Interesting reading from the past

[Green Beagle]

I stumbled over this article when I was looking up Wellston Basketball History. Thought it was interesting. Look for Bold letters.

Breaking the rules
Players come to America secretly signed to agents
By Russell Carollo and Christine Vásconez
©2001, Dayton Daily News
TALLINN, Estonia | From this remote ancient port along the Gulf of Finland, sports agent Maarten van Gent helps decide the outcome of high school basketball games in American towns such as Wellston, Ohio, and Logan, W.V.



MAARTEN VAN GENT

He does it by violating regulations that protect amateur athletics in the United States, regulations rarely enforced and frequently ignored.
"Very interested in having your athletes come to the United States," reads one e-mail from a Philadelphia high school athletic director to van Gent’s office, on one of two floors he bought atop a high-rise overlooking the Tallinn skyline.
"We really like kids who have alot of size," reads an e-mail from a high school coach in Oklahoma City.
From Estonia, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Africa, Bosnia and Yugoslavia, a sophisticated and often secret network of sports agents and middlemen are flooding American high schools and colleges with foreign athletes, most of them basketball players. Thousands of athletes have come to American schools just in the past few years.
This network, frequently using deception to conceal violations of high school and college athletic regulations, is driven by schools hungry for championships, by foreign athletes desperate to live in America, by agents and middlemen poised to make millions should a single grateful player become a star.
This network has flourished as the number of basketball players increase every year — doubling at Division I schools since 1995.
A yearlong Dayton Daily News examination, which included more than 450 interviews in 10 foreign countries and 13 states and U.S. territories, found that American schools have been used as little more than training grounds for foreign athletes and their agents. Some athletes return to professional teams in Europe, where they are represented by the same agents who brought them to American schools.
The examination found:
• Foreign sports agents, identifying themselves as coaches or shielded from athletic officials through middlemen, are secretly placing athletes in American high schools and colleges. The Dayton Daily News linked 40 such school placements directly to sports agents.
• Five players currently on college teams, including two at National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I schools, played professionally overseas before coming to the United States. Generally, former professional players are not eligible to play in high school or college.
• As many as seven players signed contracts with van Gent in Estonia before completing high school in the United States, and copies of two contracts show van Gent was guaranteed 10 percent of any income for five years. Though college athletic rules prohibit agent contracts, three players went on to teams at colleges in Ohio, Illinois and West Virginia.
• Three European players acknowledged graduating from high school in their native countries before playing high school basketball in the United States, a violation of athletic association rules in every state. One provided his diploma.
• At least 15 Bosnians playing high school basketball in Illinois signed releases for a book and movie project with an Atlanta company that also paid for them to spend two weeks in Georgia. Though such promotional agreements generally violate college guidelines, most of the players went to college teams.
• An administrator at Dayton Christian High School acknowledged putting false information on visa application forms to convince U.S. embassy officials that host parents had been arranged for the students.
• A top college and NBA prospect from Mali went to a small Alabama High School after its coach contacted an international scouting service in Europe. An NFL agent who was also an attorney for the high school basketball coach then adopted the 6-foot-8-inch player.
• The system policing amateur athletes in the United States, created decades ago, was never designed to deal with the current flood of foreign athletes into American high schools and colleges. Schools still are trusted to police themselves, even though most have no means and frequently little incentive to check the backgrounds of talented foreign athletes.
"I would say that there's a very, very serious concern that needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now," said Bob Kanaby, executive director of the federation representing high school athletic associations in all 50 states.
"Every time a youngster who is 6-foot-8 or 6-foot-5 who is a high-powered elite foreign athlete comes here for the experience of high school sports in America . . . then two (American) youngsters who perhaps have been in that program for three years and are looking forward to their senior season of participating may go to the bench or they may go off the team.
"And that displacement is wrong."
AGENT CONTRACT VIOLATES RULES
A photograph of Randar Luts and his Ohio college team still hangs on his bedroom wall in the family’s apartment, located a few miles from the multicolored rooftops, foot bridges and perfectly preserved 18th century buildings in downtown Tartu, Estonia.
In the same bedroom, in a less conspicuous place, Luts keeps another record of his basketball career: the contract he signed with van Gent on Jan. 22, 1998.
Signed months before he went to high school in Wellston, Ohio, the contract should have made Luts ineligible to play college basketball at the University of Rio Grande in Ohio or just about anywhere else in the United States.
Wellston coach Jim Derrow said that Luts had mentioned van Gent, but the school wasn't aware he was an agent.
At least six other players linked to van Gent had similar contracts, according to records and to van Gent. At least two of those remain enrolled in American universities.
American athletic rules are held in the same esteem as criminal laws by many foreign athletes, because they risk losing scholarships often worth well over $100,000 — more than many Africans and Eastern Europeans dream of earning in a lifetime.
Both the NCAA and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, which together regulate about 1,300 colleges and universities, prohibit players from having contracts with sports agents.
The NAIA, which oversees the University of Rio Grande, prohibits: "entering into an agreement of any kind . . . with any individual or group of individuals authorized to represent the athlete with a professional sports organization."
The NCAA, which has a similar prohibition, oversees Western Illinois University, where Kristjan Makke attends. He signed a similar contract with van Gent.
Both players have been benched pending inquiries initiated following phone calls from the Dayton Daily News.
The five-year contracts, written in Estonian, appoint van Gent as the "sole manager and representative" and grant him 10 percent of any income the players may get for playing professional basketball.
A couple of days after providing the contract to the Dayton Daily News, Luts, visiting his parents in Estonia at the time, called the reporter's hotel room in Tallinn. He said he had spoken to van Gent and realized that news of the contract could cause both he and van Gent problems.
"NCAA rules don't allow us to have agents," Luts said. "We didn't know the rules before we did it."
During an interview this summer at his home in Toila, a village two hours from Tallinn on the Gulf of Finland, Makke reached into a cabinet in his living room and pulled out his contract, dated March 24, 1999.
At the time, Makke was enrolled at Quincy High School in Illinois, where he played basketball.
"It (the contract) says if I'm going to play someday in Europe, he (van Gent) is going to be my agent," Makke said.
Makke averaged 3.4 points a game as a sophomore at Western Illinois University before he was benched.
"Every (European) player has an agent. I'd say about 90 percent," basketball scout Chris Koch said during the junior boys championship in Zadar, Croatia, last summer. "Agents over here will bend the rules and sign players so they can secure them later on."
A third player who came from Estonia, Georgy Osadchiy, wrote to van Gent on Oct. 27, 1998: "We still have our contract in effect, and you are still my agent," according to documents provided by van Gent. Osadchiy played at Longwood High School on Long Island, N.Y., during the 1999-2000 season.
Ardo Armpalu, who played with Luts at Wellston High School, said he saw the contracts but insisted he didn't sign. Asked if van Gent paid for his trip to the United States, he said: "I don't know exactly what he did. Maybe he paid for me. I'm not sure." According to page 77 of the NCAA manual, players are prohibited from accepting "transportation or other benefits from any person who represents any individual in the marketing of his or her athletic ability."
The 6-foot-10-inch Armpalu, who was recruited by Ohio State, Xavier and the University of Dayton, plays at Marshall University in Huntington, W.V.
Jesper Parve, who attended Logan (W.V.) High School after leaving Estonia, denied knowing anything about a contract with van Gent. But when shown a copy of a contract his teammate signed, he said: "That kind of contract. Yes, I seen one."
Asked who paid for his plane ticket to the United States, he said, "What did Ardo say?"
Van Gent acknowledged having contracts with all the players he sent to the United States, including the two who denied signing, but he claimed the contracts were not valid because the company they signed with was no longer in business. NCAA rules, however, say "regardless of its legal enforceability" a contract is a contract.
During an interview in his home last summer, Priit Silland of Tallinn said he signed a contract with van Gent in June of last year. Silland said he planned to attend high school in the United States.
"This is Maarten. He is my agent," he said.
ALREADY GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL
The contract Luts kept in his bedroom wasn’t the only problem he had with American athletic rules.
When Luts entered Wellston High School in the fall of 1998, he already was a high school graduate. A diploma from the Estonian Sport Gymnasium, signed by the headmaster and staff members, shows that he graduated from high school on June 5, 1998.
That was several weeks before he started attending classes and playing basketball at a high school in the United States.
"We told them (Wellston school officials) I already graduated," Luts said. "I guess they didn't want to know. They wanted to keep us, I guess."
Wellston’s coach Derrow said he wasn't aware Luts had graduated.
Parve, who played at Logan High School, also acknowledged graduating from high school in Estonia before coming to the United States.
Asked why he kept going to high school in Logan after completing school in Estonia, he said, "I think in the states you have 13 years of school. . . . That's what they (Logan school officials) told me."
Pressed about the issue, he changed his story.
"They (school officials) told me there is some kind of problem with that. They told me if somebody ask, there was 13 years of schools."
Former Logan coach Tim Murphy, now an assistant coach at Fairmont State College, W.V., said the school was unaware Parve had graduated from high school but acknowledged, "It's a pretty loosey-goosey situation over there with their school system." Other players from Africa and Spain acknowledged having graduated or repeating entire grades once arriving in the United States.
SCHOOLS DEAL WITH AGENTS
Van Gent stepped off his 17th-floor private patio overlooking the Tallinn skyline, passing the private gym, the tanning booth and gambling machines before descending the spiral staircase leading to rooms with windows shipped special from Belgium and wall-sized original oil paintings.
"I have players who make a million dollars a season," van Gent said, finally reaching his 16th-floor office.
American high school coaches never visit this office, but their faxes and e-mails arrive regularly.
In an Aug. 14, 1999 e-mail, Coach Donny Tuley of Capitol High School in Oklahoma City, Okla., wrote: "We’re looking for high school age players between 16-19 years of age. . . . We really like kids who have alot of size or kids with college potential."
The following year, Tuley wrote again, thanking van Gent for sending information on players and said he was interested in a 6-foot-9-inch player named Martin Viiask. He also wrote: "I also coach at a junior college but the head coach would like to look at tapes before he is interested in getting players."
Asked about the e-mails, Tuley, the 1987 Oklahoma City Coach of the Year, said, "You have me in a bind. Basically what you're trying to do is get me fired . . . I can't be truthful with you because you're writing everything down."
On May 24, 1999, Logan High School coach Murphy wrote to van Gent to let him know that several colleges were interested in Rait Keerles, the player van Gent sent to the West Virginia school.
In the fax, which used Logan High School letterhead, Murphy and another coach acknowledged receiving van Gent's fax concerning "other Estonian players" and added: "Please keep us informed."
Asked if he ever wrote to van Gent, Murphy at first said, "No."
Told the Dayton Daily News had a copy of the fax, Murphy said, "I may have. I don't remember doing it, but I'm not saying I didn't."
Murphy said he spoke to van Gent on the telephone, but he thought he was a coach, not a sports agent.
Asked if a high school coach should be dealing with van Gent for players, Murphy said: "Probably if he wrote me that letter or faxed me some stuff, probably I shouldn't have (written him back)."
On May 29, 1998, Quincy coach Loren Wallace wrote to van Gent concerning Makke.
Asked if he knew van Gent, Wallace said: "Say that again . . . Maarten van Gent?"
Told the reporter was looking at a fax he sent to van Gent, Wallace replied: "Well that was after Kristjan (Makke) was here."
The fax was dated three months before the school year began.
Wallace denied knowing about the contract or that van Gent was an agent. He ended the interview, saying he had an appointment.
On June 10, 1998, Kevin Wall of Roy Miller High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, wrote to "Whom it may concern," saying: "We are excited about the possibility of Ardo Armpalu entering our school. . . . I have enclosed some other information about the school and its basketball program."
Wall, now coaching a professional team in England, acknowledged writing to van Gent and agreeing to arrange for Armpalu to live with the father of one of his former players. But, Wall said, he was unable to get around a Texas rule requiring foreign students to come through an official exchange program.
"We couldn't pull it off," Wall said.
Other sports agents, too, are well-known to high school coaches.
The head coach at O’Hara High School in Pennsylvania, Bud Gardler, had the telephone number for Miguel Paniagua, one of Spain’s best known sports agents, at his fingertips. Paniagua helped send Javier Crespo, who later attended Bowling Green University in Ohio, to O’Hara.
"I can give you Miguel Paniagua's telephone number," Gardler said. "He was the guy that was Javier's contact over there. (Paniagua is) not an agent, but close to an agent."
Both Crespo and his father, during separate interviews in Spain, acknowledged that before Crespo entered O’Hara High School, he and Paniagua agreed that the agent would represent the 6’8" player when he returned to Spain. Crespo now plays professional basketball on the Spanish island of Mallorca, and he is currently represented by a sports agency listing Paniagua on its board of managers.
"There's all kinds of illegal recruiting going on, and when these foreign kids started coming to O'Hara, I got tossed in the whole mix that I was recruiting foreign kids," Gardler said. "Since Javier, I turned down everyone, which is probably not fair. But I just don't want to put up with the nonsense."
AGENTS CAMOUFLAGED BY MIDDLEMEN
Links between coaches and foreign players often are shielded from the public and from regulators by others: middlemen or go-betweens, people dealing directly with the players. Because these people are not officially considered agents, their proximity to high school and college players does not immediately trigger suspicion.
Dozens of middlemen bring players to high schools across the United States. The Dayton Daily News examination linked four middlemen to sports agents in the United States and overseas. The examination also found two with arrest records, two others who have had actions against their law licenses for misusing client funds and several with records of serious financial problems.
Not everyone helping talented players is motivated by money, but there are financial incentives for middlemen, referred to by some as "runners" or even "street agents."
Luciano Capicchioni, co-president of Interperformances, one of the world's largest sports agencies, said runners who deliver a player by arranging an interview with his agency get a percent of the agency's commission for the life of the contract.
For school officials and others dealing with the Estonian players, it was not van Gent who helped the players come to the United States, it was Patric Boggs. At least four of the Estonians and other foreign players lived at Boggs’ Virginia home, and high school coaches said it was Boggs who helped arrange placing the players at their schools.
Boggs has been arrested at least twice on felony charges and convicted once. In addition, he also has been a defendant in several civil cases.
In 1987, a Fayette County, Ga., grand jury indicted Boggs on four criminal counts of violation of the Georgia Securities Act and four counts of theft involving a "scheme" to sell partnerships in oil wells. Boggs was accused of lying to one prospective buyer by telling him that five oil wells had struck oil and were producing 25 to 60 barrels a day.
He was eventually convicted on one felony charge of violation of the Georgia Securities Act, fined $2,500, ordered to make $35,000 in restitution and sentenced to five years of probation.
In 1989, he was arrested by Boca Raton, Fla., police in connection with the theft of files from his former employer there, but records indicate the case was not prosecuted.
And in 1993, he was jailed in Virginia on a charge of being a fugitive from justice after he was accused of failing to make court-ordered payments in the Georgia case.
"I don’t think that has anything to do with kids coming over, and I don’t really know that we need to get into it," Boggs said during an interview.
Like Boggs, former Bosnian basketball player Spomenko Pajovic of New York has quietly sent players to schools across the United States. Pajovic helped place more than a dozen Bosnian and Yugoslavian players at high schools, junior colleges and universities, including Boban Savovic and Slobodan Ocokoljic at Ohio State.
To athletic officials investigating the backgrounds of the players, Pajovic is known as the players’ “uncle.”
Two players Pajovic placed at St. Joseph by the Sea near New York City both claimed Pajovic was their uncle.
"He (Pajovic) introduced himself as their father, but when he came here, he was the uncle," said the school’s athletic director, Bob Alegre. "He never presented any credentials that he was their true uncle."
Asked if Pajovic was really his uncle, one of the players, Milos Dumic, during an interview in Bosnia, said: "Legally? No. He (Pajovic) is saying he’s uncle to everybody, but I don’t want to say anything about that."
Mac Payne, who housed two players Pajovic sent to a community college in Garden City, Kan., recalled the curious telephone calls the man he knew as "Sammy" made to the two Bosnian players.
The two players, 7-foot-1-inch Igor Nikolic and 6-foot-9-inch Emil Mulic, played at Garden City Community College before attending Division I colleges. Nikolic got a scholarship to the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Mulic to Western Michigan University.
Payne, a member of the Garden City college’s booster club, said the two referred to the caller as a friend from New York.
"I asked on more than one occasion what he (Sammy) did," Payne recalled. "They just said ‘importer-exporter.’ I have no idea what he does for a living."
Garden City coach Jerome Cox confirmed that Pajovic placed both players at the school.
Pajovic did not respond to several telephone calls and a certified letter requesting an interview. A visit to his two-story house, located in an upscale neighborhood on Long Island, was followed by a telephone call to the reporter from Marc Cornstein, a registered NBA agent.
"We’re friends," said Cornstein, a New York State athletic commissioner and director of marketing for the New York City Sports Commission. "He (Pajovic) certainly knows a tremendous amount of basketball players. He’s helped me in certain cases."
Asked if Pajovic worked for him, Cornstein said: "It’s not that clear-cut."
Asked if he was paying Pajovic, Cornstein said: "No. I mean if we traveled . . . I might have paid for a plane ticket."
Asked what Pajovic does for a living, Cornstein said: "I assume he’s in the restaurant industry. . . . I know he was (a waiter) at Fino."
Several employees at Fino Ristorante in Manhattan confirmed that Pajovic once was a waiter there but left years ago.
"He doesn’t work at restaurants at all. He doesn’t need to," said a man identifying himself as the owner of the restaurant. "He works for a sports company."
DUELING SYSTEM
Relationships with sports agents and middlemen aren’t the only potential athletic violations many foreign players have reason to hide. A number of them have violated college rules by having played on professional teams overseas.
High school and college basketball virtually does not exist outside the United States. Instead, foreigners in their teens start their careers on club teams, many of them considered professional teams under American amateur rules.
"I was 17 when I signed a contract," Club Bosna Coach Asim Bradic said during an interview in his office in Sarajevo. "If the 17-year-old is better than the 20-year-old, I will give him the contract. A job is a job. We're paying cash, of course."
College athletic rules say that players who compete on professional teams, regardless of whether they were paid, are ineligible to play at American schools.
But the American system of blending sports with education offers an irresistible attraction to foreigners, and the risks are low that colleges will ever learn about professional experience thousands of miles away.
American athletic officials learned that 7-foot-3-inch Aleksandar Radojevic played professionally in the Yugoslavian Republic of Montenegro when the team complained to the NCAA that it had a contract with Radojevic and wanted him back. The NCAA eventually declared him ineligible to attend Ohio State, and he now plays for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.
"It seems unfair to punish Mr. Radojevic . . . when hundreds of international basketball players who have signed contracts with and accepted compensation from international club teams have played and are now playing intercollegiate basketball," Ohio State wrote in its appeal to the NCAA.
Radojevic was brought to the United States by Pajovic, the Bosnian man in New York called "uncle" by many players, and until recently was represented by Cornstein.
Ohio State’s Boban Savovic, like other players, initially claimed Pajovic was his uncle, but later admitted they weren’t related.
The Daily News examination found five other foreign players at American colleges, including two at NCAA Division I schools, who played on professional teams in Europe. Three of the five also are linked to Pajovic.
One is Predrag Savovic, brother of the player with the same last name at Ohio State. Before becoming the University of Hawaii's leading scorer with more than 17 points a game, Predrag Savovic played for a Yugoslavian team called Zorka Pharma that competed for the 1997 Korac Cup, open only to professional teams.
Savovic, now 25, played in nine games and averaged 7.9 points per game during the competition. Though he acknowledged playing for the team, Savovic claimed he wasn't even given expense money.
A second player on the same Yugoslavian professional team, Zelimir Stevanovic, now plays at the University of Pittsburgh. According to records from the International Basketball Association based in Munich, Germany, Stevanovic played in three games in the same Korac Cup tournament, averaging 3.3 points per game.
Stevanovic could not be reached for comment.
University of Pittsburgh spokesman Ken Service said the school "had assurances from several sources that there was nothing in (Stevanovic's) previous experience that would have precluded his playing" in college. Stevanovic was an occasional starter at Pittsburgh, averaging 5 points a game this year.
A third player linked to Pajovic, Danijel Milic, now at Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, played for a professional team in Slovenia, and in 1999, he competed for the Saporta Cup, open only to professional teams.
The year before, he was listed on the roster for BC Red Star, another Yugoslavian professional team, which placed second for the 1998 Korac Cup.
But Milic insisted he was not a professional and was never paid by either team. He said he's only listed on the two teams’ rosters as a junior backup.
"If they think you can play for them, they'll list you on the team, but you don't actually play," he said. "You're just there for support if somebody gets injured and they need a backup."
Gulf Coast coach Joe Pons said he got a letter from the Yugoslavian Basketball Federation assuring that Milic was "not a professional player." Pons promised to report to the junior college association if the school finds Milic played professionally.
During an interview in his Sarajevo apartment, sports agent Samir Avdic said rules are often ignored when the chance of going to college in America is at stake.
"This is a big competition, and sometimes in the competition, there are no rules," said Avdic, a former basketball star in Spain, Turkey and Bosnia. "All Bosnian guys know the NCAA rules. They are not stupid."
Avdic recalled that when he was 18 years old he got a call from a man in the United States inviting him to play basketball at Kansas State University. At the time, he said, he already was under contract with the professional team in Sarajevo, which made him ineligible to play at Kansas State, and the director of the Bosnian club team bought him the plane ticket to Kansas, another violation of NCAA rules.
"You know that's a moral dilemma," said Rasim Secerovic, the Bosnian coach who helped place more than two dozen players from the former Yugoslavia at American high schools. "From my side, we didn't violate rules. We had opportunity."
• Staff writers Doug Harris and Jim DeBrosse contributed to this report.
• Related: Click here for photos

[Binary]

WOW! I wonder if Prepster had knowledge of all this when he was writing about the history of the coach at Wellston?

[prepster]

Actually, we did know about this info as we were writing the article on Coach Derrow. As Seop staff indicated, the article was very biased versus foreign players during that era. Also all facts were presented to the NCAA and OHSAA and all participants were cleared for participation by the OHSAA. Actually, Wellston High School questioned the elgibility of their two student athletes and both were immediately cleared for unconditional year long participation. Wellston High School was very fortunate to have hosted such fine young men as those two. Both went on to very successful and productive lives. Both are married and still reside in the United States. This was definately a success story for all involved. Both ,also received their college degrees in America, and participated for 4 seasons at their respective Universities.As Seop Staff indicated we thought this information was extremely irrelavent. This is old reading and serves very little purpose.

[Ty Webb]

Actually, we did know about this info as we were writing the article on Coach Derrow. As Seop staff indicated, the article was very biased versus foreign players during that era. Also all facts were presented to the NCAA and OHSAA and all participants were cleared for participation by the OHSAA. Actually, Wellston High School questioned the elgibility of their two student athletes and both were immediately cleared for unconditional year long participation. Wellston High School was very fortunate to have hosted such fine young men as those two. Both went on to very successful and productive lives. Both are married and still reside in the United States. This was definately a success story for all involved. Both ,also received their college degrees in America, and participated for 4 seasons at their respective Universities.As Seop Staff indicated we thought this information was extremely irrelavent. This is old reading and serves very little purpose.

Was this report also put together by the Wellston Basketball managerial(support) staff? :122245 :122245 :122245

[prepster]

Yes -this Is our post. Thanks Webb for reading our info very closely. You seem to be very interested in our team. Are you a Wellston fan? Are you a high school player or just a fan?

[hawkeyepierce]

I would not say that this is irrelevant, at the least, it is a cautionary tale.

[Wellston Ironman]

TALLINN, Estonia | From this remote ancient port along the Gulf of Finland, sports agent Maarten van Gent helps decide the outcome of high school basketball games in American towns such as Wellston, Ohio, and Logan, W.V.



AGENT CONTRACT VIOLATES RULES
A photograph of Randar Luts and his Ohio college team still hangs on his bedroom wall in the family’s apartment, located a few miles from the multicolored rooftops, foot bridges and perfectly preserved 18th century buildings in downtown Tartu, Estonia.
In the same bedroom, in a less conspicuous place, Luts keeps another record of his basketball career: the contract he signed with van Gent on Jan. 22, 1998.
Signed months before he went to high school in Wellston, Ohio, the contract should have made Luts ineligible to play college basketball at the University of Rio Grande in Ohio or just about anywhere else in the United States.
Wellston coach Jim Derrow said that Luts had mentioned van Gent, but the school wasn't aware he was an agent. At least six other players linked to van Gent had similar contracts, according to records and to van Gent. At least two of those remain enrolled in American universities.

Ardo Armpalu, who played with Luts at Wellston High School, said he saw the contracts but insisted he didn't sign. Asked if van Gent paid for his trip to the United States, he said: "I don't know exactly what he did. Maybe he paid for me. I'm not sure." According to page 77 of the NCAA manual, players are prohibited from accepting "transportation or other benefits from any person who represents any individual in the marketing of his or her athletic ability."
The 6-foot-10-inch Armpalu, who was recruited by Ohio State, Xavier and the University of Dayton, plays at Marshall University in Huntington, W.V.
Jesper Parve, who attended Logan (W.V.) High School after leaving Estonia, denied knowing anything about a contract with van Gent. But when shown a copy of a contract his teammate signed, he said: "That kind of contract. Yes, I seen one."
Asked who paid for his plane ticket to the United States, he said, "What did Ardo say?"
Van Gent acknowledged having contracts with all the players he sent to the United States, including the two who denied signing, but he claimed the contracts were not valid because the company they signed with was no longer in business. NCAA rules, however, say "regardless of its legal enforceability" a contract is a contract.
During an interview in his home last summer, Priit Silland of Tallinn said he signed a contract with van Gent in June of last year. Silland said he planned to attend high school in the United States.
"This is Maarten. He is my agent," he said.


ALREADY GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL
The contract Luts kept in his bedroom wasn’t the only problem he had with American athletic rules.
When Luts entered Wellston High School in the fall of 1998, he already was a high school graduate. A diploma from the Estonian Sport Gymnasium, signed by the headmaster and staff members, shows that he graduated from high school on June 5, 1998.
That was several weeks before he started attending classes and playing basketball at a high school in the United States.
"We told them (Wellston school officials) I already graduated," Luts said. "I guess they didn't want to know. They wanted to keep us, I guess."
Wellston’s coach Derrow said he wasn't aware Luts had graduated.

• Related: Click here for photos

So this is how Jimmy built the "RUSSIAN ROCKETS".....wow. True, this is an old article, but it points out a bigger problem that apparently still exists. I have to feel bad for the teams that lost to the russian rockets those years. They played by the rules on an unlevel playing field or court as the case may be.....

[prepster]

This is really old. You are really reaching. Coach Derrow had nothing to do with their eligibility. The ohsaa an the Wellston City Schools handled all of that. All that coach Derrow did was coach the team.

[Heavy D]

This is really old. You are really reaching. Coach Derrow had nothing to do with their eligibility. The ohsaa an the Wellston City Schools handled all of that. All that coach Derrow did was coach the team.

That's all Pete Carrol did at USC too.