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Relevant article from our past: Lawrence Madison
Posted on: November 23, 2016 at 12:54:49 CT
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http://www.science.smith.edu/exer_sci/ESS200/Ed/Yeager.htm
Lawrence Madison had been a good enough baseball player at Detroit's Henry Ford High in the early 1980s to win an athletic scholarship to St. Augustine's, a Division II school in Raleigh, N.C. In the spring of '86, while at St. Augustine's, he got a call from someone back home--the son of a woman whose grass he used to cut, a guy named Vic Adams.
Adams is the street agent who helped set up Missouri's pipeline of basketball talent out of the Motor City during the late 1980s and whose relationship with the school helped land the Tigers on probation in 1990. According to Madison, Adams got right to the point: One of his players had a knack with the ball but not with the books. Madison normally played first base, but Adams wanted him to be a pinch hitter.
"He said, 'I know you did well on your SATs,'" says Madison. "'Would you come up here and take his?' I was like, Wow."
Madison says the offer was for expenses, plus $200 if he could deliver a qualifying score for Lee Coward, a guard at Murray-Wright High and a Missouri recruit. It seemed like easy money.
Madison went to the Raleigh-Durham airport, where a prepaid round-trip ticket was waiting for him. Upon arriving in Detroit, Madison says he was taken by Adams to Coward's high school, where a sympathetic administrator allowed him to sit for a photo that would be affixed to a phony I.D. bearing Coward's name.
By the time he turned up for the test on Saturday morning, Madison had memorized Coward's address, birth date and social security number. Three hours later he had done well enough to turn Coward into a freshman-eligible but not so well that ETS would follow up and compare signatures. According to Madison, Adams had fronted him a small sum; the balance was wired to Raleigh via Western Union after the score came in. "I really didn't think about the consequences," Madison says. "The way it was put to me, I thought I was really giving someone a chance."
Coward confirms that he took the SAT once, fell short and never took it again. "I don't know who took it for me," he says. "All I know is I was eligible to play ball as a freshman at Missouri. After the first one, the word to me was, 'Don't worry about it.' So I didn't worry about it."
Whether or not Missouri recruiter Rich Daly knew about the scam is unclear. Coward says that Daly, whose ability to work Coward's hometown had earned him the nickname Doctor Detroit, was "the guy I dealt with" but that Daly never explicitly indicated that he knew about Madison's pinch-hitting. Daly's relationship with Adams is well documented and is one of the reasons Missouri landed on NCAA probation.
Coward, who is unemployed and living in Detroit, says he didn't reveal any of this to the NCAA investigators who looked into Missouri's infractions. He says he was led to believe that the Tigers' coaching staff would look after his basketball career if he kept quiet. "It was never said, just understood," he says.
Madison says he provided the same services a year later for MacKenzie High's Doug Smith, the 6'10" forward who would go on to join Coward at Mizzou, become an All-America and No. 1 NBA draft choice and play last season for the CBA's Oklahoma City Cavalry. "When Vic called about Doug, I thought, Wow, I'm their man," Madison says. He flew to Detroit on two weekends in early '87--once in January to take the SAT and once in the spring to take the ACT. He took both tests at Northwestern High. As Madison recalls, one time a proctor passed him, checking I.D.
"Doug Smith?" she asked.
"Yeah," said Madison.
"O.K.," she replied with a laugh. "Sure."
"I did well on the SAT, so I don't know why [Smith] needed an ACT," Madison says. He says Smith joked with him while Madison posed for another phony I.D., and that Adams, Mizzou's agent, was now so confident that Madison would come through that he paid both $200 sums up front.
To this day Madison can recall some of the most picayune details of his missions: Coward's birthday ("He was a Christmas baby"), the car Adams used to chauffeur him to and from the testing sites (a gray Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport), even Smith's parting words to him ("Now, don't do too well, Lawrence").
"From the way this was handled, so cavalierly, I knew that breaking these rules wasn't as big a deal as it should have been," says Madison, who has settled in North Carolina, where he manages a restaurant. "I don't even think they looked at it as academic fraud. They looked at it as business. It was like clockwork: make the call, fly in, handle the paperwork, go home, get your money. I guess the only thing they had to make sure of was that I was black."
As the years went by, Madison started following Missouri from afar. But as the Tigers turned into a national power, he began to wonder if $200 a test wasn't a slave wage. "By that time Doug was earning millions for Missouri," he says. "I felt I had done them a good favor and they had taken advantage of my naivete." In 1989 Madison says he had a contentious phone conversation with Adams, trying to get more money. "I asked for $10,000. Vic was like, 'I've known you all my life, don't try to double on me. A deal's a deal.'"
Madison threatened to go public with what he had done. He says Daly phoned him, and the two danced through a conversation that ended with each party saying that he had taped the call. Madison got no more money and, until now, has kept quiet. He hasn't been in touch with Adams or Daly since.
But the biggest hustle may be the consequences of such blithe and widespread flouting of the rules by adults. The first employee of Missouri whom Coward met appeared to Coward to countenance academic fraud. "It tells you it's all about money, not education," Coward says. "And it's not just Missouri. It's everywhere. Other schools would have done the same for me. I can't even begin to tell you how much money we brought in from '86 to '90. Money, cheating, winning--college basketball is a billion-dollar industry."
Ben Kelso, basketball coach at Detroit's Cooley High, has watched test fraud adversely affect Ponder's life. Another former player of his, Daniel Lyton, was also a Missouri recruit during the late 1980s, and Lyton says Adams and Daly also told him not to worry about passing his test. "Some people argue that if cheating is what it takes to get out of here, then do it," says Kelso. "So the first thing we're teaching these kids is how to cheat. What a lesson. We should be embarrassed. Shorting these kids is what's ruining our inner city already. Somewhere down the line it's going to mess them up bad."
Madison agrees. "I did something wrong," he says. "I'm not proud of it. But the only way to stop wrong from recurring is to say something about it. If I turn my back, I let the wrong continue."
He's asked if there's another Lawrence Madison out there. "The question should be," he says, "How many are out there?"
Lawrence Madison had been a good enough baseball player at Detroit's Henry Ford High in the early 1980s to win an athletic scholarship to St. Augustine's, a Division II school in Raleigh, N.C. In the spring of '86, while at St. Augustine's, he got a call from someone back home--the son of a woman whose grass he used to cut, a guy named Vic Adams.
Adams is the street agent who helped set up Missouri's pipeline of basketball talent out of the Motor City during the late 1980s and whose relationship with the school helped land the Tigers on probation in 1990. According to Madison, Adams got right to the point: One of his players had a knack with the ball but not with the books. Madison normally played first base, but Adams wanted him to be a pinch hitter.
"He said, 'I know you did well on your SATs,'" says Madison. "'Would you come up here and take his?' I was like, Wow."
Madison says the offer was for expenses, plus $200 if he could deliver a qualifying score for Lee Coward, a guard at Murray-Wright High and a Missouri recruit. It seemed like easy money.
Madison went to the Raleigh-Durham airport, where a prepaid round-trip ticket was waiting for him. Upon arriving in Detroit, Madison says he was taken by Adams to Coward's high school, where a sympathetic administrator allowed him to sit for a photo that would be affixed to a phony I.D. bearing Coward's name.
By the time he turned up for the test on Saturday morning, Madison had memorized Coward's address, birth date and social security number. Three hours later he had done well enough to turn Coward into a freshman-eligible but not so well that ETS would follow up and compare signatures. According to Madison, Adams had fronted him a small sum; the balance was wired to Raleigh via Western Union after the score came in. "I really didn't think about the consequences," Madison says. "The way it was put to me, I thought I was really giving someone a chance."
Coward confirms that he took the SAT once, fell short and never took it again. "I don't know who took it for me," he says. "All I know is I was eligible to play ball as a freshman at Missouri. After the first one, the word to me was, 'Don't worry about it.' So I didn't worry about it."
Whether or not Missouri recruiter Rich Daly knew about the scam is unclear. Coward says that Daly, whose ability to work Coward's hometown had earned him the nickname Doctor Detroit, was "the guy I dealt with" but that Daly never explicitly indicated that he knew about Madison's pinch-hitting. Daly's relationship with Adams is well documented and is one of the reasons Missouri landed on NCAA probation.
Coward, who is unemployed and living in Detroit, says he didn't reveal any of this to the NCAA investigators who looked into Missouri's infractions. He says he was led to believe that the Tigers' coaching staff would look after his basketball career if he kept quiet. "It was never said, just understood," he says.
Madison says he provided the same services a year later for MacKenzie High's Doug Smith, the 6'10" forward who would go on to join Coward at Mizzou, become an All-America and No. 1 NBA draft choice and play last season for the CBA's Oklahoma City Cavalry. "When Vic called about Doug, I thought, Wow, I'm their man," Madison says. He flew to Detroit on two weekends in early '87--once in January to take the SAT and once in the spring to take the ACT. He took both tests at Northwestern High. As Madison recalls, one time a proctor passed him, checking I.D.
"Doug Smith?" she asked.
"Yeah," said Madison.
"O.K.," she replied with a laugh. "Sure."
"I did well on the SAT, so I don't know why [Smith] needed an ACT," Madison says. He says Smith joked with him while Madison posed for another phony I.D., and that Adams, Mizzou's agent, was now so confident that Madison would come through that he paid both $200 sums up front.
To this day Madison can recall some of the most picayune details of his missions: Coward's birthday ("He was a Christmas baby"), the car Adams used to chauffeur him to and from the testing sites (a gray Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport), even Smith's parting words to him ("Now, don't do too well, Lawrence").
"From the way this was handled, so cavalierly, I knew that breaking these rules wasn't as big a deal as it should have been," says Madison, who has settled in North Carolina, where he manages a restaurant. "I don't even think they looked at it as academic fraud. They looked at it as business. It was like clockwork: make the call, fly in, handle the paperwork, go home, get your money. I guess the only thing they had to make sure of was that I was black."
As the years went by, Madison started following Missouri from afar. But as the Tigers turned into a national power, he began to wonder if $200 a test wasn't a slave wage. "By that time Doug was earning millions for Missouri," he says. "I felt I had done them a good favor and they had taken advantage of my naivete." In 1989 Madison says he had a contentious phone conversation with Adams, trying to get more money. "I asked for $10,000. Vic was like, 'I've known you all my life, don't try to double on me. A deal's a deal.'"
Madison threatened to go public with what he had done. He says Daly phoned him, and the two danced through a conversation that ended with each party saying that he had taped the call. Madison got no more money and, until now, has kept quiet. He hasn't been in touch with Adams or Daly since.
But the biggest hustle may be the consequences of such blithe and widespread flouting of the rules by adults. The first employee of Missouri whom Coward met appeared to Coward to countenance academic fraud. "It tells you it's all about money, not education," Coward says. "And it's not just Missouri. It's everywhere. Other schools would have done the same for me. I can't even begin to tell you how much money we brought in from '86 to '90. Money, cheating, winning--college basketball is a billion-dollar industry."
Ben Kelso, basketball coach at Detroit's Cooley High, has watched test fraud adversely affect Ponder's life. Another former player of his, Daniel Lyton, was also a Missouri recruit during the late 1980s, and Lyton says Adams and Daly also told him not to worry about passing his test. "Some people argue that if cheating is what it takes to get out of here, then do it," says Kelso. "So the first thing we're teaching these kids is how to cheat. What a lesson. We should be embarrassed. Shorting these kids is what's ruining our inner city already. Somewhere down the line it's going to mess them up bad."
Madison agrees. "I did something wrong," he says. "I'm not proud of it. But the only way to stop wrong from recurring is to say something about it. If I turn my back, I let the wrong continue."
He's asked if there's another Lawrence Madison out there. "The question should be," he says, "How many are out there?"
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Relevant article from our past: Lawrence Madison - FIJItiger MU - 11/23 12:54:49
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