Zion Williamson faces questions involving Duke; Kentucky football nabs a four-star
Monday news and notes:
Zion Williamson and Duke put in uncomfortable position
Sunday’s most interesting news revolved around the Duke basketball program and a former Blue Devil by the name of Zion Williamson.
As Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated put it, Williamson’s former marketing agent, Gina Ford, filed a “request of admissions to get him to say under oath he had accepted benefits from Duke to attend the university and thus violated NCAA rules.”
The crux of the matter is Williamson’s firing of Ford as his representative so that the New Orleans Pelicans’ rookie star could sign with Creative Artists Agency. Williamson sued Ford saying he did not have to pay money owed. Ford counter-sued, threatening Williamson with more than $200 million in potential damages. In the process, the counter-suit could cause additional damage for Duke.
McCann lays it out that Ford’s attorneys want Williamson to admit he had already broken NCAA rules by the time he arrived at Duke. Among the allegations are that Williamson knew his mother, Sharonda Simpson, and stepfather, Lee Anderson, had demanded and received economic benefits from “persons acting on behalf of Duke to influence him to attend Duke.” Also, that the same parties demanded and received economic benefits from “persons acting on behalf of Nike to influence him to attend Duke.”
There are also allegations that a similar arrangement was demanded of Adidas for Williamson to wear Adidas shoes. And that Williamson accepted benefits that were against NCAA rules between Jan. 1, 2014, and April 14, 2019.
This is not the first time Williamson’s path to Duke has been called into question. Remember, Duke announced previously it had conducted a five-month investigation into Williamson’s recruiting and found no NCAA violations.
As Pat Forde points out, Ford’s request “doesn’t make it true.” Still, it’s not exactly what Duke wanted to see on Mother’s Day.
“Is it a fishing expedition?” asks Forde. “Or do Ford and her attorneys have the goods on Williamson? Are they trying to force a settlement? We don’t know yet. But the publicly filed document is a clear escalation of stakes in this lawsuit, with the presumed intent of making Williamson increasingly uncomfortable.
“And, by extension, making people at Duke, Nike, Adidas — and the NCAA — uncomfortable.”
Of course, this could be a ploy by Ford’s attorneys to get Williamson to settle the suit without being subjected to a possibly damaging deposition or trial.
Kentucky football picks up a big commitment
If Sunday was possibly a bad day for Duke basketball, it was a good day for Kentucky football. As Josh Moore of the Herald-Leader reports, Mark Stoops received a commitment from four-star wide receiver Dekel Crowdus for the class of 2021.
Scheduled to be a senior at Frederick Douglass High School this fall, Crowdus picked UK over Oklahoma and Ohio State. Auburn, Michigan, Penn State and Tennessee also reportedly offered the ESPN Top 300 prospect.
Crowdus is the highest-ranked commitment in Stoops’ 2021 class to this point. He’s also the highest-ranked in-state receiver commitment since Henry Clay’s Aaron Boyd back in 2008.
Here is UK’s 2021 commitment list thus far:
- Dekel Crowdus, WR, Lexington, Ky.
- Chauncey Magwood, WR, Leesburg, Ga.
- Armond Scott, WR, Euclid, Ohio
- Paul Rodriguez, OT, Mason, Ohio
- Kahlil Saunders, DE, Huntsville, Ala.
- Kaiya Sheron, QB, Somerset, Ky.
- David Wohlabaugh, OT, Stow, Ohio
- La’Vell Wright, RB, Radcliff, Ky.
Analyst looks inside expectations for Kentucky basketball’s No. 1 class
College football season won’t be a ‘normal season’
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan was on CBS’s political show Face the Nation on Sunday where the talk turned to college football.
Host Margaret Brennan, a UVA grad, asked Ryan if there will be college football in 2020.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. UVA obviously has a strong athletic program on the basketball front, certainly on the football front as well. Those are also revenue streams. What do you know about the athletics season? What is the plan?
RYAN: Yeah. That’s a great question. We’re taking it day by day. Obviously, we need to have students back on grounds before football can begin. But our athletic director, Carla Williams, and our head football coach, Bronco Mendenhall, are committed first and foremost to the safety and well-being of their players, our student-athletes. And they’ll begin practice when the medical experts tell them that it’s safe to do so. Our hope, obviously, is that there’s a football season this fall. I don’t imagine it will look like normal football seasons, just like I don’t imagine even if we have all students back on grounds, it will look like a normal semester. It will not be a normal semester next fall, regardless of which path we follow.”
That follows NCAA President Mark Emmert saying on a live Twitter conversation that football cannot return without students being back on college campuses.
“College athletes are college students, and you can’t have college sports if you don’t have college (campuses) open and having students on them. You don’t want to ever put student-athletes at greater risk than the rest of the student body.”
He added, “All of the commissioners and every president that I’ve talked to is in clear agreement: If you don’t have students on campus, you don’t have student-athletes on campus.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 7:54 AM.
