Indiana Booster Is Chairman of Company Publishing Book on Louisville Escort Allegations

The allegations that an ex-Louisville assistant purchased escorts for basketball players and recruits broke late on a football season Friday, and there haven’t been any implications that Rick Pitino was aware. Consequently, the story hasn’t really hit a fever pitch of interest nationally, at least not yet. Whether it does or doesn’t remains to be seen, but there’s a new wrinkle that Louisville initially found out about all this in August via the Indiana athletic department.

As emails published by the Indianapolis Star indicate, Indiana alum Michael Maurer (the namesake of IU’s law school), asked his alma mater’s deputy athletic director Scott Dolson to put him in touch with Dolson’s equivalent at Louisville to identify a player in a photo. Dolson eventually reached Louisville’s executive senior associate athletic director (such a long title!) Kevin Miller and described Maurer as “one of our all-time great IU benefactors.”

Louisville’s media relations guy Kenny Klein got involved on the chain, Maurer apparently didn’t receive a response for two days, and then sent another reply that it “turns out this is for a book that will not be favorable to the UofL image. I understand if you don’t choose to assist but would be grateful if you do.”

Maurer is the chairman of of IBJ Media Corp., the parent of the publishing firm releasing the book about the escort allegations. To be clear, it doesn’t appear as though he informed the Indiana athletic department of the reason he wanted the photo identified up-front, as Dobson wrote to Miller shortly after Maurer’s email: “Not sure what this is but it blindsided me.”

In any event, Maurer wants to make it clear that this publishing decision isn’t borne out of basketball fanhood animus from a rivalry between the teams. He told Indy Star reporter Zach Osterman: “To say that I was motivated by being a big fan of Indiana is total lunacy.”

[H/T Bomani Jones]