For those of you struggling with the concept of how college sports would actually go about valuing student-athletes’ compensation, you can relax now.
A 2017 phone conversation intercepted by the FBI between LSU coach Will Wade and basketball middleman Christian Dawkins features Wade speaking freely about a “strong-ass offer” he made in the recruitment of a prospect, Yahoo Sports has learned.
On part of the call, Wade expresses frustration that a third party affiliated with the recruitment had yet to accept Wade’s “offer.” Instead, a verbal commitment to LSU was being delayed because Wade theorized he hadn’t given the third party a big “enough piece of the pie in the deal” and instead “tilted” the offer toward the player and his mother.
… “Dude,” Wade continued to Dawkins, referring to the third party involved in the recruitment, “I went to him with a [expletive] strong-ass offer about a month ago. [Expletive] strong.
“The problem was, I know why he didn’t take it now, it was [expletive] tilted toward the family a little bit,” Wade continued. “It was tilted toward taking care of the mom, taking care of the kid. Like it was tilted towards that. Now I know for a fact he didn’t explain everything to the mom. I know now, he didn’t get enough of the piece of the pie in the deal.”
Dawkins responded by saying, “Hmmmm.”
“It was a [expletive] hell of a [expletive] offer,” Wade continued. “Hell of an offer.”
“OK,” Dawkins said.
“Especially for a kid who is going to be a two- or three-year kid,” Wade said.
Evidently they came to some sort of meeting of the minds, because the kid’s playing for Wade, whose team, by the way, is about to clinch an SEC regular season title, this season. Shockingly, LSU fans aren’t turned off by Wade’s tactics. Economics, for the win!
Get The Picture 
Well, Senator, LSU fans aren’t scared because they know Wade was not offering any impermissible benefits. The strong assed offer was tuition, room, board and books and an opportunity to get an elite LSU education and the strong assed offer to the Mom was to give her a men’s basketball scholarship, too, so she could matriculate at the Harvard of the Pelican State.
The regret about not including the third party was regret that he didn’t use a third men’s basketball scholarship for him or her. All legal!!!
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Rumor is LSU is creating an over-30 strong-assed women’s track team.
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Wade’s big on the F-Bomb ain’t he? Must be from Jersey.
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I can’t help but think that the Federal Bureau of Investigation probably has better things that it could be doing with its time.
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Mark Emmert disagrees with you. 😉
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Well, I’m not mad either. The kid probably got paid in the end, and we could perhaps be in a glass house.
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The article didn’t mention it, but I sure hope that this was part of a larger investigation. Otherwise, why exactly was the FBI tapping the phone?
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FBI wasn’t tapping Wade’s phone. It was tapping the rep’s phone.
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LSU is not a college basketball revenue-generating blue-blood, which means they’re about to get hammered.
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The “C” in PMAC is about to stand for “crater”.
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I’m certain the Louisiana fans will handle this news with the utmost amount of sportsmanship and maturity.
Like the Saints’ loss.
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