Pardon me if O.J. Mayo isn’t the first person I jump on in the latest sports scandal at Southern California, even if he’s at the center of it. If I’m 14 years old and poor, I’m accepting money as long as I don’t have to do anything illegal. If I’m 14 years old and poor and everybody around me is making money off my athletic talent, and somebody tells me that I, too, can share in the wealth, I’m taking the money.
This discussion about what to make of Mayo receiving cash and merchandise to the tune of $30,000 or so while in high school and during his one year at USC has to address so many things, like how coach Tim Floyd and his assistants didn’t look into how a kid with no means suddenly had a flat-screen TV in his room and the latest clothes, like how USC could fail to be vigilant regarding Mayo on the heels of similar allegations about former Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush, like whether athletic director Mike Garrett and Floyd ought to lose their jobs if these allegations are true. What has happened at USC, though it doesn’t allege to involve boosters or university employees, defines the NCAA’s favorite phrase, “lack of institutional control.”
That said, the primary villains here are the scumbags who have been preying on Mayo from age 12 or 13 or whenever it became apparent he had a talent that could make him a star. They always are the villains, the hustlers in the ‘hood whispering in a kid’s ear, waving a fistful of dollars and buying not only future access but often exclusivity: “Lemme give you this car now, so in turn you’ll feel obligated to let me get close to you before the big payday down the road.”
In this case, the hustler is reported to be a Los Angeles events promoter named Rodney Guillory, who supposedly was working with agent Bill Duffy. The same Bill Duffy who now represents Mayo, who left USC after his freshman year to turn pro. What a stunner.
Mayo denies accepting any money. Duffy denies involvement. And Guillory, who reportedly received about $200,000 and a sport-utility vehicle but shared only $30,000 or so with Mayo, says he has done nothing wrong, despite a paper trail of receipts ESPN gathered in breaking the story. Problem is, the Los Angeles Times in Tuesday’s editions quoted Tito Maddox, a onetime phenom from Compton, Calif., who played at Fresno State, as saying he recognized the whole scam from the days when he was a somebody.
“Same story, same guy,” is what Maddox, now 26 years old, told the Times. “He was working for some agents, talking about what they can do for me and what I need. … He seemed like he had my best interests at heart. He’d be at my practices, he’d come over to my house. … Just being around him, spending time with him, he won my trust.”
Maddux revealed six years ago that he had violated NCAA rules by accepting goodies from Guillory (cash, plane tickets, etc.). Fresno State eventually put itself on two-year probation.
Of course, Maddox knows this now, after ruining his college career and after growing old enough and wise enough to see what Guillory and people of his ilk really are. The words “sugar daddy” come to mind. “You’ve got to watch out for snakes, the people who try to steer you toward others so they can make money,” he told the Times. “Watch the fast-talkers.”
Kids such as Mayo are very sophisticated in some ways but they don’t know or care about NCAA rules. Their mothers and grandmothers don’t know NCAA rules, and 75 percent of the time there aren’t any daddies around. Their mommas and grandmommas, in the great majority of cases, haven’t been to college. They know taking the money from hustlers isn’t illegal and there’s a long, long history of people in similar circumstances who have done it and turned out none the worse for wear.
Violating NCAA rules doesn’t equal violating the law. And it sure isn’t reason enough to turn down a TV, or some rent money, or clothes for a little brother. As Maddux explained to the Times, his mother Gloria was raising four children alone, “struggling to make ends meet.” And Guillory supposedly told him, ” ‘If you come with us, we can help your mom, brothers and sister with whatever they need,’ That’s all I cared about,” Maddux said. “I didn’t know the rules then and of course they didn’t explain it. … They wanted me to sign something … saying they’d represent me after college.”
I don’t know specifically what Guillory and other potential sugar daddies told Mayo, but I know generally. Unimportantly, the national conversation has been diverted to whether kids should be required to attend college for one year before being allowed to enter the NBA draft. I’m for two years, minimum, because it ought to be a required apprenticeship. But the one-year rule was adopted by the NBA only two years ago. Hustlers preying on phenoms has been going on for 50 years. It’s just of a higher profile in this case because Mayo is so good, and because he so famously called Floyd, a nice man and a pretty good college coach but with the backbone of licorice, and said: “Yo, Dog, I’ll be coming to play for you in the fall. And don’t worry about recruiting ‘cuz I’ll be taking care of that, too.”
From then on, Floyd and his assistants were complicit with whatever happened because they didn’t dare tell Mayo, “No.”
One year after being pointedly critical of Mayo for bumping a referee in a game and for basically telling Floyd what would be happening with his basketball team, I met Mayo last Wednesday night at a Lakers-Jazz playoff game.
He was the nicest, sweetest kid you could hope to meet. Said hello and then hugged me, even though he’d seen me call him a “punk” on television. He was polite, engaging, answered every question with “Yes, sir” or “No, sir.” He said: “I would just love for you to spend some time with me, just talking. … Could I have your card and just be able to call or talk to you? I’ve got the pre-draft camp (in Chicago) coming up, a whole new world.”
I realized instantly I was wrong for attacking Mayo the way I had. While Mayo isn’t an innocent, he’s absolutely the product of a subculture in which the ability to play basketball at an elite level is valued more than being a good father, more than formal education, more than almost anything that appears to be within his grasp. Mayo, like so many who’ve come before him, simply is doing the only thing he knows to negotiate the road before him. Why would he know any better than to call Floyd, full of presumption, and tell him, “I’m coming,” when it has been reinforced since he was 12 years old that talent rules the day and when the coach is too spineless to tell him who’s in charge?
I hope Mayo calls me because very clearly he’s worth the time and effort and because I damn sure make enough money not to want to siphon off any of his, the way so many others have and will want to, especially the closer he gets to the NBA draft and the top 10 money he’s sure to get. And I wish for some kind of intervention that would keep the hustlers away from phenoms such as Mayo and Maddux. And I also know, realistically, that in America’s big urban centers, where basketball matters like little else, wherever there’s a kid with a nice crossover and sweet jumper, a hustler is sure to follow.
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