At Arizona, Truth Without the Consequences

Yes, he told prosecutors, he was a part of a machine that ensured that college players and their families got some cash. Yes, that violated N.C.A.A. regulations, and so what? As a young player’s career blossoms, particularly those from poor and working-class homes, many hands are extended. “Me, personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with paying players,” Dawkins said on the witness stand. “They are the only people in college basketball who can’t get paid.”

What, I asked him in this hotel lobby, did he make of Miller’s continued insistence that the Arizona program was clean?

Dawkins smiled faintly. He and Miller have spoken many times about many prospects. He did not hold a grudge; he just would appreciate reciprocal honesty.

“The assistant coach and I got in trouble; that’s fine,” Dawkins told me. “Miller did not get in trouble. That’s also fine, and I’m not mad.

“Now use your position to make change,” he continued. “If Miller and Coach Krzyzewski and John Calipari and all those dudes who make $5 million per year used their power to say to the N.C.A.A., ‘Hey, listen, tomorrow we’re changing and paying players’, it would change the game.”

He shrugged at the absurdity of wealthy coaches who pretended to be shocked that their assistant coaches were paying money to acquire young talent.

“Don’t double down on a false narrative about college basketball,” he said. “Be honest.”

Dawkins had to split. He has reinvented himself as a music agent, representing young artists on a record label. He had a business to build. He is appealing his conviction and hopes to overturn his sentence of a year and a day in prison.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/sports/ncaabasketball/arizona-sean-miller.html