the players for HIS OWN financial benefit, not for Michigan’s
There’s not a Michigan Alumnus alive, no matter how wealthy, who would participate in buying a football recruit. Why? Because they care about the university more than they care about the football team. Sure, they love their Wolverines, but it’s not THAT important. The same can’t be said in certain places that mostly lie to the south of Ann Arbor.
December 21st, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
" Michigan was guilty by association. "
Michigan (or at least Fisher) KNEW Martin was paying players. They still allowed him around the program, and even provided him tickets.
Michigan was guilty of turning a blind eye to known rules violations because they thought it might help them competitively.
December 21st, 2018 at 3:00 PM ^
" There’s not a Michigan Alumnus alive, no matter how wealthy, who would participate in buying a football recruit. "
Ludicrous. Of course there is.
The university has alumni that have been serial killers, and we have buildings named after a financial fraudster....and a eugenics supporter... and the Unabomber...
This idea that Michigan grads are so morally pure and would never do anything to sully the universities name is just the highest order of hubris.
December 21st, 2018 at 9:06 PM ^
Sten - why aren't we hanging banners then? Facts please.
December 21st, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^
Excellent stories. Coach English is a good man.
December 21st, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^
These stories reinforce my feelings regarding coach Carr and Fred Jackson.....yikes.
Not sure if the coach referenced that signed someone right before Desean was Soup Campbell but if so...yikes. That's another tough one.
December 21st, 2018 at 6:14 PM ^
That was absolutely outstanding. For those of you that continue to bag on Sam when he's wrong...shit happens with 18 year old kids.