General

Former NFL Agent Alleges ESPN’s Mel Kiper Helped Recruit Clients

Oct 12, 2010, 8:24 PM UTC

On Tuesday Sports Illustrated published a story titled “Confessions of former NFL agent Josh Luchs.” In the story, former NFL agent Josh Luchs alleges to have paid multiple college players so that they would sign with him. There’s a laundry list of names thrown out there and SB Nation’s Mocking The Draft has a nice run down of it all.

One particular part of the story is troubling for ESPN’s Mel Kiper. Luchs tells a story of working with agent Gary Wichard (also involved in the UNC scandal) to recruit a defensive tackle named Willie Howard.

Luchs writes that Wichard used Kiper to help him recruit Howard, and other clients. Here’s part of the recruiting pitch involving Kiper, that Luchs claims was planned:

“Viper, how are you?” Gary said. That’s what he called Mel, Viper or Vipe. “Viper, I’m sitting here with the best defensive lineman in college football. Do you know who that is?”
“You must be with Willie Howard,” Mel said.
Gary used Mel like that all the time. In the agent business, people know Gary and Mel are close, and some people suspect that Mel ranks players more favorably if they are Gary’s clients.

Kiper admits to talking to players and giving his opinion of them but denies ever helping Wichard recruit a client.

"I would never have called Gary, but Gary and other agents often call me and ask me to speak to players," said Kiper. "Gary is my friend, but I do that all the time for many different agents. I give players my opinion of them as football players. But I would never promote Gary or any other agent to a player." As for the belief among some agents that he favors Wichard's clients, Kiper said, "My player ratings are not related to my relationship with Gary or any other agent. There are many examples of players Gary represented who I have not ranked highly."

If the allegations are true, obviously ESPN won't be happy. When contacted for a response, here's what ESPN said:

"We just learned of the story today and are looking into it."

The questions of Kiper and his relationship with Wichard aren't anything new as that issue seems to be brought up every year but nothing more than questions have ever come out of it as Kiper has consistently denied he gives Wichard clients preferential treatment.

See More: