When I first heard USC’s response that it didn’t know anything about allegations that former basketball star O.J. Mayo had received gifts from a local sports agency and that there was no wrongdoing in its recruiting of Mayo, my initial response was, “who do they think they’re kidding?”
First off, here is a university that has produced some of the world's best and brightest in academics and sports, and is located in the media capital of the world. To say it didn’t know anything about one of its most prized recruits in years receiving tons of money and gifts from a shady individual working for a sports agency is just ludicrous!
ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” on May 11 had Louis Johnson, a former sportswriter for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, produced a paper trail of receipts and other documents linking Mayo to Rodney Guillory, a “runner” for BDA Sports Management.
Johnson told ESPN that Mayo has received as much as $30,000 in cash and gifts even before he unrolled at USC while playing high school basketball in Ohio and West Virginia.
During his brief stay with the Trojans, where he was named first team All-Pac-10, the gifts kept on coming for Mayo. Some included clothes, airline tickets and meals for family and friends, and a flat screen television in his dorm room (who misses that?).
Reports say that USC allegedly knew of Guillory’s fine work when he provided airfare for another Trojan recruit, Jeff Trepagnier, back in 2000 for another sports agency.
In the May 13, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times, former Compton High and Fresno State star player Tito Maddox told the Times that he and his family received $30,000, a car, an SUV and airline tickets arranged by Guillory from a Las Vegas-based agency.
The Fresno State basketball program was put on a self-imposed two-year probation and lost two scholarships in 2002 after Maddox confessed to the Fresno Bee that he received the illegal gifts, according to the Times.
But USC knew nothing about this in its pursuit of Mayo and that Guillory was on the up and up?
USC went out of its way to land the highly recruited Mayo and let Guillory do all the work of bringing him in, believing Mayo’s claim that he would lead them to the promised land of an NCAA title. Guillory practically handed USC Mayo on a silver platter.
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