In closing his comments on Monday about a sting targeting U.S. college basketball coaches, financial advisers and executives at one of the world's largest athletic clothiers in a massive bribery scheme, U.S. attorney Joon Kim had a message for America's student athletes.
"We hope that these charges and arrests will keep the sport [you] love clean and honest."
Kim said many outrageous things during his press conference, but this was the only one that qualified as fantastical. The U.S. college athletics system is so crooked, it would need to be unscrewed before we could begin talking about a fix. It's the last tolerated instance of indentured servitude.
Monday's allegations have a familiar sound to anyone who follows such things. The details may change from case to case, but the basics are the same.
Four assistant coaches at top NCAA Division 1 colleges stand accused of accepting cash payments in order to steer their best recruits toward a trio of businessmen who provide professional services for NBA players.
"If we take care of everybody, we control everything. You can make millions off of one kid," one of those charged, an investment adviser, was caught saying on a wiretap.
In a parallel scheme, it's alleged that officials at German shoe giant Adidas funnelled money to the families of high school players through the other defendants. The bribes were meant to convince top teenagers to sign with Adidas-branded colleges and, eventually, to become Adidas pitchmen as professionals.
This was apparently a complex criminal endeavour, involving false waybills, redirected payments and third-party conspirators who handed off the cash – as much as $150,000 (U.S.).
It sounds like a lot of money, but it's nothing compared to the potential payoff.
Fourteen years after he retired from the NBA, Michael Jordan's boutique clothing and shoe line under the Nike banner generated $2.8-billion in revenue last year.
This case was not unravelled by crack investigative work. Instead, one of the alleged conspirators was caught up in a separate criminal investigation and turned co-operator. He helped insert a pair of undercover FBI agents into the mix.
Details of the turncoat's arrest were available via Google. None of the other defendants bothered googling him. Clearly, everyone felt comfortable doing what they were doing, and spoke freely of it to many people.
But, aside from the Adidas executives, the defendants, including former NBA player Chuck Person, are small fry. None of the coaches involved had his own team, and thus any real power. The advisers were the Pilot fish of the NBA's secondary economy, rather than the whales. One of them was in it to sell custom suits.
Though none of the recruits were named in the indictment, the Internet had figured them out a few minutes after the arrests were first announced. If correct, none of these kids is anywhere close to the next Michael Jordan.
These were instead people allegedly trying to make money on the edges of a corrupt system. They're the ones who aren't smart enough or hooked in enough to shield themselves under the banner of institutional protection.
The real beneficiaries of the NCAA's inside-out economy are the head coaches, administrators, sponsors and broadcasters.
It was once widespread practice that head coaches did side deals with shoe companies. Twenty-five years ago, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski signed a $7-million endorsement contract with Nike. Coincidentally, Duke basketball switched from Adidas to Nike apparel.
Around that time, it was suggested to Sonny Vaccaro, the flamboyant Nike executive who turned shoe tie-ins into huge business, that he and others like him enjoyed undue influence in college sport.
"Influence what?" Vaccaro said. "Influence is when I make you do something you don't want to do. But if I don't do that, I'm not influencing anybody."
Read it again. It sounds even shiftier the second time around.
The practice of paying coaches directly was a bit too bold, and outlawed a few years ago. But the money still finds its way to those who have influence over young, unpaid athletes.
In 2016, either a college football coach or college men's basketball coach was the highest paid public employee in 39 of 50 American states.
The most handsomely remunerated of all of them was University of Michigan football boss Jim Harbaugh.
Harbaugh made $5-million to coach professionals in the NFL. When he left the world's most profitable sports league to become what is ostensibly a teacher in the public school system, he nearly doubled his salary.
Harbaugh is paid $9-million a year to coach a dozen contests. On a dollar-per-game basis, he makes as much as Tom Brady, and his risk of injury is limited to excessive sideline celebration.
Last year, Nike signed a $170-million apparel deal with Michigan. The line isn't straight, but it's still sensible to draw it.
College basketball and football head coaches don't need to sneak around taking money in envelopes from crooked speculators and bent executives. Their envelopes are sent through the mail and taxed by the U.S. government. They get their payoffs on the up-and-up.
The only surprising thing about Monday's indictments is that the Adidas connection – the basketball division's head of global marketing, James Gatto – allowed his name to be attached to such a trifling operation.
In a statement, Adidas reduced Gatto to a faceless drone: "Today, we became aware that federal investigators arrested an Adidas employee. We are learning more about the situation. We're unaware of any misconduct and will fully co-operate with authorities to understand more."
In other words, just slide in under the wheels while we fire up the bus.
This will all be made to go away with a lot of garment rending, a few convictions and promises to try harder.
Why would anyone expect any better? Given a system that is so basically unfair, and yet so profitable, why wouldn't everyone who isn't feeding at the main trough be snuffling around for crumbs?
The only difference here between legal and illegal is the size of the nameplate on your office door.
Cathal Kelly