Basketball Recruiting on the Nonprofit Margins

On Oct. 25, 2002, a recruit, not named in the report, made an official visit to Baylor while accompanied by the director of the Houston Superstars. Two $25,000 checks that were dated Oct. 26 were written by Turner and given to Bliss, who passed them to the AAU team's official. One check was deposited Nov. 7, the other deposited Dec. 13, according to NCAA documents.

Bliss told Turner that a $50,000 charitable gift did not violate NCAA rules. Each year, Turner said, he and his company, Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Texas, had donated hundred of thousands of dollars to charitable and youth groups and that the request seemed routine.

Two years ago, Turner released a statement that said: "The Houston Superstars Foundation was a 501(c)(3) organization, and we were assured that the donation was proper under NCAA rules. The Foundation appeared to fit our guidelines and mission statement as far as its qualifications to receive the money. No one informed us that Mr. Bliss should not have been soliciting money for this organization. Dave Bliss was aware of my longtime commitment to support youth athletics, and I feel that I was taken advantage of. We work hard to make sure our contributions in the community are done the right way."

In June 2003, Bliss also targeted members of the Sixth Man Club, the school's basketball booster organization, for donations. Between April and July 2003, at least 15 boosters gave Bliss checks made out to the Houston Superstars in amounts from $2,000 to $5,000.

Wes Bailey, another member of the school's board of regents, said that in the spring of 2003, Bliss asked him and his father to make a $1,500 contribution to the Houston Superstars in lieu of a contribution to the Sixth Man Club.

"Later I learned that under NCAA rules, the coach should not have been asking for money for this group although the contribution itself was legal by IRS standards," Bailey said in a statement issued through the school. "Of course, I detest the fact that our family was unknowingly used, and I am committed to my work as a regent to make sure the athletics department operates ethically and honestly."

In all, the NCAA found that Bliss solicited at least $87,000 from 17 boosters and two regents for the Houston Superstars foundation, according to NCAA documents. Bliss, who requested donations both individually and during meetings attended by several boosters, delivered the money to the director of the Houston Superstars himself.

Houston Superstars President John Eurey said Thursday that Bliss did nothing wrong in helping his program.

"All the money that they donated went to the travel to help those kids go to college," Eurey said. "That's it. I have nothing to say to those people, the [NCAA] investigators, because there was nothing illegal on my part. I took the donations. They want to donate? Fine. If people want to donate to the United Way, nobody questions that. But when it's a program, and basketball players are involved, people say it's illegal. It's a donation. I didn't profit from it. I gave it to the kids. They ate first-class, they traveled first-class. They went to every tournament in the country. We paid for gyms, we paid for programs."

Between June 2002 and May 2003, Bliss also donated at least $28,600 of his own money to five AAU programs, ranging in amounts from $1,000 to $16,600, according to the NCAA report. Bliss disclosed only one $5,000 donation on Baylor's 2002-03 financial disclosure form.

One Baylor booster, in a letter to Baylor, said he made the AAU donation because he believed it would help in recruiting: "Our support would make him [Bliss] able to get recommendations from these coaches about talented players to evaluate and make the players and their families feel that Baylor and Waco were committed to the kids that might consider Baylor in the future."

The Houston Superstars recruit who made the Oct. 25 visit signed to play for Baylor on Nov. 13. He was one of four players from the Superstars program to enroll at the school.

Getting in the Game

The summer league programs are also reaping donations from agents, according to Vaccaro, court records and some of the AAU coaches interviewed for this story.

The AAU coach said at least five representatives of sports agencies have offered to make donations of similar amounts, in hopes of representing his players in professional contract negotiations.

A former employee of sports agent Dan Fegan accused Fegan in a sworn deposition of making donations to at least three summer league programs in exchange for help in landing the players as clients. In a sworn deposition that was part of a 2002 breach-of-contract lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Brian Dyke accused Fegan of making donations to Adidas-sponsored summer basketball programs in an attempt to sign some of their players.

According to court documents, Dyke testified that in 2000 he saw Fegan put more than $1,000 in a FedEx envelope that was sent to an AAU coach. When asked what Fegan told Dyke he had to do to get players, Dyke said in the deposition, "Usually it was paying money one way or another." But Dyke said he did not recall payments made directly to players; instead they were made to the players' summer league basketball programs.

Fegan's San Francisco-based law firm, King & Kelleher, did not dispute that Dyke's payments took place, but argued that "there is no evidence that the payments were illegal or improper."

The newest twist on foundation donations involves parents of top high school players creating nonprofits to solicit donations from college boosters or sports agents in exchange for a better chance to sign their son, Vaccaro said.

One prominent college coach pointed to the chair in his office where he said the mother of a recruit once sat and told him she had joined a charity foundation that accepts donations. The coach said he understood the message.

Staff writer Adam Kilgore, in Atlanta, and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.