Advance copies of the HBO special I discussed this morning have gone out to some media members, and Brooks of SPORTSbyBrooks has spilled the beans on some of the content. Specifically, the worst of it is in the second taped segment done by Andrea Kremer.
In it, four former Auburn players claim they got paid to go to Auburn. They are Stanley McClover, Chaz Ramsey, Troy Reddick, and Raven Gray. Some of the money quotes from McClover:
McClover: "Somebody came to me, I don't even know this person and he was like, ‘we would love for you to come to LSU and he gave me a handshake and it had five hundred dollars in there. ... that's called a money handshake ... I grabbed it and I'm like, ‘wow,' hell I thought ten dollars was a lot of money back then. Five hundred dollars for doing nothing but what I was blessed to do. I was happy."
Kremer to McClover: "What did you say to the guy when he hands you five hundred dollars?"
McClover: "Thank you and I'm seriously thinking about coming to LSU."
Kremer voiceover: "But McClover says there were money handshakes from boosters at other football camps too. At Auburn for a couple hundred dollars and at Michigan State. All the schools denied any wrongdoing. And things really started heating up a few months later when he went to Ohio State for an official visit where schools get a chance for one weekend to host prospective athletes. McClover says there were money handshakes from alumni there too. About a thousand dollars. And something else to entice him."
This isn't just about Auburn, though that's where the four players ended up. They all allege that they got paid money for going there and regularly while in college. Gray's and Ramsey's claims are the most recent, and his are still within the NCAA's statute of limitations. While most of the other claims are not, they could be grouped in if the NCAA decides there was a systemic problem.
We'll have more on this as it develops.