Former NFL Agent Confesses Industry Sins to Sports Illustrated

Luchs personally paid Ryan Leaf hundreds of dollars per month during his junior and senior seasons at Washington State. (Leaf denies he was paid)

"At the hotel, Ryan made it clear that he had significant credit card debt, something like $5,000, and needed help. I knew that if I just paid off his debt, he would forget about me and have no reason to develop a relationship. “But I want to help,” I said. “How much do you think you would need each month to make your life easier?” He said he needed around $500 a month, which wasn’t much to pay for a player with Ryan’s potential earnings. In the bathroom of that hotel, he signed an undated representation contract and a loan agreement for the money. Soon afterward, Doc and I began paying him monthly with money orders, ranging from $300 to $700."

Luchs worked directly with Gary Wichard, now being investigated as part of the North Carolina scandal. He confirms speculation that former assistant coach John Blake served as a runner for Wichard.

"When I was with Gary, John worked hand in hand with us, and Gary called him his “partner.” John was the defensive line coach of the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowls XXVIII and XXX, and the head coach at Oklahoma from ’96 through ’98. He was one of the best recruiters I’d ever seen. He was just electric, and I leveraged him to get clients whenever I could. In ’02 two of the biggest clients we got were due, in large part, to John."

Luchs also alleges that Wichard used his close relationship with Mel Kiper to help land recruits, including having Kiper call in during the pitch session. He cites a particular instance with Stanford DL Willie Howard.  (Kiper denies the incident. Howard confirms it.)

"Gary also used his contacts in the media to help him recruit. In 2000, before a meeting with Stanford defensive lineman Willie Howard, Gary arranged for ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper to call. Gary and I were talking to Willie in Gary’s office when Gary’s phone rang, and he put it on speakerphone. “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 is not “a journalist” beholden to ethics standards, but that still seems a huge conflict of interest for someone whose work is to inform the public for a journalistic enterprise.

Because of the NCAA’s four-year statute of limitations, Luch’s allegations won’t affect any of the schools or players involved.  Most of these players named were modest talents who never had an NFL career.  If this was going on at the secondary and tertiary level, what were the sure-thing prospects getting.  Perhaps, we were too quick to pile on Reggie Bush.