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Government witness in hoops trial claims to have paid football players at Penn State, Michigan, Northwestern

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

A significant development surfaced in the college basketball bribery trial on Tuesday, when government witness Marty Blazer claimed to have paid “hundreds to thousands of dollars” to football players at various schools.

Per Adam Zagoria of the New York Times, Blazer admitted to paying players at seven schools from 2000-14, including three B1G programs. The three schools from the B1G mentioned were Michigan, Penn State and Northwestern. Other schools were Pitt, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Alabama.

Blazer, a Pittsburgh financial advisor, made the payments as an offer for players to remain in college as opposed to pursuing the NFL Draft. In return, Blazer would hope those players would retain him as a financial advisor when they turned pro.

Perhaps the most significant information surrounded Penn State and former head coach Joe Paterno. According to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, Blazer alleges that he paid the father of a then-Penn State player Aaron Maybin $10,000 with encouragement from an unnamed Nittany Lion assistant coach.

The arrangement occurred in 2009 and Maybin opted to pursue the NFL Draft anyway. His father then repaid the $10,000, according to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports.

https://twitter.com/DanWetzel/status/1120762922517565441

Blazer’s claims would be a major NCAA infraction, though it’s unknown what kind of action would be taken by the organization at this time.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB