Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke vents about one of the central players in the Nevin Shapiro University of Miami football scandal.
With quarterback
Stephen Morris setting an ACC passing record while the University of
Miami Hurricane won another game in heart-stopping fashion, it's a
real shame we have to keep reading about Ponzi schemer Nevin Shapiro
because of Sean Allen.
Allen, a key witness in
Shapiro's $930 million Ponzi scheme, wants everybody to believe he's
a victim.
Two weeks ago, the team's former football equipment manager and one-time Shapiro assistant, spilled his guts to CBS Sports and the Associated Press. He admitted to committing NCAA violations by providing Hurricanes players with improper benefits and how he became a "middle man" between recruits and current Coach Al Golden when he took over.
I met Allen, whom UM players nick-named "Pee-Wee," in 2005, the year he went to work for a sports agency co-owned by Shapiro. He was a Big Brother to a kid who played youth football for the Liberty City Optimist Club I co-founded. Allen would give the boy and his friends rides to the park and drive them home, as well as take them out to eat after games and do things to entertain them on the weekends. He arranged the only two meetings I had with Shapiro. I didn't like his boss, but Allen came off as a nice guy.
Now I am not so sure. In an effort to clear his name, he's throwing student-athletes who were recruited by the University of Miami under the bus. For example, Allen has admitted that he was instructed by an ex-UM assistant to pick up a local Miami recruit on December 17, 2010 and take him to a South Miami restaurant to meet Al Golden, who had been named UM coach five days earlier - a violation of NCAA rules.
The NCAA interviewed the recruit, who picked another school instead of Miami, about the meeting, according to a Yahoo! Sports article in July. Allen needs to stop opening his mouth and move on with his life. He's only hurting people who trusted him.
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