I never lied about that. Staff. So, in very basic terms, if B.C. Dubbed Playing for the Mob, it documents the twists and turns that brought Sweeney and two other BC players into the throes of New York mobster Henry Hill, whose name later became famous when he was portrayed by Ray Liotta in the 1990 hit movie Goodfellas. A witness is interviewed and says, The rat one.. The story read, in part, as follows: Ernie Cobb tossed in 1,760 points in a stellar basketball career at Boston College and only two other Eagles scored more. This offers a students perspective of how they never thought their team could have been fixing teams. Cobb was acquitted of any wrongdoing, despite Kuhn giving Cobb's girlfriend an allegedly unsolicited envelope with $1,000. Suspecting that some bookmakers might be getting wise to the scheme, the conspirators temporarily revised their strategy after the UCLA game. The distinguished paper later retracted the story. Im not angry at the school. The audience learns about Boston Colleges rival Holy Cross and its huge significance to the players and the alumni. Sweeney purposefully misses a free throw to help the fixers win even though he is the best free-throw shooter in the nation. And look what he did to the lives of those kids. Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A man who posed as a cannabis billionaire plead guilty Wednesday to securities fraud for lying to investors about his wealth, education and business. Danois, Alejandro. He was a murderer and a horrible human being. The syndicate was able to lay nine points when the game was first available to be bet, and therefore pushed. Justice Department files complaint after officer fired for opioid use disorder. His testimony essentially corroborated that of Hill, who went into witness protection. The goal for making some real money is to get the character a TV gig with ESPN, NBC Sports, or another major sports network. The mobsters Paul Mazzei and Henry Hill met in a nearby jail stayed in touch after serving their time. Purdum, David. The conspirators decided that these games presented especially good opportunities because New York bookmakers generally accepted large bets for New York teams. My girlfriend and I bought a new stereo, television and some furniture. Contact Me. Ernie Cobb is also introduced, a senior, team captain, and Boston Colleges top scorer. They were touting me as the next sub-6-footer to have an impact in the NBA. In 2014, the ESPN-produced 30 for 30 series debuted Playing for the Mob,[6] the story about how Hill and his Pittsburgh associates, and several Boston College basketball players, perpetrated the point-shaving scheme during the 197879 season, an episode briefly mentioned in the movie Goodfellas. The same channels would be used for the passing of the point spread from Burke and Hill to the players. Hill and Burke were brought into the scheme, after receiving approval from Lucchese family capo Paul Vario. But I found out that I wouldnt be allowed to leave the United States because the government was going to bring me to trial.. We have decided to cover the most scandalous of all 30-for-30s, Playing for the Mob. You may opt-out by. Sweeney has won several FIMBA tournaments as a player in the 50-plus division. According to Hill's testimony, he met with Kuhn and cocaptain Jim Sweeney in a hotel room near Boston's Logan Airport in November of 1978 to cement the deal. Kuhn, 28, was one of five people found guilty of conspiracy to engage in racketeering and other charges that stemmed from a point-shaving scheme hatched for the 1978-79 school season. Kuhn told people at Boston College later The fact that I went to court and fought for my name, that I stood up for myself and cleared my name, that I was exonerated and acquitted, its a travesty that Im still associated with this., My name is indelibly linked to it, Cobb continued. Mizzou understands that Hill was doing what he had to do to survive. He talks about how he wanted to be an NBA player. I didnt like dealing with a third party I didnt know and had never metBut the word came back that Cobb was enthusiastic and, dont worry Henry, nothing can screw up now., In the 30-for-30 documentary that ESPN just aired, Henry Hill admits that he never talked to me, said Cobb. Film. Kuhn, who ultimately served four years in prison for conspiracy and racketeering, hatched a plan with Hill associates Tony Perla, his brother Rocco Perla, and Paul Mazzei to shave points - losing by more than the point spread or winning by less than the point spread - in several BC games between December 1978 and March 1979. As a freshman, he played sparingly and averaged 4.5 points per game while the Eagles finished with a disappointing 9-17 overall record. For the conspiracy to work, the men knew they would need the cooperation of other players on the team, according to the testimony of Henry Hill, a convicted felon and the key prosecution witness. In the summer of 1978, Rocco Perla and his older brother Anthony, back in Pittsburgh, were the ones who initially conceived the point-shaving scheme that would later rock the college basketball world. The story breaks to the media and the massive investigation followed. I was reading about the Boston College point-shaving scandal of the late 70s and I was wondering whatever became of Rick Kuhn in his later life. And as black kids who loved ball in Boston, he represented something for us, giving the younger generation something to aspire toin terms of their basketball skillsbecause he was putting in some serious work.. Rocco and Tony Perla were giving money to Rick Kuhn. Being at Boston College, when I first got there, was so amazing, said Cobb. Hill flew into Boston, at the behest of Jimmy Burke, late in 1978 to meet with Mazzei, the Perlas, Kuhn and Sweeney at the Logan Airport Hilton and ensure that everything was in place. We get home, I open it up, and theres $1,000 in there.. But Im so proud of him because he picked his life back up and made the best of it. Burkes gang had just successfully pulled off the Lufthansa airport heist at New Yorks JFK airport, where theyd stolen an estimated $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels, the largest cash robbery in America at the time. And after they put my name out there, and after I admitted to taking that $1,000, they didnt have enough evidence to prosecute me. Sweeney, who went on a year later to win the Naismith Award as college basketballs top player under six feet tall, says he was initially recruited into the fix by Kuhn without his knowledge and that he never intentionally threw an errant pass, missed a shot or did anything else to alter a game. Do you recognize him? And my answer every time was, No! I didnt recognize any of those mobsters because I had never met them. Playing for the Mob: The Story of College Kids Breaking Bad I had everything I could have possibly asked for. Bruce Pearl, a normal student in the class of 1982, is introduced and talks about the smart, diverse basketball players. The whole team is confused as Sweeney hides on the bench. On the stand during the trial, Rick Kuhns girlfriend, Barbara Reed, with whom he shared an apartment during his senior year at Boston College, testified that she overheard Kuhn and Sweeney discussing the Fordham game, saying that they had to keep the ball away from Cobb because he shot the ball all the time. Joe Beaulieu, the starting center on the 1978-79 Boston College team, also testified he was approached by Kuhn to participate in the plan, but he said he rejected the proposal. Suspenseful music plays and the trial begins. But I never agreed to fix any games or shave any points. They were aware that bookmakers generally accepted large bets on this game both because Boston College and Holy Cross were traditional rivals and because the game was being nationally televised. The Boston College case arose out of the Lufthansa investigation. Burke instructed Hill to warn the players to keep to their end of the deal because "you can't play basketball with broken hands.". Director Joe Lavine goes on to feature many references and clips of the movie. But he did take money. In papers made public Monday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Kuhn's attorney argued his client's sentence was 'excessive,' and should be reduced because Kuhn has been cooperating with prosecutors in the case. Everything Id worked so hard for was coming to fruition.. While Hill was being questioned, FBI agents inadvertently mentioned his frequent trips to Boston around the time of the Lufthansa heist. (Rick Kuhn, Photo Credit: bostonglobe.com). He traveled throughout the world, getting paid to play the game that he loved. He took advantage of an opportunity that surfaced when a pro team from Israel offered him a spot on their roster. It is heartening, by contrast, that the integrity of our coaching and athletic staff, as well as that of our current team, was never in question. So I guess the thought process was, Well, if there were criminal activities going on, it had to be the brothers! My name and picture, and Michael Bowies as well, was on the front page of every newspaper in the country.. I called my buddy Frank Melzer, who was an attorney, said Alswanger. Sports. Theyd taken my passport and I had to stay here and face these charges, said Cobb. Netflix hiring flight attendant for private jet with compensation up to $385,000. This is Part II of The Shadow League's feature story on former Boston College basketball player Ernie Cobb. Those later betters on St. John's lost money because they laid more than the eventual nine point margin of victory. But by his sophomore year, when he was inserted into the starting lineup, it was apparent that the 5-foot-11 scorer brought a dimension to the Boston College squad that it sorely needed when he averaged 17.4 points per game. But by the next summer, in 1980, he sparkled while playing for the New Jersey Nets during the pre-season. After he interviewed him, he fell in love with him and told me, Hes innocent. Same here, and yet when they did their list of greatest sports scandals a few weeks back (when Miami broke) they didn't have it on there the first day. You gotta tell me the truth, because I gotta know how to go on this?. We were all so excited for him. The audience gets one on one interviews with each person to see the scandal from their perspective. I have suffered. It was one of the most tremendous feelings Id ever experienced.. Rocco Perla and Kuhn were high-school classmates. But its the points that Cobb and teammate Michael Bowie didnt score during the 1978-1979 season which has spawned a federal investigation. He said he was brought in on the deal for his ability to maximize profits through his contacts in the gambling world. Columbia University names Nemat Shafik as first woman president. I want to be disassociated from it as well. ESPN Ive had a grand life, is how he puts it. And yeah, I took that money. (In some of the Boston College games cited, the Eagles were underdogs and lost by more than the point spread.). I was focused in the moment. He is a participant in the Federal Witness Protection Program and is receiving government protection in exchange for his testimony. But that had nothing to do with shaving points., At the time, I was nave, Cobb continued. The player was Kuhn, a reserve forward on the team. Theyre no match for us. He told me, Well good, I plan on betting on those games and if you guys win and it turns out like that, Ill take care of you., Man, I was one of the most recognizable athletes on campus and people would come up and talk to me all the time, people I didnt know, Cobb continued. Mazzei in turn contacted Henry Hill, a Lucchese crime family associate from New York who had befriended Mazzei while both men were serving sentences in a federal prison. This is a BETA experience. There were times when the work got really hard, when I wanted to give up, when I had to stay up all night reading or studying or writing papers, and shed be right there pushing me, telling me, You cant give up! I feel like I did all that fighting after I lost my dream of playing in the NBA, and it was all in vain. The prosecution contended that the scheme was intended to enable the five men to win large sums of money by betting on the games and beating bookmakers' point spreads. Sweeney took out one of those little schedule cards, circled the games he thought we could fool around with, and gave the card to me. They treated me great. For over 30 years, hes been living in Clearwater, Florida, married to his college sweetheart. Testifying for the government, Sweeney acknowledged meeting with Hill but said that although he agreed to participate in the scheme he never intended to go through with the deal. Cobb was drafted by the Utah Jazz in the 6th Round and cut during training camp. At this point in the film, we stray away from the actual point-shaving and more into the consequences and investigation after the fact. Rocco comes up to me and says, Hey, sometimes I bet on games and I wanna know how you think you guys are gonna do against Stonehill and Bentley? said Cobb. Holy Cross wins by two causing the mobsters to lose hundreds of thousands. Hill brought in his mentor, Jimmy Burke, to finance the operation and set up a network of bookies who could advance the financial potential of the scheme. The fixers changed the original plan and bet on Holy Cross, but the players were told this right before the game. Music. SELECT OPTIONS SAVE TO CART DETAILS Restrictions: No commercial uses without permission. The conspiracy unraveled in 1980 after Hill was arrested by New York State authorities on drug trafficking charges and was subsequently implicated in the Lufthansa heist, which occurred while the point-shaving scheme was underway. He says that Hill once referenced his girlfriend Maura (now his wife) in one of his threats, asking Sweeney how would your honey feel if she saw your --- hanging in a bracelet? He also says that other mob clichs like references to cement shoes are not just the stuff of Hollywood. I was like, Yeah, whatever. Sure enough, a few weeks later, he hands my girlfriend an envelope. I was like, You gotta be kidding me! Jim Sweeney and Rick Kuhns names werent mentioned anywhere. I was shining at the camp. BC basketball players Rick Kuhn, Joe Streater and Jim Sweeney were persuaded to fix nine Eagles games during the season. Edward A. McDonald, who coincidentally had graduated from Boston College in 1968 and who had played briefly on the basketball team, prosecuted the case.[2]. A federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday convicted former Boston College basketball player Rick Kuhn and four codefendants of conspiring to manipulate the scores of Boston College games during the 1978-79 season. will air the latest installment of its acclaimed 30 For 30 series with a look back at the infamous Boston College basketball point shaving scandal from the 1978-79 season. Enraged by their gambling loss, the Perla brothers, along with Mazzei, Burke, and Hill, decided to recruit additional Eagles players to enhance their control over the outcome of the games. He dreamed of walking away from Boston College at seasons end as one of the schools most revered sons before embarking on what he hoped would be an accomplished, financially rewarding career in the NBA. On October 7, Whenever the Boston College scandal comes up, he tends to remind people that theres always more than one side to a story, and leave it at that. Its gonna be no contest. The fixing begins to wear into Sweeney, who confides in his roommates but never seeks out the proper authority. He went against his lawyers advice and fought back and managed to win his case. Kuhn explains to Sweeney that they are both going to get killed after not successfully fixing a game against Providence. The former friends work hard to cast blame and the true conversations that went on between the mobsters and players will never be discovered. They greet each other like old friends; there is no bitterness between them. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. FRANK OBRIEN/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 1978 Sweeney, Cobb, and The Globe, quoting an unnamed source in New York, said the three games in which point-shaving was alleged were a Feb.3 game against Fordham, a Feb. 6 game against St. Johns and a March 1 game in the ECAC Regional Playoffs against Connecticut. The narrator explains that the strength of how Henry Hills testimony is would determine if Burke was going to be convicted. indictments charged against them. I hadnt seen Ernie for several years, Jack Hennessey, a psychologist at Boston College that had served as an informal academic advisor during Cobbs days as a student, told the New York Times in April of 1984. On the stand during the trial, Rick Kuhns girlfriend, Barbara Reed, with whom he shared an apartment during his senior year at Boston College, testified that she overheard Kuhn and Sweeney discussing the Fordham game, saying that they had to keep the ball away from Cobb because he shot the ball all the time. After the investigation was completed, Cobb was not named as a defendant in the initial trial, U.S. vs Burke, which opened to a circus of media attention on October 27th, 1981. This is important because it shows how it was a poorly run operation. While Hill was trying to bury Burke, Sweeney was trying to bury Kuhn. Class ring returned to Texas woman after missing for decades. It is quite a ride, so please, enjoy it. Burke, through Hill, would front the money to pay the players, forwarding the money through Mazzei and the Perla brothers. At that point, I was looking forward to a trial, said Cobb. But, as Sweeney points out, the government didnt need to prove that point shaving actually happened, just that a conspiracy to shave them had. Twice, in 1951 and 1961, the sport was rocked by scandal. On August 12, 2008, an anonymous user edited the Wikipedia article on the scandal, naming former player Joe Streater as an accomplice in the point-shaving, recruited by Kuhn alongside Sweeney. Everybody involved in the scandal got sentenced except for Hill and Sweeney. He stopped in my office with his bike with the flat tire and borrowed $20 to get it fixed and to get home. With his name swirling down the vortex of the mob cesspool from the moment the story broke, Ernie Cobb found it difficult to make a living. It was a sweet victory for prosecutors against Burke, for whom they failed to even build a charge against for his biggest crime, the famous $6 million Lufthansa heist. But what was I going to do, take it to court?It was here that they began telling Perla we would have to have Cobb. It wasnt an absolute disaster but it was a cousin. Hes a good person. The scheme was conceived by Rocco Perla and his brother Anthony in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1978. BOSTON - NOVEMBER 17: Rick Kuhn (#35) during Boston College men's basketball's 1978-1979 season. He worked hard in class. I was a senior in high school when Ernie Cobb was a senior at Boston College and Id heard that he was a very good player, said Lemuel Mills, a Boston area hoops aficionado, coach, community mentor and historian. Interim Application of Copyright and Trademark Registration in Cochin. The February 6 game against St. John's was a "push" (winning back exact bets), as the syndicate neither won nor lost when St. John's prevailed 8576, the exact point spread (nine) the bookmakers had offered.[i]. When he first stepped on the hallowed parquet floor at the legendary Boston Garden, where B.C. But it wasnt a coincidence that one day, the F.B.I shows up asking me about gambling, and the next day Im no longer with the team. I had a relentless type of game.. The court papers said Kuhn of Swissvale, Pa., has agreed to testify against former teammate Ernie Cobb, 27, a basketball player from Stamford, Conn. Cobb has pleaded innocent to a charge of conspiring to commit sports bribery,a charge stemming from the point-shaving scandal. Kuhn agreed to participate, and brought in his teammate Jim Sweeney.[1]. I told him, I think were gonna blow them out, we look really good. All Kuhn had to do was ensure that the Eagles fell short of the point spread in the games that they bet on. So, in very basic terms, if B.C. was favored to win a game by ten points, Kuhn had to make sure, if the game was in play with the mobsters and the bookies, that they won by less than ten in order for the gamblers to make money. Hill revealed his involvement in the point-shaving scheme, offering to relate the full story if federal officials would guarantee him full immunity and would agree to intercede on his behalf to convince state officials to drop the drug charges pending in state court. Theres never been any mob money riding on the outcomes, as far as anyone knows. Confident from their recent success, the conspirators viewed the February 10 game against Holy Cross as an opportunity to reap the full benefits of their scheme. The Eagles managed to lose by 22 points, 10381, with the syndicate winning its bet. Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Boeing's sustainable flight demonstrator project won a $425 million award Wednesday from NASA, as the company aims to roll out green single-aisle airliners by the end of the decade. The very next day, the Nets cut me., When the F.B.I. Supreme Court mulls questions about students' accessibility rights. But for Bowie, it was too little, too late. Fellow player Michael Bowie begins to ask questions, but Sweeney argues that they are still winning. This is an important part of the documentary because it shows the respect they have for one another regardless of the past. Out of everything that happened, thats one thing that hurts me tremendously, Cobb said. Rick Kuhn, James Burke, Rocco and Anthony Perla, and Paul Mazzei now face up to thirty years in prison possibly to twenty The Nets coaches were telling me, Coach, hes gonna be a great pro., I had a great camp with the Nets and was poised to make the team, said Cobb. The Providence game was played on December 6, 1978, and Boston College was favored to win by six to seven points. Coupled with the narration being done by Ray Liotta, the actor that played Henry Hill in the movie, adding to the films overall gangster aesthetic. She knew the terrain in terms of what I needed to be doing, said Cobb. At trial in 1981, the government's case consisted primarily of the testimony of Hill and three other witnesses: Sweeney and Joseph Beaulieu, both Boston College players, and Barbara Reed, a 23-year-old nurse who lived with Kuhn during the 197879 Eagles season. Although Cobb maintains that he received money from Rocco, he claims it was just for winning the game even though Rocco claims he knew for sure. He said Hill told him he was backed by powerful interests in New York, and he was afraid of what might happen to him if he refused to cooperate. Mazzeis connection to Kuhn was through fellow gangsters Rocco and Tony Pearla. Bookmakers, on seeing the heavy action, moved the line as high as twelve to discourage bets on the favorite (St. John's) and attract more bets on the underdog. In this case, while the spread was as high as 5, the syndicate was able to lay just 2 points, and therefore pushed when Holy Cross won by 2. The structure includes a minute-by-minute analysis, a slow-motion capture of the climax of the story, and a bolded narrative that gives the article structure. His girlfriend, whom hed met during his first week on campus, was an upperclassman that knew how to navigate the schools academic landscape. Professional wrestler Jay Briscoe dies in car accident at 38, Sister Andre, world's oldest living person, dies at 118, Ukraine's interior minister, other officials killed in helicopter crash near school, Qantas flight lands safely after engine trouble prompts mayday call, Meditation may alter gut microbes, study of Tibetan monks suggests. hoops that blazed a trail, Mills continued. They kept saying that they liked the idea of just shaving points and not blowing the games." The other two kids made whatever choices they made, but look what was done to Ernie. Hes now happily at work on his latest project, a sports cartoon character named Mike (as in microphone) that appears on his daily sports blog and in 35 comic books downloadable on Amazon. The Perla brothers were small-time gamblers who saw the upcoming 197879 Boston College Eagles basketball season as a perfect opportunity to earn a lot of money. The five men could each receive a maximum sentence of 30 years in jail and $45,000 in fines. Kuhn was thus expected to keep the score below the six- to seven-point margin. In this game, UCLA was favored to win over the Eagles by a fifteen to eighteen-point spread, so the syndicate bet on them to win by a margin greater than the point spread. The Boston Globe reported on Friday that Cobb and Bowie are targets of the federal probe into allegations of point-shaving in three Eagles games. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images The Perla brothers mobilized a betting syndicate to maximize their potential gain from the scheme. To allay any suspicions of foul play, they decided to bet on Boston College to win by more than the point spread ("cover the spread") in a game that they were confident the Eagles would win handily. Its the same crew that had a connection to BC basketball player Rick Kuhn, who hailed from the area. Rocco has a vague conversation with Cobb over winning certain games, but both sides wont admit to knowing the extent to which he was involved. Convinced that Cobb was innocent after his mentee walked him through everything that had transpired, and certain that he was being used by the federal government to send more organized crime figures to prison, Alswanger began working the phones. Everybody testified against him. In practice, he was the lunatic who his teammates sucked their teeth and rolled their eyes at when he told the coaches that they needed to run more sprints after an exhausting practice. Cmon, you can do it. She was a remarkable individual that helped me so much, in terms of establishing the study and work habits that allowed me to be successful in the classroom.. Sweeney had enough of that over a few months 35 years ago to last a lifetime. I dont know if the losses can ever be made upnot the losses me and my family and friends have suffered. He was determined to prove that he could do the work, which would enable him to further chase his athletic dreams. The teams coach, Tom Davis, kept his job and led the Eagles to a few more strong seasons, including a 1982 Elite Eight appearance, before jumping at a big offer from Stanford and then later moving on to Iowa. I was eating Rory Sparrow up, who went on to have a decent NBA career, in that camp. The move on and they all thought the fixes were history. Rick was born on October 14, 1966, in Jamestown, ND, to Timothy Kuhn and Marretta (Deede) Kuhn. The scheme continued to work successfully in the December 23 game against UCLA. In 1978, Rick Kuhn was in his final season at Boston College,amarginal player with little going for him. Disassociated from it as well the fixers changed the original plan and bet on asked for audience learns about Colleges... At Boston College men 's basketball 's 1978-1979 season idea of just shaving points and blowing! 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