In this case, while the line may have opened, or at one time gone to two, because of the heavy betting on Holy Cross, the syndicate had to lay as many as seven points, and therefore lost their bet. Sweeney goes on to sell his computer service company and make millions. A federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday convicted former Boston College basketball player Rick Kuhn and four codefendants of conspiring to manipulate the scores of Boston College games during the 1978-79 season. Im stuck. Dean Smith, basketball coach at the University of North Carolina and the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, said last night it is standard procedure for coaches to speak to team members about the possibility of point-shaving overtures and to encourage them to report any efforts to persuade them to manipulate scores. The audience gets one on one interviews with each person to see the scandal from their perspective. won by only two points and I had a lot of losing money down on this game. He jumped in the air, as if soaring for a rebound, as cheers filled the courtroom. For added effect, ESPN landed Liotta, whose character served as a narrator in Goodfellas, to narrate its film. ESPN's latest 30 for 30 film tackles the Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal. Hill gave up everybody including the players involved. Other times, they didnt deliver as promised, which caused some very dangerous and ill-tempered men to lose large sums of cash. Rick Kuhn, 25, 6'5", 225-pound former high school star at Swissvale Area High southeast of Pittsburgh from 1970 to 1973. All Kuhn had to do was ensure that the Eagles fell short of the point spread in the games that they bet on. Suspenseful music plays and the trial begins. I dont know if they recognize it, but B.C. According to the Boston Globe, Judge Henry Bramwell, who set sentencing for January 8, 1982, told the jury, "I agree with your verdict." U.S. District Judge Henry Bramwell set sentencing for Jan. 8. Of course, the damn players had a million excuses, Henry Hill wrote in Sports Illustrateds bombshell story, How I Put The Fix In, which was the magazines cover story on February 16th, 1981. now all well past their primes after serving their time, including the gangster Ray like that until he got there. Twice, in 1951 and 1961, the sport was rocked by scandal. They said they were trying like hell but they couldnt get the job done because Cobb was the key man on the team., After Boston College beat Holy Cross 89-87 in the first game between the two schools that season, Hill said in SI, Well, B.C. Convinced that Cobb was innocent after his mentee walked him through everything that had transpired, and certain that he was being used by the federal government to send more organized crime figures to prison, Alswanger began working the phones. This is important because it shows how it was a poorly run operation. Sweeney, starter and team captain, intentionally fouls himself out of the game. But he did take money. Kuhn, who ultimately served four years in prison for conspiracy and racketeering, hatched a plan with Hill associates Tony Perla, his brother Rocco Perla, and She knew the terrain in terms of what I needed to be doing, said Cobb. Class ring returned to Texas woman after missing for decades. The film goes on to show how nobody really made a lot of money from the fix. Rick Kuhn, 55, passed away peacefully on September 12, 2022, in his home in West Fargo, ND, surrounded by his family. Kuhn would be responsible for ensuring, by his play on the court, that Boston College fell short of the point spread. 197879 Boston College Eagles basketball season, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, "Key figures in the BC point shaving scandal", "James (Jimmy the Gent) Burke, Gangster, 64, of 'Wiseguy' Fame", "Kuhn Gets 10-Year Sentence In BC Point-Shaving Case", "Guilt by Wikipedia: How Joe Streater Became Falsely Attached To The Boston College Point Shaving Scandal", 1946 NFL Championship Game bribery scandal, 2009 Melbourne Football Club tanking scandal, 2012 Olympics women's doubles disqualifications, 2002 Winter Olympics figure skating scandal, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=197879_Boston_College_basketball_point-shaving_scandal&oldid=1112461833, 197879 NCAA Division I men's basketball season, College basketball controversies in the United States, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 September 2022, at 12:41. I feel like if I can change one life, like he changed mine, man, it makes everything Ive been through worthwhile., Copyright 2009-2021, All Rights Reserved | The Shadow League. The Perla brothers proposed a simple scheme: they, along with Kuhn, would select certain basketball games where the projected point spread separating Boston College from its opponent was expected to be significant. They couldnt stop him. However, as noted below, the scheme also worked in games where the Eagles were expected to lose anyway, with them shaving points so that the syndicate could bet on the other team winning by more than the point spread. Lawyers for the defendants said they will appeal the verdict. Intentional point shaving on the floor was never proven, and if Hill hadnt later confessed the scheme to prosecutors after getting busted for his other crimes, the whole ordeal might have passed without notice. Henry Hill avoided going to prison, and he went off into the sunset of the governments Witness Protection Program, said Alswanger. When I think about my journey, it brings tears to my eyes. I had a relentless type of game.. Everything Id worked so hard for was coming to fruition.. Paul Mazzei explains that there is no time to change your mind in their business. They all have different versions of the story, but regardless games are going to start being fixed. It was a path that led them to Hills underworld higher-up, Jimmy Burke (the Robert DeNiro character in Goodfellas). The February 6 game against St. John's was a "push" (winning back exact bets), as the syndicate neither won nor lost when St. John's prevailed 8576, the exact point spread (nine) the bookmakers had offered.[i]. Visser became the NFLs first female beat writer in 1976, when she was assigned by the paper to cover the New England Patriots. But Kuhn was a player of limited ability, so he recruited his roommate and best friend, who also happened to be the most important player on the floor, the teams senior point guard, Jim Sweeney. No source was given for this claim, with Streater's last appearance for the team occurring in the 197778 season, but this claim remained for more than five years, resulting in a number of media sites including Bleacher Report, ESPN and Yahoo News erroneously naming him as a point-shaver.[5]. The Nets coaches were telling me, Coach, hes gonna be a great pro., I had a great camp with the Nets and was poised to make the team, said Cobb. On August 12, 2008, an anonymous user edited the Wikipedia article on the scandal, naming former player Joe Streater as an accomplice in the point-shaving, recruited by Kuhn alongside Sweeney. This scandal did not end with the regular basketball season, it continued to affect and alter these players and gangsters lives for years after. Sweeney has mostly shunned requests for interviews and book projects over the years, but decided to put his trust in documentary filmmaker Joe Lavine - a fellow native of Trenton, N.J. - who directed the piece for ESPN. Cobb's trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 31 before Judge Leonard Wexler. Hes also jumping on the scandals latest publicity wave to tout Mike, the SpongeBob-like sports cartoon character whose online life includes links to the NFL Shop, NBA Store and other merchandise outlets. Id led the pro league in scoring over there and signed a very nice contract. They were aware that bookmakers generally accepted large bets on this game both because Boston College and Holy Cross were traditional rivals and because the game was being nationally televised. Kuhn's sentence was the heaviest ever imposed on a college player convicted of point shaving. He quickly thrived and was recognized as one of the leagues best players. He dreamed of walking away from Boston College at seasons end as one of the schools most revered sons before embarking on what he hoped would be an accomplished, financially rewarding career in the NBA. Convicted with Kuhn, 26, of conspiracy to commit racketeering and sport bribery and violation of the Travel Act were James Burke, 50, of New York, a reputed organized crime figure who is serving time for parole violation on a 1974 extortion conviction; Paul Mazzei, 37, of Pittsburgh, in jail on a narcotics conviction, and brothers Anthony Perla, 31, and Rocco Perla, 26, of Pittsburgh. Sometimes, B.C. They reintroduced the original strategy, which proved successful for the February 3 Fordham game when Boston College, a ten-point favorite, won by seven points. Same here, and yet when they did their list of greatest sports scandals a few weeks back (when Miami broke) they didn't have it on there the first day. Burke was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment. . Jason Avant Chief Operating Officer at ASTAR, Inc. Rocco Perla received a four-year sentence and Rick Kuhn was sentenced to a ten-year bid as well, which was later reduced to 28 months. Burkes gang had just successfully pulled off the Lufthansa airport heist at New Yorks JFK airport, where theyd stolen an estimated $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels, the largest cash robbery in America at the time. In a formal statement issued by its communications office, Boston College said the school's community "is saddened by the fact that one of our former student basketball players has been found guilty of the serious charges of which he was accused . Mazzei and Tony Perla were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. If youve seen the famous mafia flick, you probably remember Liotta making several references to his Pittsburgh connections, his main partners in a drug ring, among other things. But for many, there is a fierce bitterness that still lingers to this day. This offers a students perspective of how they never thought their team could have been fixing teams. Im going off on the basketball court, scoring like crazy, the gamblers are losing their shirts, and they start talking about, We have to have Cobb. Anybody thats ever seen me play knows that I was only stuck in one gear, and that was super-charged-turbo! Cobb was acquitted of any wrongdoing, despite Kuhn giving Cobb's girlfriend an allegedly unsolicited envelope with $1,000. While the line may have been as low as 13 at some point, the syndicate had to lay 15, and therefore lost their bet when Rhode Island won by only 13. After perhaps his greatest moment during the preseason, when he had that outstanding game against the Celtics right before the regular season tipped off, Cobb was relaxing in his hotel room when he heard a knock at the door. (Joe Dennehy/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) Save PURCHASE A LICENSE Get personalized pricing by telling us when, where, and how you want to use this asset. "Boston College's tradition in athletics rests upon the accomplishments of many thousands of men and women. Rocco comes up to me and says, Hey, sometimes I bet on games and I wanna know how you think you guys are gonna do against Stonehill and Bentley? said Cobb. Testifying for the defense, Boston College basketball Coach Tom Davis said at no point during the 1978-79 season did he notice any of his players giving anything less than a 100 percent effort. Zimmerman also asked the court to consider Kuhn's 'crime-free background' and his cooperation with federal authorities in the Cobb case. I just had to be alone, Cobb told the reporters afterwards. He sold copy machines and paved driveways for an asphalt company, which was ironically the same job his father found when hed relocated from North Carolina to Connecticut some twenty years earlier. The scheme thus ended on an unsuccessful note. Later, Mazzei hears that Kuhn is able to start fixing games. By my junior year, it was show-time, said Cobb. The government presented telephone records showing evidence of extensive communications between the conspirators during the 197879 season and records provided by Western Union and various hotels which further corroborated government testimony. The story breaks to the media and the massive investigation followed. Perla and Kuhn had gone to high school together and were good friends. They contacted a local friend, Paul Mazzei, who was known to have influence within major New York gambling circles. Today, any coach would be a goner for sure, cited at the very least for that catchall sin, lack of institutional control. Just ask former Ohio St. football coach Jim Tressel, who lost his job in 2011 thanks to a few players swapping some used cleats for free tattoos at a local parlor. The Perla brothers mobilized a betting syndicate to maximize their potential gain from the scheme. Kuhn grew up to be 6-foot-8, and signed a minor league contract with the Cincinnati Reds right after finishing high school. Loughery told me that I had the ability to play in the NBA. I never lied about that. For the conspiracy to work, the men knew they would need the cooperation of other players on the team, according to the testimony of Henry Hill, a convicted felon and the key prosecution witness. I got through it on my own, and I didnt get whacked, is how he sums it up. The conspiracy unraveled in 1980 after Hill was arrested by New York State authorities on drug trafficking charges and was subsequently implicated in the Lufthansa heist, which occurred while the point-shaving scheme was underway. In this game, UCLA was favored to win over the Eagles by a fifteen to eighteen-point spread, so the syndicate bet on them to win by a margin greater than the point spread. The Eagles managed to lose by 22 points, 10381, with the syndicate winning its bet. Several college coaches, contacted at the time that news of the investigation broke, said point shaving -- when the favored team tries to win by less than the point spread -- in basketball is almost impossible to detect and that there is no way of telling how much, if any, point shaving goes undetected. Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Boeing's sustainable flight demonstrator project won a $425 million award Wednesday from NASA, as the company aims to roll out green single-aisle airliners by the end of the decade. He said he would have done that if the sides were reversed. The Providence game was played on December 6, 1978, and Boston College was favored to win by six to seven points. I just thank God there is justice.. He recently earned his Masters Degree in Education and is currently considering pursuing a Ph.D. I feel like Ive led a remarkable life, he said. The very next day, the Nets cut me., When the F.B.I. Columbia University names Nemat Shafik as first woman president. Towards the end of the film, we see Hill and Mizzou, one of the people Hill snitched on, are meeting at a restaurant 30 years later. Hill turned state's evidence in exchange for avoiding prison and possible execution by Burke and the Lucchese family. After discussing their strategy with Kuhn and Sweeney, it was agreed that an upcoming game against Providence would be an appropriate test for their scheme. And after they put my name out there, and after I admitted to taking that $1,000, they didnt have enough evidence to prosecute me. Kuhn, who ultimately served four years in prison for conspiracy and racketeering, hatched a plan with Hill associates Tony Perla, his brother Rocco Perla, and Paul Mazzei to shave points - losing by more than the point spread or winning by less than the point spread - in several BC games between December 1978 and March 1979. Rick Kuhn was an older player who was friends with Sweeney and a tough, street smart kid with a different upbringing than Sweeney. Of course, of course I was upset, but what could I do? Thats why I got into education and coaching. Teammate Rick Kuhn, a former minor league baseball player with connections to small-time Pittsburgh mobsters, conspired with the mobsters to initiate the point-shaving At trial in 1981, the government's case consisted primarily of the testimony of Hill and three other witnesses: Sweeney and Joseph Beaulieu, both Boston College players, and Barbara Reed, a 23-year-old nurse who lived with Kuhn during the 197879 Eagles season. He told me to keep playing and working hard and that one day I might get another chance., When the story first broke in January of 1981, Cobb was in shock. He gave me every opportunity to tell my story, says Sweeney of Lavine. When he first stepped on the hallowed parquet floor at the legendary Boston Garden, where B.C. I just knew that not only was I going to make the team, but I was going to be a factor in the NBA. At one point, he said accepted $500 from Kuhn, but only to give the illusion of cooperating in the scheme. But my high school coach got his friends to take my case, pro bono. At this point in the film, we stray away from the actual point-shaving and more into the consequences and investigation after the fact. Rick Kuhn, 10 years, Rocco Perla (fixer) four years and a $30,000 fine. They mentioned the $1,000 that Rocco Perla gave my girlfriend and I told them the truth. With the focus limited to the specific players involved, BCs basketball program didnt suffer at all. Sports. Edward A. McDonald, who coincidentally had graduated from Boston College in 1968 and who had played briefly on the basketball team, prosecuted the case.[2]. He continues to be involved in sports and is in an older mens basketball league that competes around the world. But I found out that I wouldnt be allowed to leave the United States because the government was going to bring me to trial.. will air the latest installment of its acclaimed 30 For 30 series with a look back at the infamous Boston College basketball point shaving scandal from the 1978-79 season. Theyre no match for us. He told me, Well good, I plan on betting on those games and if you guys win and it turns out like that, Ill take care of you., Man, I was one of the most recognizable athletes on campus and people would come up and talk to me all the time, people I didnt know, Cobb continued. According to Hill's testimony, he met with Kuhn and cocaptain Jim Sweeney in a hotel room near Boston's Logan Airport in November of 1978 to cement the deal. It was a tragedy that he never got another chance to play in the NBA., Kevin Loughery never gave me a firm reason why the Nets were letting me go, said Cobb. I didnt know what that was all about. Web197879 Boston College Eagles men's basketball team. I was eating Rory Sparrow up, who went on to have a decent NBA career, in that camp. Joe Beaulieu, the starting center on the 1978-79 Boston College team, also testified he was approached by Kuhn to participate in the plan, but he said he rejected the proposal. For all I know, he told them I was in, that it would cost an extra $2,500 per game and he was trying to hustle the gangsters while pocketing the extra money. And yeah, I took that money. Sweeney hears Tony explain that this is the grand finale, Tony claims he never threatened him. The scheme was conceived by Rocco Perla and his brother Anthony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1978. Out of everything that happened, thats one thing that hurts me tremendously, Cobb said. The jury of eight women and four men reached its verdict after three days of deliberations and a trial that lasted five weeks. I was doing well academically and the dream of playing professional basketball was getting closer.. The headlines in Boston, and around the country, said that Cobb and fellow senior Michael Bowie, the teams two African-American stars, were the players that were implicated. Hill and Burke both were convicted of extortion in 1972 in Florida and have been prime suspects in the Dec. 11, 1978, robbery of almost $9 million from the Lufthansa Cargo Terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. It would fit with ESPN, which reports sports but also has an underlying self-deprecating humor, is basically his pitch. I thought he might have been a student, because he was young and I saw him hanging around Rick Kuhn all the time. Needing an inside man, the brothers wanted to recruit Rick Kuhn, a high school friend of Rocco who was entering his senior year at Boston College and was expected to be a key member of the 197879 Eagles team. The documentary, narrated by Ray Liotta (who portrayed Hill in the film), was set up so that the viewer needed to watch Goodfellas beforehand to understand many of the references in the story. Hill casually brings up and admits to fixing basketball games at Boston College. Bookmakers, on seeing the heavy action, moved the line as high as twelve to discourage bets on the favorite (St. John's) and attract more bets on the underdog. "He said he had a betting thing set up in a way to make money during the season so that we could be taken care of," said Reed, now a nurse in Syracuse, N.Y. Reed also testified that Kuhn threatened to kill her if she ever told of the scheme. If you missed Part I, you can read it here. But conspiring to fix college basketball games got him 20 years. The structure includes a minute-by-minute analysis, a slow-motion capture of the climax of the story, and a bolded narrative that gives the article structure. Although Cobb and Sweeney received money and were a part of the scandal, the FBI did not prosecute them in the first round and were primarily focused on getting the mobsters. They could have probably gotten away with the fix if they handled certain things better. Rick Kuhn during Boston College men's basketball's 1977-1978 season. He hugged his tearful mother before walking out into the hallway for a few moments. Sweeney was not charged. He didn't want to be bothered with these kids anymore." After he interviewed him, he fell in love with him and told me, Hes innocent. I want to be disassociated from it as well. The test run for the scheme proved unsuccessful when Boston College's team established an early lead and ultimately won the game by nineteen points. The campus was so beautiful. Hes innocent., When they indicted me, they wanted Peter Vario, the mobster, so they tried us together, said Cobb. On October 7, I walk in the bathroom, and who was in there but Peter Vario, the big-time mobster that was on trial with Ernie, said Alswanger. Rick Kuhn, James Burke, Rocco and Anthony Perla, and Paul Mazzei now face up to thirty years in prison possibly to twenty I had everything I could have possibly asked for. I didnt think anything of it. The FBI had all the evidence they needed and were going to try and swing that Jimmy Burke played a large role in the scandal in order to convict him. The conspirators chose the January 17, 1979, game against Connecticut to implement this plan. A former Boston College basketball player and four other men were charged yesterday with conspiring to fix six basketball games during the 1978-79 season by shaving points. After the investigation was completed, Cobb was not named as a defendant in the initial trial, U.S. vs Burke, which opened to a circus of media attention on October 27th, 1981. But I dont feel any bitterness toward the prosecution. Burke, through Hill, would front the money to pay the players, forwarding the money through Mazzei and the Perla brothers. With Sweeney making it out with no sentence, the mystery still remains of how involved he really was. I was relishing that moment. Sweeney, who went on a year later to win the Naismith Award as college basketballs top player under six feet tall, says he was initially recruited into the fix by Kuhn without his knowledge and that he never intentionally threw an errant pass, missed a shot or did anything else to alter a game. We also see Liotta, as Hill, trying to impress Robert DeNiro, who portrayed the mobster Jimmy Burke. The point-shaving allegations surfaced during an unrelated investigation into the 1978 theft of $5.8 million from the Lufthansa cargo terminal at New Yorks Kennedy Airport. Holy Cross wins by two causing the mobsters to lose hundreds of thousands. He traveled throughout the world, getting paid to play the game that he loved. Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A Memphis-area church is holding prayer services Wednesday for four of its members who were killed in a plane crash in Texas. The syndicate was very happy with this result, and Kuhn was given cash to distribute to the players for their efforts. Snitching is seen as one of the worst things you can do to a business partner, but to these people, it is just water under the bridge. He wasnt a trial lawyer, so he brought in his colleague, David Golub. The Globe, quoting an unnamed source in New York, said the three games in which point-shaving was alleged were a Feb.3 game against Fordham, a Feb. 6 game against St. Johns and a March 1 game in the ECAC Regional Playoffs against Connecticut. The goal for making some real money is to get the character a TV gig with ESPN, NBC Sports, or another major sports network. Enraged by their gambling loss, the Perla brothers, along with Mazzei, Burke, and Hill, decided to recruit additional Eagles players to enhance their control over the outcome of the games. Hill reportedly cleared over $100,000 ($373,400 today) and bettors higher up the line were said to have made up to $250,000 ($933,400 today). Sweeney has won several FIMBA tournaments as a player in the 50-plus division. Hill and Burke were brought into the scheme, after receiving approval from Lucchese family capo Paul Vario. Hill stated that, at the time, he and Burke were watching the game on television at Burke's home in Queens, and Burke put his foot through the television in anger at having lost $50,000 ($186,700 today). would play a few games each year, Cobb was awash with emotions. The former friends work hard to cast blame and the true conversations that went on between the mobsters and players will never be discovered. This is an important part of the documentary because it shows the respect they have for one another regardless of the past. He says that Hill once referenced his girlfriend Maura (now his wife) in one of his threats, asking Sweeney how would your honey feel if she saw your --- hanging in a bracelet? He also says that other mob clichs like references to cement shoes are not just the stuff of Hollywood. The Globe would later admit that they were wrong in reporting that Bowie was involved, after he was not implicated nor investigated by the federal government for any role in the scandal. Sweeney purposefully misses a free throw to help the fixers win even though he is the best free-throw shooter in the nation. Two Years Into A Six-Year Contract, The New York Yankees Hope For A Fully Healthy DJ LeMahieu, As Premier League Clubs Court Lindstrom, 22, He Wants To Make History For Club And Country, Paige Spiranac Expands Her Budding Social Media Empire. In the summer of 1978, Rocco Perla and his older brother Anthony, back in Pittsburgh, were the ones who initially conceived the point-shaving scheme that would later rock the college basketball world. According to Ernest Volkman, a crime journalist, Hill learned everything from Jimmy Burke and wanted to reward him with a lucrative scheme which became the BC scandal. Mizzou understands that Hill was doing what he had to do to survive. I feel like I did all that fighting after I lost my dream of playing in the NBA, and it was all in vain. [3] Kuhn was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment,[4] later reduced to 28 months. But I never agreed to fix any games or shave any points. After winning a few and losing a few, Hill and his gang came to view Cobb and Sweeney as unreliable game-fixers and eventually gave up the scam. But its one of the most famous in sports history, to which Sweeneys name will be forever linked. With Roccos high school buddy Rick Kuhn entering his senior year at Boston College, where he was expected to be a contributor to the schools basketball team, the I think you could poll a lot of people in the business and the Boston College scandal is off their radar. Overall, the real end to the Boston College point-shaving scandal is the trial, the main conflict of the film. Just by being there, Id already reached success beyond my wildest dreams. Testifying for the government, Sweeney acknowledged meeting with Hill but said that although he agreed to participate in the scheme he never intended to go through with the deal.
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