Brian Bowen Sr. fought back tears in a Manhattan courthouse on Thursday when prosecutors asked him a question they already knew the answer to: “Is (your son) presently in college? Why isn’t he in college?”
Brian Bowen’s FBI scandal shows the many ways a college basketball recruit can get paid
The NCAA’s antiqued rules made Bowen a villain for allegedly doing what everyone else around him was also trying to accomplish: making money.
Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
Brian Bowen II isn’t in college anymore, of course. He’s pictured above in a Sydney Kings jersey, the Australian team that signed him to a pro contract over the summer after it became apparent his NCAA eligibility was in shambles.
Bowen is perhaps the most central figure in the FBI’s wide-ranging scandal into corruption throughout college basketball. He was a McDonald’s All-American and a five-star prospect who remained unsigned well past the typical recruiting period until Louisville essentially came out of nowhere to land his commitment. At the time, then-Louisville coach Rick Pitino summed it up like this:
“We got lucky on this one,” Pitino told Terry Meiners of News Radio 840. “I had an AAU director call me and ask me if I’d be interested in a player (Bowen). I saw him against another great player from Indiana. I said ‘Yeah, I’d be really interested.’ They had to come in unofficially, pay for their hotel, pay for their meals. We spent zero dollars recruiting a five-star athlete who I loved when I saw him play. In my 40 years of coaching this is the luckiest I’ve been.”
We know that isn’t exactly what happened. Bowen allegedly received $100K to attend Louisville through a connection at Adidas. Louisville is a flagship Adidas school and it didn’t want one of its top players at a Nike school. To hear the Adidas executives on trial this week tell it, the payment was made for no other reason other than to “level the playing field.”
The elder Bowen made a deal with prosecutors for his testimony this week in the trial against former Adidas executive Jim Gatto, consultant Merl Code and “runner” Christian Dawkins. The prosecution is trying to prove that the universities involved in the scandal were “defrauded” — that they worked hard to play within NCAA rules and a few rogue individuals went against their wishes by laundering money to athletes.
Regardless of if the prosecution can prove that universities were actually defrauded, the trial is already providing a ton of juicy details into how college basketball recruits can profit off their talent within the NCAA’s deranged and antiqued system of “amateurism.”
Bowen showed that his son didn’t just get money from Louisville. He was getting money everywhere.
Lots of schools were willing to drop a bag for Brian Bowen II
- $50,000 from Arizona
- $150,000 cash, $8,000 for a car and additional money to buy a house from Oklahoma State
- “help with housing” from Texas
- $100,000 and a “good job” from Creighton
That isn’t even counting the “astronomical offer” Bowen allegedly was going to receive from Oregon, a flagship Nike school, according to the defense. Bowen Sr. said he “didn’t recall” an offer from Oregon.
Bowen wasn’t just getting money from colleges
He was also getting money to play high school basketball, both at the prep level and on the grassroots circuit, according to Bowen Sr.
- $2,000 per month to attend La Lumiere, prep school in LaPorte, Indiana
- $25,000 to play for the Michigan Mustangs grassroots program on the Adidas circuit
- $5,000-$8,000 from Nike Meanstreets, the grassroots program Bowen joined going into his senior year
- $18,000 offer from Spiece, another Nike grassroots program, which Bowen Sr. rejected
- $6,000 for “consulting fees” from Adidas for work Bowen Sr. said he never did
Louisville wasn’t a renegade program for offering Bowen money. Everyone was offering Bowen money at each step of his recruitment.
This shows how outdated the NCAA’s amatuerism rules really are
The story of Brian Bowen isn’t an exception, it’s the rule for players of his caliber who are looking to profit off their talents. A lot of people are making money off Bowen and players like him. The family just wanted a piece of the pie the NCAA doesn’t allow them to have.
- The coach at La Lumiere who was giving Bowen $2,000 per month? He got hired at DePaul, in part because he was expected to recruit Bowen.
- Grassroots programs like the ones on the Nike and Adidas circuits that were offering Bowen money are flushed with cash by shoe companies so they can get elite players like Bowen.
- Shoe companies profit off players like Bowen when they organically show off their brand on social media.
- Louisville would have profited off Bowen too, if he was eligible.
What’s really wild? Bowen was a good player, but not a no-brainer one-and-done talent like Deandre Ayton, Mohamed Bamba, Wendell Carter or the other top prospects in his recruiting class.
The Bowen family was cashing in at every step of his recruitment. This is the uncomfortable reality of a system that continues to enforce amateurism.
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