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SI.com college football writer Stewart Mandel shares his commentary, analysis and random tidbits on the latest developments around the country.
Oklahoma's 'Deep Throat'
At 1:30 in the morning on Jan. 30, a fan using the Internet screen name of "aggiegrant06" posted a cryptic message on the popular fan site TexAgs.com entitled "Is it legal???????" In it, he vaguely described how his girlfriend handled payroll checks at a "large dealership where we live" and "didn't recognize several of the names." He went on to say, "The checks were made out to football players of the local university, and even though they had never actually been to work there, they were receiving HUGE!!!! pay checks." Unfortunately, aggiegrant's post was met with what can best be described as belligerent skepticism. "Dude, go away," wrote one person. "You and your thread are completely stupid," wrote another. Perturbed by the reaction, he went on to specify that "The School is OU, and the specific player is Bomar." After a few more cynical comments, the post was removed by administrators less than two hours after it originated. "We're pretty conservative when it comes to rumors that show up on the site," said Brandon Jones, owner of TexAgs.com, who employs 20 volunteer "moderators" to monitor the site's 10,000 daily message-board posts. "Anytime you see an accusation like that show up on a bulletin board it almost seems too good to be true, so the natural reaction is this guy is making this up." Apparently, he wasn't. Jones said when news of Bomar's dismissal broke last Wednesday, one of his moderators said it sounded familiar. After searching and locating the deleted post, they re-published it, quickly turning "aggiegrant" into a message-board legend. Fans have written more than 1,000 replies hailing him as a hero and apologizing for the initial harsh treatment. Besides a brief, gloating post the day the news broke, aggiegrant has stayed out of the fray. Jones said he's spoken with the source but that he wishes to remain anonymous, and understandably so, for fear of repercussions in Norman. The story is just the latest example of just how powerful a role fan message boards play in college football. These sites have literally turned anyone with a screen name into a potential reporter -- albeit anonymously and with no accountability. From Peter Warrick's 1999 Dillard's spree to the 2003 Alabama coaching scandal, countless major stories have first broken on message boards. Unfortunately, they're often buried amongst other more reckless, unsubstantiated rumors. "This was the 1 in 20 that turns out to be true," said Jones. But I'm also left wondering, as I'm sure many of you are, how it is that some random Texas A&M fan could have known about Bomar's arrangement more than six months ago, yet Oklahoma officials claimed to be unaware until recently. An Oklahoma spokesman said Monday that the school couldn't comment on details of the investigation -- such as when it started and what tipped it off -- due to the NCAA's involvement. Kenny Mossman, OU's sports information director, said he was unaware of the message-board post. "If people have information like that, it'd be a lot more helpful if they came forward with it rather than burying it on a message board." No one's suggesting that OU's compliance office should have been monitoring a rival school's message board at 1:30 in the morning, but you've got to think in a town like Norman that rumors were probably out there in other forms as far back as January. As for Bomar himself, I said last week that he had to be pretty stupid to think he could get away with such a thing. In college football's Internet fishbowl, you never know who's watching you.
posted by Stewart Mandel | View comments |
Comments:Pretty crazy that this broke in January. That means he must have been doing this "job" last summer. And Stoops didn't know about it? Please.
Great story, Stewart! An issue like this just goes to show you the scrutiny that college programs and athletes face in the 21st century.
Now, more than ever, athletes and colleges must be aware that every little thing they do is being watched. There have been countless instances of message board posts describing players' activities at parties or in the classroom. For college athletes to be truly safe in the Internet era, they must assume that everyone they know is a potential poster, and they should choose their actions accordingly. The problem, however, is separating fact from fiction. For every "aggiegrant," there are hundreds of false rumors designed to cause chaos at rival schools (or sometimes even one's own university). So while message boards have become an incredible font of up-to-the-minute information, they have also created a whole new set of headaches for colleges and their student-athletes. Message Boards (of which I read and post on many) do indeed break many big stories first. But it's also true that there are far, far more untrue rumors made up and posted (some malicious).
I agree with Stewart when he says that the biggest implication here is that the lives of players and coaches are made increasingly transparent, and it's unlikely that things like the Bomar scandal will be able to be kept quiet for long. Another question is whether the girlfriend kept her job through all of this. It could prove pretty easy to figure out whom it could be. I think the comments you used off of the board were a bit one-sided. Yeah some of the guys made some rude comments... but if somebody calls you and says I got this info that Mac Brown is paying all his kids or something.... you don´t just believe it at first glance. I'd be way skeptical too. And probably call the guy an idiot
As an Auburn fan, this is the kind of thing that makes me sick. We have 20 or so athletes take a class that required them to actually do work, albeit not as much as it should have, and you can't go to a sports-related website without reading about "Auburn and their relentless skirting of the rules". Oklahoma and Bob "Whiny" Stoops have athletes, a car dealership, and undoubtedly boosters involved in a money scam where rules were blatantly broken, and I can barely find a story about it.
Yes, but they didn't have to be such jerks about it. I agree, it should be met with skepticism, but geez, these guys went over the top.
Stranger still are the reports that the OU compliance department investigated, and cleared, this car dealership in April after learning about Adrian Peterson's free "loaner" Lexus.
Who's doing the investigating for OU? Barry Switzer? Conspiracy! OU kept it under wraps and then timed it to boost their Coach's Poll Ranking!
The bottom line is, players do things that are wrong. Can you blame a coach if he has had 400 kids coming through is program and then 2 of them take money from an idiot fan? Anyone thinking Stoops knew or should have know about this simply are not being realistic. If Stoops did know about it months ago,why did he wait until right before the season started to kick him off the team.
TexAgs: We know stuff!!
-Kramer sure stuart, no sense in mentioning the other 200 crazy rumor threads started by other schools' fans on opposing teams' message baords, EVERY DAY!!! what about the one where Bomar tore his ACL while playing on a Slip n' Slide in front of the Chi-O house??? ooohhhhh that's right, IT NEVER HAPPENED!
yeah, 1 in 200 actually have some merit, but good luck finding it. You should bring back your glasses, cause they REALLY help your 20/20 hindsight. aggierant should be writing for CNNSI, and doing PrimeTime Live investigative reports. C'mon, man, give me a physical break... Didn't happen that way, because coaches votes were due in weeks before any of this officially came to light.
The reaction maybe was a little to inflamatory, but when you are surrounded by land thieves, techtards, and sips every little rumor or innuendo just seem like a provocation of sorts
Great, now the Aggies have given the Sooners yet another reason to come into College Station and kick their a$$es. That is all we needed. As far as OU's compliance department goes, nice effort you idiots! No question A. Peterson is as guilty as Bomar in this thing. "A loaner" car. Are you kidding me? How was he supposed to get financed for a Lexus? Was his dad going to pay for it with his "laundered" money from his crimes?
Has anyone stopped to think that the person who "broke" this story could of just been making this up back in January just to cause a stir and then just got really lucky in the fact that it really happened? I know it's far fetched, but it could happen. People make up crazier stories then that hoping that it actually happens and in this case it actually did. Stoops is a man of incredible integrity and I believe him 100% when he says that he didn't know about it.
HERO? No way! If an Auburn fan found out that Brody Croyle was getting paid by a car dealer and all he did was post it on a message board at 1 in the morning, he would be run out of the state, not congratulated 7 months later for being RIGHT but doing NOTHING about it! Come on Aggies, tell me the FANS haven't slipped into mediocrity like the program!
Not to be a skeptic, but has anyone verified the legitimacy of this "found" message thread?
Not to say they would, but it would be possible to spoof the entire thread and act like it was republished. I despise the Sooner as much as any man, but I also do web for a living and know that it can't always be trusted. Here's to CNNSI getting an interview with the girlfriend! But I'm also left wondering, as I'm sure many of you are, how it is that some random Texas A&M fan could have known about Bomar's arrangement more than six months ago, yet Oklahoma officials claimed to be unaware until recently.
Gee Stewart. Do you think maybe it might be because his girl was handing out the checks and told him about it? In a related Big 12 story, as an Iowa State grad, I recall seeing the now infamous photos of coach Larry Eustachy on a random message board MONTHS before they appeared in the Des Moines Register, which broke the story wide open.
At the time it seemed humorous, little did we know it would lead to the dismissal of a coach. I know spoetswriters are saying this is NOT like the past days of "proud to be a bootlegger's boy" Switzer, but OU's basketball team is on probation & now their football team shold be as well. If the story was around 5 months ago, then OU's athletic department was probably doing damage control. This is the same auto firm that OU's star runing back did a test drive of a used Lexus for 5-6 weeks and the compliance team didn't check this out -- someone is looking the other way or is incompetent.
You ask why no one knew about it? Most college coaches don't want to know about it. In some colleges, like the one I graduated from, the coaches parking lot is separate from the one where the athletes park. Why? Because they don't want to know why certain kids, who they know are coming out of poor households, can afford to drive brand new expensive cars! Come on, I don't even have to post where I am from, because I am sure something like this happens at every major college program. Coaches preach to their kids to do the right thing, and they want them to. But if they find out, they have a choice to make, either bust the kid and potentially lose games because of it, or risk huge NCAA violations because they knew and did nothing. It is all a matter of plausable deniability. Does anyone really doubt that? From every indication, Bob Stoops runs a quality program and his players play hard and with integrity. (An outsiders oppinion I'll admit...) But if this is going on there, imagine what is going on in other schools not so strict...
Message boards are perfect places to get information because they are not censored by Media corporations that won't risk offending rich programs and conferences. The best are those are not censored by any school or league. On my favorite board, we have decided that the Big 12 desperatley needs divisional realignmnet and the ACC also needs realignment. The Power Brokers do not want any discussion of the poorly balanced divisions, for that would show their poor decisions, but we fans know and talk. Perhaps someday they will listen to us on those matters too. Stewart Mandel could help that by raising the issue. By the way, for ACC I greatly prefer divisions of FSU, Miami, UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake - and BC, Maryland, UVA, Va Tech, Clemson, Ga Tech. For the Big 12, I prefer swapping the two Oklahoma schools with the two Kansas schools.
AggieGrant was not lucky on this one. He named the players and now a walk-on has left OU's team. The next shoe to fall will be Peterson's car deal.
any chance to bash another school, you clowns jump at the chance! why is it nobody is making a big deal about miami players shooting each other, florida state players robbing each other blind, usc player juicing up like crazy! yeah bomar and quinn broke the rules, but at least stoops kicked them off the team! what did coker do, or bobby bowden, or media darling pete carroll do when reggie bush's family was living for free in a 750k house owned by a sports agent, so before you holier than thou jerks feel like bashing another school, take a look in your own backyard before shooting off your pie-holes!
i was hoping that this story about bomar was not true cause i dont want 2 hear any excuses from ou fans when texas puts the beat down on ou again.
Why didn't they send a letter to the NCAA? Or maybe to the Big 12 and OU? Then the school would have been forced to act, and could not say it didn't know. There is so much crap on message boards that most people don't bother to read them anyway.
Man, it looks like Oklahoma belongs in the SEC.
To the person who raised the question -- and a valid one at that -- the owner of TexAgs.com verified that the date on the post is legitimate.
i don't know that i would say that bomar is stupid to think he could get away with this....there is a culture of "things for free" (especially at major colleges)...i live in austin and have heard a few to many stories to believe otherwise
Does anyone think it's oddly coincidental that this was posted on a Texas A&M board in January, and now Texas A&M-Commerce is now interested in Bomar? Perhaps there's a conspiracy afoot!
There are a lot of us out here that know of athletes receiving extra "benefits". If we all told, the NCAA would really be overworked. Then maybe Small-time State could make it to a big time bowl game.
There is an "easy" way to stop this kind of under-the-table payment to college players: pay them their true market value. If car dealers are paying players, that probably means that they think that the players are worth at least that much to the school. If the coaches and administrators are turning a blind eye, they probably agree.
I hope what's not lost in all of this is that Bob Stoops and Oklahoma do deserve credit for doing the right thing here. While their actions are more a product of the media attention than altruism, fans are quick to jump on institutions for allowing athletes to do whatever they want (remember Marcus Vick?) and we should be equally quick to acknowledge the alternative.
www.the323.blogspot.com When will someone do some digging on Peterson's Lexus deal? I mean, come one, a Lexus!
That is what college football has become. Surprised?
Does this shock anyone?
College Football and its relationship to its boosters is a strange one and I, for one, don't see how any coach or AD ever knows what's going on or what's considered legal or not. For example: What if your biggest booster owns a major league baseball team? What if that booster gives a million dollar baseball contract to a marginal prospect who also happens to be the best running back (and leading airhead) in college football? Perfectly legal. Perfectly ethical? Don't be too quick to judge, 'Horns. Makes a few weeks driving a used Lexus look pretty tame.
For those who claim that the post is a hoax, let me point out that we on TexAgs.com are a very savvy bunch and with over 10,000 people on the site, somebody faking our posts would be caught.
I remember this post myself, although I had forgotten that it was about Bomar. Stoops did the only thing he could to try to save his own skin and the program. He knows how that program operates and will do anything to keep the NCAA out of their business, especially with two other OU sports under probation and the NCAA tossing out words like "Lack of Institutional Control"
I hate to agree with a sooner fan -- but the media jumped all over OU for this issue and has let USC get away with a whole host of issues. We're talking unpaid rent, living in mansions, steroids -- I mean come on! There is more going at USC than any other school and yet all we get is an occasional news bit and it then goes away.
But either way..OU's problem is that it is about the program itself and not just one or two players. It seems fishy that nobody knew this was going on except some Aggie. And something I've learned in all my years -- aggies rarely know something before most everybody else does. I understand why those other message boarders were skeptical. I am sick of message boards being used by idiots who have no better use of their time than to make up rediculous rumors. Every other day on a Gamecocks message board there is some anonymous post (by a Clemson fan no doubt) linking Steve Spurrier to almost every head coaching job in the country from UCLA to LSU. Some people need to get a life.
Listen, I am not defending Bomar or the Sooners, but the post says "never worked there" "HUGE" payments. Neither of these statments are true. Bomar did work, but overstated hours...ESPN has now reported the over payments were in the 2-6K range--hardly huge....kudos to the aggie, but I am not giving him much credit for accurancy.
This isn't surprising. It's akin to chatter that intelliegence agencies have to sift through. Much of it is crap but buried beneath is a possible nugget. However, in light of the passion that governs message boards, most of what's written is false.
I do echo the sentiments of a few that have previously commented and also many in the coaching profession who question your methods Stew. You are slow, if not downright unwilling, to criticize USC but are quick to pull the trigger on other major programs. Oklahoma deserves the media scrutiny because they have a long history of scandalous conduct; it doesn't, howver, preclude you from writing about other schools that dance along the edge...like USC, FSU, Miami or - gasp - Notre Dame. Watch a major story break out of South Bend this year. It's coming and when it does it'll be fun watching all of the sportswriters like yourself defending that program. Oh-and since you have comment moderation enabled-we're fairly certain you'll dump this comment which is why we are going to submit it to 4 seperate blogs. Salut Stewy! Texas A&M and Texas A&M - Commerce have virtually nothing to do with each other. I know that seems odd but it has to do with the way the state gives out money for higher education - you need to be in a system so teh Commerce school is in the A&M system. but there is basically no connection between the schools
The fact that Stoops threw this kid under the bus at his press conference is worse than the offense. Claiming he knew nothing about what these kids do outside of the football field and stating that these two kids are grown men and make their own choices is ludacris. Do you think that's the way he said it when he sat on the Bomar family couch during the recruiting process and convinced them to send their child to Norman. I doubt it. He and his staff need to be held as accountable as the two players themselves.
cripes, stuart, did the guy at texags.com also post a time and date of the other 199, FALSE and malicious, "rumor" threads about OU that have been started on their website???
cmon man, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while, but you dont see CNN.com writing headlines like "Monkey Types 6 Letter Word on Computer". why? because after THOUSANDS of attempts, eventually, the monkey will make a word. fess up, these types of rumor threads are usually found to be accurate less than 1% of the time. so what's the point of the article? someone found one that was true. is that really any kind of an accomplishment? really? get real... When you start to stack up all the latest "incidences" at OU.
1. Basketball program-NCAA violations and probation 2. Adrian Peterson's test drive. 3. Adrian Peterson's dad gets a job at the same car dealership that Bomar worked at. 4. Fraud- Bomar and Quinn, dismissed from team Does this sound like a school that has a handle on its alumni and boosters? Perhaps a "SMU DEATH PENALTY" is in order. Cheating in college athletics is the same as white collar crime. Come on NCAA, do your job!! Wow, there sure are a lot of negative comments about OU's program here. It just proves how jealous many other schools are. I'm proud of coach Stoops. It took courage to dismiss Bomar, when he didn't have to-- since it probably cost them a national championship. I think most other coaches in the same situation would have only suspended their player, as coach Carroll did. I think OU will feast on Texas this year, and could surprise everyone still yet.
Bomar got what he deserved -- and much more than he would have gotten at many schools (Ohio State?). The Sooners will regroup without him, and be a power.
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The Book
 Stewart Mandel's first book, Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy that Reign Over College Football, is available now. Click here to order your discounted copy.
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