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 Mayhem in Minnesota Report: More allegations of payments for players
Posted: Sunday March 21, 1999 04:07 PM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A former Minnesota basketball player who was kicked off the team says coach Clem Haskins gave him cash on several occasions while he was still playing. Russ Archambault, who played for Minnesota during the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons before being bounced by Haskins, told the Star Tribune that the alleged payments usually totaled $200 to $300, often in $100 bills. Archambault said he believes he received seven to nine payments. A payment said to have been made in 1997 was confirmed in part by his former tutor, Jeanne Payer, who said she drove Archambault to a Twin Cities mall to buy gifts for his mother after he received it. "He was just so surprised that Coach would do that, pull him aside and say, 'Don't tell anybody else,'" Payer said. "It struck him that that was so nice, and he must be special." The report of the cash payments, along with a new claim by Payer that she wrote more than 50 academic papers for men's basketball players, widened the scope of allegations of academic fraud against the basketball program. Nearly two weeks ago, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press reported allegations from Payer's sister, Jan Gangelhoff, a former office manager in the university's academic counseling unit. Gangelhoff said that she wrote hundreds of papers for players from 1993 to 1998, igniting an investigation into academic fraud at the university. Cash payments to athletes are serious National Collegiate Athletic Association violations -- infractions that could bring severe penalties for Haskins and the basketball program. The special work that Payer and Gangelhoff say they did also appears to violate NCAA rules, as well as rules of the university. Haskins was not available Sunday for comment on the most recent allegations. He has denied any knowledge of academic misconduct. Payer told the Star Tribune on Saturday that she collaborated with at least three former and current players on the 50 papers that she allegedly helped write. Employees of the university's academic counseling unit are required to sign university employment forms stating that they will abide by NCAA and university rules that prohibit "the researching of or typing of student reports/papers." Payer was a tutor, but said she also helped write papers. "I did a little bit of both," she said. Payer said Haskins never asked her to write papers for players. She said that she met with him only once and that the conversation involved whether she thought a player she was tutoring was capable of doing his work. However, she said she believed that the team's academic counselor Alonzo Newby knew the details of her work.
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