Digging in the dirt

The Albert Means case is hardly over and done with

Is there anything juicier than a bloody recruiting scandal? The rich cast of characters? The in-your-face allegations -- heck, some even sworn to under oath?

If you’re into it, check out the dirt still flying in Memphis over the courting of former Parade All-American defensive tackle Albert Means. You figured this mess was cleaned up months ago when the NCAA slapped a five-year probation on Alabama. But now, the kid’s high school coach, Lynn Lang, has flipped -- as they say in the legal profession -- and he’s singing to the feds and agreeable to chatting up NCAA investigators.

So it wouldn’t be out-of-character to see the NCAA revisit the Alabama case, while perhaps stopping at some other SEC outposts.

Lang entered a plea agreement this month that has him cooperating in the federal probe of other characters involved in the bidding for Means' services. That includes wealthy Alabama booster Logan Young, former Alabama assistant football coach Ivy Williams and recruiting coordinator Ronnie Cottrell, the man who oversaw seven top-five recruiting classes at Florida State.

Reached in Lansing, Mich., where he’s relocated since the Means scandal broke, Lang politely declined to discuss the case.

After Lang testifies before a grand jury sometime in the next two months, attorney Pat Brown says the ex-coach is eager to lay out the recruiting scheme to the NCAA. The gist of his pitch is expected to be that at least three schools, their coaches or boosters engaged in conversations and offers of payment -- namely Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia.

"It is something he has wanted to do because there has been a lot of misinformation out there, mainly stemming from who offered the money," Brown explains. "Our position is that while this certainly developed into a mutual thing, this initially was the coaches coming to him. Him being a naïve, unsophisticated, inner-city football coach and they were offering him money and favors. And he basically made the mistake of saying, ‘OK, I’ll do it.' "

Boy, did he.

Lang has pleaded guilty to getting $150,000 to ensure that Means signed with Alabama almost three years ago. According to Milton Kirk, Lang’s former assistant at Trezevant High, it was also arranged through Alabama coaches for another student to take the college entrance exam for Means.

Kirk also says Lang required a payment up front before even agreeing to send his star player on recruiting trips -- with representatives of Kentucky having paid $6,000, and Alabama and Georgia $4,000 each.

"It was cut and dry, you front the money or there was no visit," Kirk said. "Out of five visits [Means] was allowed, he only took three. Those were the three people that paid."

The money, in most cases, is said to have come from eager-to-please boosters in the Memphis area, long a hotbed of recruiting rumors.

Kirk says Georgia booster Bill Harper was hit up to cover the cost of a van and other expenses for a planned unofficial visit that Means and Lang never took to the Athens, Ga., campus. "[Harper] asked for his money back, [but] Coach Lang wouldn’t budge on that one," Kirk says.

Harper has previously denied violating NCAA rules.

All of this sordid mess would have remained hush-hush if Lang, as promised, split the bounty with Kirk. But when he didn’t, Kirk told his story to a Memphis newspaper and triggered investigations from the FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, NCAA and Southeastern Conference.

Well-heeled Tennessee booster Roy Adams, who has feuded with Young over the years, also helped keep the story alive with a stream of Internet message boards -- which Lang’s attorneys admit to having monitored and used in mapping strategy.

As fate would have it, Young also broke up with his girlfriend, Lisa Mallory, about this time and she has since married Arthur Kahn, a former federal prosecutor and a friend of Adams. It was Kahn who later set up a fund that raised $3,500 -- $1,000 from his liquor store -- to help Means' mother cover some of her bills.

Kahn says his wife hasn’t spoken with NCAA investigators, while declining comment on whether she’s cooperating in the federal probe.

"I would think Logan [Young] is feeling a little warmer now that Lynn Lang has flipped," Kahn managed to suggest. "But I don’t think the word of two [high school] coaches will convict anybody. So they’re going to have to get one of those Alabama coaches to flip.

"You only flip if you can be convicted. Or if you want to save yourself an awful lot of embarrassment and possible conviction."

The feeling here is we could yet see some folks carted off to prison, not to mention fresh NCAA charges.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

Comments? To e-mail Fish, click here.

 

Related information

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video