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Mayo Recieving Gifts Isn't Surprising

Finally we have a source to back up the allegations. Just yesterday the story broke on ESPN that O.J. Mayo has been receiving gifts since he was a freshman in high school. I mean come on people if the guy has been dubbed the best of the 2007 class as a 7th grader, you don't think someone is going to try and lure him to their agency? If you don't think so then you are crazy. The Background Story
According to Louis Johnson, a former part of Mayo's inner circle group and a story from ESPN.com said Mayo accepted around $30,000 in cash and gifts during the past four years from Rodney Guillory, a 43-year-old Los Angeles event promoter. In addition to cash, the gifts included a flat-screen television for Mayo's dorm room, cell phone service, a hotel room, clothes, meals and airline tickets for Mayo's friends and a relative, according to Johnson, others with knowledge of the gifts and store receipts. When Mayo was in high school in Ohio and West Virginia, Guillory was receiving monthly payments from the Northern California sports agency Bill Duffy Associates. Johnson said BDA provided Guillory with around $200,000 before Mayo arrived at USC, and that Guillory used most of the money to support his own lifestyle but also gave a portion of it to Mayo. Mayo denies all allegations. Read the full story here

The thing that caught my attention that wasn't brought up in the story had to deal with Denver Nug gets star Carmelo Anthony and Mayo. It was rumored that during the season, Mayo got free tickets to a Denver Nuggets game courtesy of Anthony. That was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard that Anthony and Mayo were both Bill Duffy Associates (BDA) clients. Could this be a gift from one basketball player to another? Perhaps, but it seems kind of fishy that two players now owned by the same sports agency just happen to talk and Anthony just happened to give him free tickets like he was his best friend or some type of family member. I think once more things unfold you can bet a couple things. One USC is treading on thin ice with this and the Reggie Bush scandal still fresh in the minds of the NCAA committee. Two that if convicted Guillory is going to be behind bars as it is a misdemeanor in the state of California for sports agents or their representatives give gifts to high school or college athletes. Last at number three as he is trying to do anything to raise his draft stock, Mayo now has something no player wants while trying to make it in sports, a distraction.

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Posted by Nate Gonner at 11:00 AM Labels: Carmelo Anthony, NCAA Violations, O.J. Mayo
 Sportsattitude said...

Some folks seem to think the NCAA will continue their double-standard when it comes to punishing the USC's of the world instead of the SMU's...but the Trojans really have pulled off quite a high-profile double-double here with Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo and the NCAA continues to push the false impression big-time college athletes are "student-athletes." If that organization continues to try to force people into believing this falsehood, they're certainly pushed into a corner on the USC front. If the Trojans don't face significant sanctions in both sports, what little cred the NCAA has left will be gone and soon we'll see a situation where a "BCS-like" alliance will occur with college basketball and both of these rogue affiliations will then move to make their own set of rules, set their own standards and relegate the NCAA to managing lesser-level college athletics. Big-time colleges run the show in football and basketball and the NCAA is ripe for the taking.

May 18, 2008 at 12:30 PM 
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Nate Gonner
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