Another Instance of Point Shaving?

One benefit to professional athletes making substantial money is that the threat of players throwing games or shaving points at the behest of gamblers is diminished (even if not eliminated, see Rose, Pete). Gambling was a genuine threat to the integrity of professional sports in the early days of professional sport, particularly baseball, as Dean Roger Abrams describes in a forthcoming book called Dark Side of the Diamond.

But the risk remains in college sports, where players' genuine financial need, combined with access to gambling and gamblers, gives players an incentive to take money in exchange for poor performance. The latest example involves federal criminal charges filed last week against University of Toledo running back Harvey "Scooter" McDougle Jr. for participating in a bribery scheme to influence sporting events. Story here; some comments here. Scooter allegedly acted as go-between a gambler known as "Gary" and various Toledo football and basketball players, who took cash, cars, phones, and other gifts.

College basketball has had its share of point-shaving scandals: the 1948-49 Kentucky Wildcats, the 1950-51 CCNY team (that won both the NCAA and NIT championships), Boston College in the late 1970s, and the 1994 Arizona State Sun Devils. But there have been fewer examples of football players tanking in this way, probably because one (or even a few) players cannot alone affect the outcome of a game. The only example I recall off-hand (I say with the pride of an alumnus) involved former a Northwestern running back named Dennis Lundy, who deliberately fumbled on the one-yard-line in a 1994 game against Iowa to keep NU from covering the spread (he had a $ 400 bet on the game). Lundy was sentenced in 1999 to one month in prison for lying to a grand jury.

Scooter McDougle admits he accepted gifts from Gary, but insists it never changed the way he played to affect the outcome of games. That becomes the key fact the prosecution must prove. We shall see.

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