"the Fix Is On"

By Michael S. Serrill.

New Orleans Lawyer Ned Kohnke was stunned at dinner last month when his brother mentioned a rumor: a Tulane basketball player had told friends before a recent game, "The fix is on." Kohnke, a Tulane alumnus, benefactor and basketball fan, agonized for several days before contacting Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick.

So began the unraveling of a two-month-old point-shaving conspiracy, a cocaine-distribution arrangement and an unrelated but long-standing recruiting-payments scheme. Last week, to confront "the questions of moral values and academic integrity," University President Eamon Kelly announced plans to abolish Tulane's basketball program, permanently.

As an indictment filed last week tells it, the point-shaving plan was hatched on Feb. 2, the day of a game with Southern Mississippi; Tulane was favored by 10 1/2 points. Students Gary Kranz, 21, Mark Olensky, 21, and David Rothenberg, 22, all members of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, decided to see whether some of the players would agree to hold the team under the point spread. Kranz allegedly had already given cocaine to Senior Forwards Clyde Eads and Jon Johnson. When he offered them a piece of the proceeds from bets on the game, Eads and Johnson were not only interested but recruited Guards David Dominique and Bobby Thompson and Star Center John ("Hot Rod") Williams into the deal. Tulane beat Southern Mississippi by a single point. Two Saturdays later the players allegedly conspired to fix the Virginia Tech game, but the plan apparently misfired. Four days after that, they went into the tank again. Tulane, which finished the season with a mediocre 15-13 record, lost to Memphis State by eleven points, more than the four-point margin the betting line had predicted.

For their lack of effort, the five players are said to have made at least $19,500. Eads and Johnson, having helped bring the three others into the scam, proceeded to negotiate immunity from prosecution for their testimony. Those they have implicated face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The ease with which the players apparently fell to cheating may be partially explained by the climate of exploitation that has long pervaded college sports. In particular, Williams, a potential first-round pro draft pick, knows the temptations. A high school star from rural Sorrento, La., he reportedly told prosecutors that after he agreed to attend Tulane, a former assistant coach gave him a shoe box containing $10,000 in cash, and that he had received weekly envelopes from Coach Ned Fowler containing $100 stipends. Such payments, while not criminal, violate N.C.A.A. rules. Fowler and two of his assistants (who were not involved in the point shaving or any of the drug incidents) resigned last week after disclosure of the weekly payments.

The "commercialization" of college sports, Kelly said, "has eroded many of the positive values that come with athletic programs." To stanch the flow of under-the-table money to collegiate athletes, the N.C.A.A. Presidents' Commission voted last week to urge that athletic department budgets be overseen by college administrators. Easy attitudes toward drugs, betting and corner cutting to make big-time money call for hard lessons. They should reverberate beyond Tulane.

With reporting by David S. Jackson/New Orleans