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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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042489
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04248900.067
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1990-09-17
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SPORT, Page 78Tough MessageA verdict on agents and colleges
Officially there were only two defendants in the five-week
federal trial in Chicago. Norby Walters, 58, and Lloyd Bloom, 29,
New York City-based agents for professional athletes, were charged
with reaching into college ranks and illegally plying hot prospects
with cash, cars and other perks for signing premature, postdated
contracts. But the agents' lawyers maneuvered strenuously to shift
the indictment's focus. Their target: the system of big-time
college athletics that, with box-office and TV profits at stake,
often looks the other way when stars get improper favors and that
condones specious academic regimens to maintain those stars'
eligibility.
Last week all the accused lost. The jury found Walters and
Bloom guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud. Each faces
up to 55 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.5 million. As for
college athletics, it emerged with more of its idealistic luster
tarnished -- just what it did not need after a bruising year of
recruiting scandals and crackdowns by the National Collegiate
Athletic Association.
Players like former Iowa footballer Ronnie Harmon, now a pro
with the Buffalo Bills, told of signing surreptitiously with
Walters and Bloom and getting thousands in "loans," meanwhile
receiving college scholarship money and taking such courses as
bowling, billiards and watercolor painting. The agents used links
to organized crime to keep their clients in line. The Chicago
Bears' Maurice Douglass testified that when he tried to get out of
his contract while a senior at the University of Kentucky, Bloom
threatened to have somebody break his legs. The verdict, suggested
U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas, sent a different but equally tough
message: "I think the message is that the federal criminal laws
apply across the board to the universities, to the athletes and to
the agents who do business with them."