The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

by Jeff Benedict

  “You know what he should have said, ‘Hey, Bobby, you know what? I need to talk to you because I’m hearing some stuff’? He said nothing. By ’06 he should have known who I was, heard the name. He should have said, ‘Some things are bothering me. Can we talk?’ I would have said, ‘Sure, Gene, tell me what’s the problem.’ But he never did that.”

  DiGeronimo was reminded that Smith told the NCAA he spoke with DiGeronimo “at least four times” after Ohio State had been informed of what the NCAA called “supplemental violations” and that Smith told the NCAA he had hit Bobby D. “pretty hard on [cooperating], particularly the last three calls.”

  “One time,” Bobby D. said. “He asked me if I would meet with the NCAA, and I said yes. That’s it.”

  Internal Ohio State documents revealed that between at least 2002 and 2008 Independence Excavating had filled out and returned to Bob Tucker, OSU’s director of football operations, the proper forms for employing student-athletes. DiGeronimo claimed he had also returned—but not copied—the same student-athlete employee paperwork to Tucker or his assistant Larry Romanoff through 2010. (The authors of this book made a Freedom of Information Act request to Ohio State for all student-athlete employment forms for the years 2009–11. Multiple word searches of the heavily redacted records for either “Bobby DiGeronimo” or “Independence Excavating” failed to find a single mention.)

  “They won’t give [the work forms] to you,” said DiGeronimo, “because they don’t want to incriminate themselves any more, because I filled [the proper paperwork] out. They’re lying. They knew what I was doing. The point is … if I was really on their radar, wouldn’t you say, ‘Hey, Bobby, you have four or five kids working, what are they doing?’

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “The kids worked two weeks out of the year. We’d given them a hand check instead of putting them on the payroll. If it was two months, it’s a different story. When the kids say, ‘We didn’t know what we were making,’ it was true. I don’t know, you might be making $12 [an hour], might be making $15. But there is a time card being put in by the superintendent on the job, but they don’t know that. So they get a check, and most of them pay forty hours at $15 per hour or thirty-two hours at $15 per hour.”

  A request was made to the Ohio State athletic department to interview Smith about DiGeronimo and charges raised about the authenticity of Smith’s statements to the NCAA. Through a senior associate athletic director at Ohio State, Smith respectfully declined.

  Over lunch, fourteen months after Ohio State banned him from the program for ten years, DiGeronimo said he had been willing to talk with the NCAA and defend the job program to the hilt, but when investigators declined to provide even a general idea of what they wanted to talk about, he walked away. He didn’t trust them. “They were not looking for the truth so much as they were looking to nail Ohio State,” he said. “Not that I was worried about Ohio State. I was worried about those kids.

  “They don’t care,” he added, referring to the NCAA. “They have no heart. To do that to DeVier [Posey], his senior year, five [more] games. Give him one game. To do that, they have no heart and no mercy.”

  Later, back at his house, the Ohio State–Illinois game was on in the TV room. Against the backdrop of play-by-play, DiGeronimo talked about his love of sports, especially football, the physical side of the game, and how he excelled as a running back and defensive back at Independence High back in 1965. He talked about losing his older brother Don to colon cancer six years later at age thirty-four. How the other brothers—Vic, another late brother, Rich, Bobby and Tony—banded together and pursued Donnie’s vision, hitting it big with the Justice Center job in 1972 and from there were on their way.

  “I hope one day when the Lord judges me, he will say you were given a lot but you also gave a lot,” said Bobby D. “We all want heaven someday.”

  The day after receiving the letter from Ohio State disassociating him from the program, DiGeronimo wrote one back. He said he understood the consequence of his actions and that he regretted doing the Cleveland Plain Dealer interview, in which he said that without the tattoo scandal the NCAA investigation would have never happened.

  “As for myself,” he wrote, “I will always hold my head high because my heart bleeds scarlet and gray. I know that these players are not compensated for their time spent giving back to OSU … I never did one thing for personal gain.”

  For good measure he attached a Mother Teresa prayer: “Do It Anyway.” Two of the verses read as follows:

  If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

  If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

  He copied two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin, president and CEO of the alumni association, and head basketball coach Thad Matta. In response, Smith fired off a letter to Mark Tripodi, executive director and co-founder of Cornerstone. It informed DiGeronimo’s son-in-law that “until further notice, Ohio State student-athletes are prohibited from attending any activity associated” with the charity, volunteer or otherwise. Smith ended by saying he was “very disappointed that Cornerstone of Hope invited student-athletes” to attend the 2011 gala.

  Now DiGeronimo was steaming. The AD had dragged his family into the fight, his daughter’s charity, the one he helped create after the loss of his grandson. He contacted Smith’s office repeatedly, he said, but nobody returned his calls. He sent Smith a letter seething with emotion. “Cornerstone of Hope’s mission of helping grieving families is more important than sports,” it read. “They do not deserve to be subjected to your department’s sanction in a blatant attempt to appease the NCAA. I hope your family never requires the services … but their doors will remain open to you and your family regardless of sanctions or disassociations … I certainly never expected The Ohio State University to portray me as a rogue booster.”

  At this point in the game, Ohio State was running away from Illinois early in the fourth quarter. More than 105,000 fans had filled the ’Shoe. Did the booster break NCAA rules by slipping $200 in cash into the hands of four players in 2011? Absolutely. DiGeronimo said he felt “indebted” to them because they had driven three hours back and forth to help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  “I was thankful,” said Bobby D. “They didn’t ask for anything. I just did it, [to help] pay for their gas. ‘Guys, if you want to stay over tonight, if you drive back, get a meal.’ ”

  Didn’t matter. Providing players with money—no matter how noble the cause—was a blatant violation of NCAA rules. The same with adding a few extra hours a week to the paychecks of four football players during a time the program generated tens of millions of dollars in profit every year. To Bobby D., it seemed petty and uncaring.

  “That’s the way I look at it,” he said. “And Ohio State, from that point on, said, okay, we’ve got to find a villain and we got to say, hey, there’s a rogue booster here, Bobby D., and we didn’t know all the stuff that was going on, and maybe we should have, but he was a bad, bad guy.”

  For nearly fifty years Bobby DiGeronimo had made an enormous profit in the dirt—digging it out, moving it around—only to be buried in it by his once beloved university.

  “Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “But I’m looking at these guys, and they have no character; they’re phonies. If [they] want to use me as a sacrificial lamb, if that makes them feel better, I don’t really care. It’s not worth the time and effort to worry about it. Because … that’s the way the system operates … I could care less right now because of the way I was treated. If I never see that campus again, it’s not going to bother me.”

  The game ended. Ohio State had won 52–22 to improve to 10-0. DiGeronimo hardly noticed. His live-and-die days were over. Still, he felt awful about what happened to Posey. So, he said, he paid for him to travel to California to work out prior to the NFL draft and sent his mother and his girlfriend out west
as well. Posey was later picked in the third round by the Houston Texans.

  DiGeronimo Companies remained busy. It was involved in the massive Medical Mart convention center project and the construction of a bridge downtown and had recently expanded to Pittsburgh. What mattered most—faith and family and friends, his thirty-three grandchildren—was more important to Bobby D. than ever.

  Just how important would become crystal clear at the tenth annual Cornerstone of Hope gala in 2013. The NFL and Browns legend Jim Brown attended the benefit, as did Robert Smith, again serving as master of ceremonies, along with Beanie Wells, Tom Cousineau and none other than Daniel “Boom” Herron. A record-setting $625,000 was raised.

  Part II, “It’s going to be expensive”

  Every athletic director has to have a trusted confidant, someone on staff capable of handling sensitive situations that arise behind the scenes when running the most visible department on campus. In Bill Moos’s case, he turned to Mike Marlow, a gregarious fellow who spent thirteen years toiling away in the athletic department at Oregon. That’s how Moos knew him. Marlow used to work for Moos in Eugene. But Marlow was a graduate of WSU, and when Moos offered him a job at his alma mater, he didn’t hesitate.

  When Marlow arrived in Pullman in August 2010, he was given the same title he had at Oregon—senior associate athletic director—and put in charge of marketing, fund-raising, tickets and dealing with multimedia rights holders. But his most valuable asset to Moos was not listed in his job description—the keeper of secrets. At the start of the 2011 season, Moos told Marlow something strictly confidential about head football coach Paul Wulff: he had to win at least six games in the 2011 season to keep his job. “This might not work out,” Moos told Marlow.

  The make-or-break game came on October 22 against Oregon State. The Cougars entered the contest 3-3. But their record was a little misleading. Two of their wins came against lowly nonconference opponents, Idaho State and UNLV. WSU had been manhandled by San Diego State and overwhelmed by conference rivals Stanford and UCLA. The only semi-quality win up to that point had come against Colorado.

  Still, Oregon State was in even worse shape at 1-5. Playing at Seattle’s Safeco Field, WSU was heavily favored. Moos and Marlow settled into their seats in the AD’s suite high above the field. Despite the neutral site, WSU had the abundance of fans. But Oregon State’s fans had a lot more to cheer about. The Beavers ran away with the game. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Oregon State led 44–21. WSU had fallen to 3-4. Worse, the team played with no emotion.

  Angry, Moos turned to Marlow. “Let’s go.”

  It was code that Marlow understood—let’s go find a coach.

  Turnover among head coaches in college football is at an all-time high. Between 2009 and 2010, forty-four head coaches at major programs were fired—thirteen more got the ax in 2013. A cottage industry has cropped up to handle the high demand for new coaches. Most athletic departments now outsource the selection process to search firms that track which coaches are trending.

  But Moos had no intention of turning this decision over to a group of headhunters who spent their days crunching numbers on laptops. Nor was he going to assemble an internal search committee—too bureaucratic. He preferred a one-man committee consisting of himself. Ever since his days at Oregon, where head coach Mike Bellotti was constantly a candidate to jump to the NFL, Moos had maintained a short list of potential head coaches. From time to time, he’d cross off one name and add another. But he always had a list. And he kept it in his desk drawer.

  The short list to replace Paul Wulff consisted of one name: Mike Leach.

  Moos had only met Leach once. The two men talked over beers in a stadium parking lot before WSU’s annual spring game seven months earlier. Leach was there to conduct a clinic at the invitation of Wulff’s staff. Moos’s interaction with Leach that day was limited. But he’d had his eye on Leach for a long time. He was one of the top names on Moos’s short list at Oregon if Bellotti ever left.

  The problem was that Moos had no clue whether Leach had any interest in the WSU job. It wasn’t as if he could call and ask. Approaching Leach was tricky, especially in mid-season. If word got out that WSU made inquiries with a possible replacement, Wulff would instantly become a lame-duck coach, and Moos would have a controversy on his hands. The situation called for a go-between, someone with no ties to WSU who could act as Moos’s pseudo agent. Moos turned to Mike Marlow to find that person.

  Joe Giansante had served as an associate AD alongside Mike Marlow at Oregon. He’d also been a play-by-play announcer for the Oregon Sports Network. A heavyset Italian with slicked-back black hair, Giansante had the gift of gab. He could strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. A journalist by training, he also had a reputation for being a bulldog, the kind of guy who would stay up all night poring over documents to ensure he didn’t miss something.

  Marlow and Giansante were close friends, and they’d been talking for months about the prospects of luring Mike Leach to Pullman. Giansante listened to Leach’s show on Sirius Radio on a daily basis. “I was a big advocate of Mike Leach,” Giansante said. “I told Mike Marlow that Leach was the perfect fit for WSU, given their position in the Pac-12 Conference.” Immediately after the loss to Oregon State, Marlow told Giansante that the time had come to get serious about reeling in Leach. Giansante started gathering intelligence.

  A week later, on October 29, WSU played Oregon in Eugene. The day before the game, Moos and Marlow ducked into El Torito restaurant for a prearranged, private dinner with Giansante. Over Mexican food and soft drinks, Giansante shared what he had come up with so far. For starters, it looked as if WSU might be in for some tough competition. At least four other schools appeared interested in Leach: Ole Miss, Kansas, Arizona State and UCLA.

  But based on what Giansante had learned about Leach, he didn’t see Ole Miss or UCLA as a good fit. Both programs were known for expecting their coaches to do a fair amount of schmoozing with high-end boosters at cocktail parties. Leach didn’t own a suit and preferred to be alone in a film room analyzing game tape. Not a good fit.

  Kansas, on the other hand, was a real contender. Leach was best friends with the AD there, and he knew the program well from his Big 12 days at Texas Tech. Arizona State was the wild card. Giansante hadn’t gotten a good read on the situation there.

  Moos had questions about Leach’s departure from Tech. He was well aware that Leach had sued Texas Tech, ESPN and a PR firm tied to Craig James. But he wasn’t clear on the facts of the case. Giansante had obtained a copy of Leach’s wrongful termination suit against the university. He’d also read Leach’s autobiography, which gave his take on the Tech situation. “If you read Mike’s book, you’ll get an accurate account of what happened,” Giansante told Moos.

  At that point, Giansante hadn’t seen any of the depositions, talked directly to anyone involved in the matter or read Tech’s response to Leach’s legal claims. But he was pretty familiar with Leach’s style. “There is no question that when he is coaching a football team, it is not a democracy,” Giansante said. “Players don’t get a vote. There are times when players are disgruntled. That happens on any team.”

  Moos wasn’t too concerned about the lawsuits. Leach was the plaintiff in each case. It would have been much more worrisome if Leach had been the target of the suits. The bigger concern for Moos was the rumor that Leach was hard to get along with. That one had to be checked out.

  Giansante said he’d do more digging.

  Thirty minutes into the meal, Moos had heard enough. “Mike, would you excuse us for a few minutes?” he said.

  Marlow stepped outside while Moos leaned forward at the table and lowered his voice. “Joe, I’ve got to have someone that can sell me to Mike Leach’s agent.”

  Giansante nodded.

  “And you know what I did at Oregon when I was AD,” Moos continued.

  Giansante nodded again.

  “I gotta tell you this humbly,” Moos said.
“I need someone who can sell me because right now Washington State has got nothing.”

  A few minutes later the two men shook hands, agreeing that Giansante would come on board as a consultant to the athletic department and receive a onetime fee. For bookkeeping purposes, Giansante’s consultancy would entail visiting Pullman and taking a thirty-thousand-foot view of the overall operation from media rights to marketing and advertising and recommend ways that the athletic department might improve things. But Giansante knew the deal: he was there to help reel in Leach.

  The following day, Oregon beat WSU 43–28, marking the Cougars’ fourth straight loss and dropping the team to 3-5.

  Gary O’Hagan is no run-of-the-mill agent. He started IMG’s coaching practice. His first client was John Wooden. Then he signed NFL coaches Steve Mariucci and Tom Coughlin. Mike Leach was the first college coach he landed. By 2011, O’Hagan represented more college coaches than any agent in America.

  The son of a New York City detective, O’Hagan was a Wall Street trader before walking away to try his hand at negotiating multimillion-dollar deals for high-profile coaches. Smart, pushy and connected, O’Hagan knew all the players in the high-finance world of college football. He was at his home in Minnesota in the first week of November when he got a call from Joe Giansante, who introduced himself as a former associate AD at Oregon. “I’d love to talk to you about Mike Leach and his level of interest in getting back to coaching football,” Giansante began.

  O’Hagan had never heard of Giansante. He wanted his background.

  Giansante rattled off the names of a few people he had worked with over the years. O’Hagan recognized most of them. Then Giansante said he was calling on behalf of Washington State. WSU, he said, was seriously considering a change at head coach and was looking at Mike Leach.