Damn. I did not know that a Mercedes ran 64k back then. It would be interesting to see the film on Mitchell at the Rose Bowl.
As the trial of his erstwhile agents approached its second week, Harmon and his former Iowa teammate, Detroit Lions defensive back Devon Mitchell, did their part in the continued destruction of the mystique surrounding the student-athlete. They had help from testimony supplied by New England Patriots running back Robert Perryman (Michigan) and Pittsburgh Steelers defensive back Rob Woodson (Purdue).
Despite taking courses in bowling, billiards, tennis, jogging and karate -- and in football -- neither Harmon nor Mitchell came close to the 2.0 grade-point average required by the Big Ten Conference, according to testimony. Both, however, continued to play football through their senior year and into the 1986 Rose Bowl -- where Harmon fumbled four times, the most of any game in his career, in a 45-28 loss to UCLA. Despite attempts by the defense to keep the jury focused on questionable ethics in the NCAA, it was Harmon's tape recording of his meeting with the agents, Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom, that provided the week's drama. Walters, 58, and Bloom, 29, pleaded not guilty to charges of mail fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and extortion in their representation of 41 football players and two basketball players; all black, many poor.
Whether the low grades reported by Bloom's lawyer, onetime Chicago U.S. Attorney Dan K. Webb, were accurate -- Big Ten lawyer Byron Gregory told reporters they were not -- not even the defense disputed what was heard as Harmon's tape was played. Dressed in a tailored gray suit that made his athlete's shoulders look even broader, Harmon, 24, sat passively as he listened again to the spiel Walters delivered to him and his father in March 1985 in the family's Brooklyn home. With a raspy eloquence that told of his own Brooklyn roots, Walters explained his rationale for asking Harmon to sign with him nine months before NCAA rules said he could. "I know who these people are," Walters said on the tape. "I know the ones that are willing to make the deals and I know the ones who are willing to take the cash -- can you dig it? Because that's what America is all about . . . Anyplace you want to go, to the cop on the beat . . . to the guy who fixes a ticket, to the governments who give money to . . . the Lockheed companies and the Boeing companies that pay off governments to get the deals. Am I right or wrong?" Walters asked. "You're right. Everybody's doing it," Harmon's father replied. If the running back would sign on that late winter day, Walters said, "I'm willing to come up with a few thousand dollars, cash American, for Ronnie so that he has it to do with as he pleases -- to give it to the family, to take care of some mortgage payments, to live his life {and} from now until the day that he starts playing {professional} ball, I will make sure that there's a telegram out there in Iowa or wherever he is, that each first of the month he'll go there and there'll be $250 sitting there waiting for him, so that Ronnie Harmon can lead a middle-class, interesting kind of a life without having to have Dad send him $100 a month or $50 or $75." At one point, Harmon's father interrupted, saying, "A rule is a rule, it's just like that . . . They got rules." "Yeah," Walters replied. "It's just like the income tax . . . the name of the game is that we don't give them their money unless we have to." And so it went.
When Walters made the pronouncement, "This is your lucky day," however, he couldn't have known that some of Harmon's luck would come at Walters' expense. Harmon testified that he received more than $64,000 from his agents before he dumped them, a few days before he signed with the Bills in August 1986. That included a $29,000 down payment on a $64,000 Mercedes. Walters and Bloom then filed suit against Harmon. They settled for a repayment of $5,500. As the case progresses, witnesses could include several other present or former NFL players, including Ronnie Morris of the Chicago Bears and Brent Fullwood of the Green Bay Packers. Also among the witnesses who might testify is the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the former president of Notre Dame.
The prominent names mentioned in the indictment of so-called "clean" schools such as Notre Dame, Iowa, Michigan and Purdue support the apparent defense strategy. Webb and Bloom's lawyer, New York white-collar-crime specialist Robert Gold, haven't denied wrongdoing by the agents. Rather, they seem intent on proving that unethical and illegal behavior is rife among the schools of the NCAA, which represents nearly all major collegiate athletic programs. The reported illegal behavior, however, doesn't involve just mishandled funds. The defendants also are accused of threats. Perryman testified that when he turned down an offer by Bloom to sign a new contract that would conceal the earlier deal, Bloom threatened to tell all to Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler, "and the Big Ten championship could be invalid." Before the trial began, prosecutors charged that Bloom and Walters threatened athletes who tried to break their contracts by reminding them that they need legs to carry their bodies across the football field. The trial has become of interest not only to sports fans and observers of organized crime, but to those who follow Midwestern jurisprudence. It marks the first time Webb has tried a case against his former colleague and successor as U.S. attorney, Anton Valukas. Both earned reputations as aggressive prosecutors.
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