This is the question from which Duck fans should rightfully be…ducking.
Let me explain.
Microsoft Excel allows a user to right click and find out both the author of a document and when it was created. Both Excel spreadsheets provided to the Oregonian this morning were created by Michelle Csatari on February 18th, 2011. See screen capped image:
This begs the questions: who is Michelle Csatari, and why was she creating (laborious) spreadsheets for Oregon's compliance department?
Well, first off, according to her linkedin profile, Csatari worked for Willie Lyle's MLSsports from 2008-2009. Her job description reads:
Director of Scouting
MSL Sports
Marketing and Advertising industry
2008 – 2009 (1 year)
Communicated with coaches and players from across the country. Responsible for strategic placement and supervision of regional scouts nationally. Created and managed accounts, databases, invoices, contracts, payments, and product distribution for College Football Programs. Promoted and marketed scouting packages to new clients
So, what do we know? We know she knew Willie Lyles in 2008. We also know that she placed scouts and received payments for product distribution. Hm.
In 2010 she goes on to work as a disability claims examiner in New Jersey, before resurfacing in the football world as a recruiting coordinator for Dartmouth University in New Hampshire.
What do we know? Nothing too damning here, but it definitely raises questions. Why does Csatari leave for New Hampshire right around the time Lyles and Kelly are accused of exchanging money for players? Chip Kelly is from New Hampshire. Sure, this could be a coincidence. Or, placing Csatari could be a be part of the deal. After all, Csatari currently lists Lyles as a friend on her Facebook profile (alternate screen cap here). Isn't this what friends do? And we know Lyles thinks so highly of her that he asked her to create the two Excel documents found in the Oregonian this morning.
What's most vexing about the Excel documents is that Csatari was the recruiting coordinator at Dartmouth at the time they were created. You would think that being a full-time recruiting coordinator, one wouldn't have time to draft large, laborious Excel spreadsheets for former employers or other universities. Is Csatari just a very nice person? And why weren't these documents already created, since they were supposedly part of Lyle's 2011 "National Package"?
The final, and perhaps most fascinating, part of this puzzle is that Csatari is either fired or leaves her job at Dartmouth only a month after creating the Excel spreadsheet for Lyles. According to her Linkedin profile, she becomes the Director of Sales at CML in Boston. This occurs in April, 2011. So, between creating the documents on February 18th, 2011 and April, 2011…something happens, and she changes jobs.
If I am with the NCAA, I question Michelle Csatari. This may be a classical prisoner's dilemma, and she'd be liable to blink before Willie.
Special thanks to blog reader Brownale9000 for bringing the Excel author to my attention.
I have forwarded this post to Paul Buker of the Oregonian.
Angry,
Good find. However, my guess is this Excel issue is much ado about nothing. As one of the other commenters noted, if the computer was Michelle’s before she left, then this could have been written by anyone using that computer at a later time.
It is most likely the case that her computer (or however you want to characterize this particular machine/license) came with Lyles when he left. He then sat down at the computer on Feb. 18, 2011, and cut and pasted a bunch of crap into an Excel Spreadsheet using his $35 membership to Scout.com. The document shows having been created by MC, but in fact was simply created by Lyles using the computer/Excel license bearing her name. Jumping to the conclusion that she had something to do with this is much harder to believe then the scenario that the old computer simply stayed with Lyles and was used by him.
This was my first thought when I saw this as well. Most small business’s are not very good at updating the user license information…
I think you need to look at the timing on the emails. O-live says Nikegon received two emails, one on Feb 17th, and one on Mar 3rd. I’m assuming the first contained the La and Tx spreadsheets, and the second contained the Carolinas. I can’t access the original pdf’s on the first three at the moment, but the formatting is identical. So one could safely assume that the Feb 17 date is when they were created by the same Csatari who created almost identical sheets the next day.
I’m looking for my “Like” link for this article on Facebook ! ; )
Send that to SPORTSbyBROOKS. The guy is damn good and piecing the puzzle together.
You’re right. Most likely it will take SportsByBrooks or a site similar to that to post something on this to get it recognized by the NCAA. Obviously the NCAA is not reading any of the documents the UO is releasing to the media. Now it is proven and documented that the Ducks are piecing together, or possibly paying someone to piece together, b.s documents and claiming it is 25k worth of recruiting info. The UO Athletic Department will continue to dig themselves a deeper grave with each track they try to cover up.
The NCAA can’t comment on anything. I’m pretty sure they are knee deep in Duck poo right now.
I sent it to SportsByBrooks, Pac-10 compliance (Mike Matthews), and Paul Buker.
Maybe there’s a good explanation why this woman did hours (if not days) of recruiting work for a former employer and university she doesn’t work for! I know I do laborious work for former employers all the time…because I’m just that sweet a guy.
So let’s think of possible loopholes:
1. She was fired by/quit Dartmouth before February 18th and did that work for Lyles as a consultant…
Okay, I am out of ideas.
Lol.
I’d be interested to find when she left Dartmouth. That will be key. If it’s before these documents were created it’s not as bad as it looks right now. My guess is it was after, though, since she took a new job in April.
I sent an email to their director of communications and copied their AD, head of compliance and Buddy Teevens asking a bunch of questions. If the mainstream media isn’t stomping all over their phone lines and inboxes already, I might get an answer.
When/if they respond, I’ll forward it via email so you can build it into the post.
Coach Teevens said he’ll get back to me after checking with everyone I cc’d.
It would be interesting to see if Dartmouth purchased any recruiting services, and if they did, is the data they received similar to or a copy of the data in the spreadsheets sent by Lyles to UO…
Interesting to think that Dartmouth would be “recruiting”. They probably won’t get players who aspire to the NFL, but for someone who is a good athlete and has the academic qualifications, whyever wouldn’t they try to get to Dartmouth on their own, sans Willi?
Yeah, I mean Ivy League schools don’t even offer athletic scholarships. They “recruit” academics who like to play sports on the side…
wow that’s pretty fascinating. . good job angry and brownale! you guys might have a hand in taking down the ducks’ cronies. i hope buker pays close attention on this one
So here’s a basic overview of what I’m getting from all this. UO and Willie Lyles relationship breaks into the media, UO tells Lyles they need some documents as a front for the 25k payment, Lyles reaches out to a friend and former employee(csatari) who has knowledge of excel and football recruiting to help him compile a “recruiting package”, this “recruiting package” is sent off to UO.
Right, the timestamp is damning because that data should have been compiled before then.
Seastrunk signs on LOI day (Feb 2, 2010). The “National Package” doesn’t even exist at this point…at least the NC data (created 2/18/11) that would be considered National information. The other documents are just local to Texas. Anyway, Lyles receives a check a month later (March 2010)…once the NCAA comes knocking he realizes he needs to fib a National Package, so he asks this MS Office savvy chick to do it.
She can claim “consultant”…but if Dartmouth has a non-compete clause or anything like that she’ll be hosed by that lie. That’s why the date she left Dartmouth is important. This is should be interesting.
angry, to re-post here what I wrote above…
It would be interesting to see if Dartmouth purchased any recruiting services, and if they did, is the data they received similar to or a copy of the data in the spreadsheets sent by Lyles to UO…
And isn’t U of O saying they also received video materials from Lyles which they conveniently cannot locate now or was that just rumor I read somewhere?
Totally unrelated, yet totally relevant…
I’m starting to hear chatter from my friend in downtown LA. Apparently the NCAA interviewed DA Thomas earlier this year not because he had any association with Lyles, but because his coaches and/or handlers were suddenly flashing a lot of cash after signing day.
I would love to know what happened on DAT’s last second recruiting trip to UO. I have to imagine a whole lot of UO gear and cash was accumulated by DAT’s travelling party.
Is the information contained in the spreadsheet outdated like the information in Lyles’ booklet?
My theory is that Csatari still had what resembled pertinent recruiting info on her computer from her time at MLSsports or from Dartmouth. Lyles reached out to her knowing she might have this information and then forwarded it on to Oregon.
This dude lived with Lache Seastrunk’s mom for Pete’s sake. What more do you need to know.
The info was for juniors and sophs in the 2010 season, so it can be considered valid for contact info. But the lack of seniors says to me that Csatari stole info from Dartmouth and sent it to Lyles. If she had added the senior info, it might be easily identifiable as Coach Teeven’s target sheet for that year. Or maybe she thought the world would see that it was plausible the info was easy enough to obtain by Lyles or anyone else for prospects so far out, and she thought protecting the seniors list was loyalty to Dartmouth.
Either way, we should be finding out about it fairly soon.
The key is her answer to the questions the NCAA will eventually ask her, “Why did you create the documents in Willie Lyles recruiting package?” and “Where did you get the information in the documents?” She can either come clean or try to cover it up some more. Eventually the lid will be blown off this thing.
I still think her termination date at Dartmouth is key. She started working on this document 2/18/2011 at 9:40am. That’s a Friday morning, so she should have been at Dartmouth working on whatever. If she called out “sick” that day…hello Dolly!
If she wasn’t employed, again, the consultant/”nice gesture for a friend” arguments comes into play.
I hope she was still employed when she created this document. Maybe I’ll call Dartmouth tomorrow and pretend to be conducting a reference check. They give employment dates for that.
Is the information contained in the spreadsheet outdated like the information in Lyles’ booklet?
It’s more up to date, but there are errors. I’ve found guys with misspelled names, the wrong jersey numbers, etc. I assume this would be the 2012 “National Package” since most of these guys are soph/juniors…?
Edit: JackBeav makes a good point that this could be Dartmouth’s sheet lifted. But, I don’t think these kids would consider Dartmouth. Most I’ve looked at are somewhat highly rated. Keep in mind all the info on this spreadsheet can be found on rivals/scout/espn for $10.
Does anyone think that there could be any relation to this and the handshake agreement to have Belotti leave the program?
Clarification: As step down as AD
That is interesting. Obviously Belotti still wanted to be the head coach when he became AD. If these allegations are true, Oregon was cheating while Belotti was still the head coach (LaMichael James), so he must have known. He was unhappy/incompetent as an AD and still got a sweet severance package. Although, outing Oregon would probably not be in his best interest since he most likely knew of or had a part in all the shady stuff.
Has anyone listened to Jason Whitlock’s podcast where he interviewed Willie Lyles a few months ago? It’s very bizarre. I’ve always respected Whitlock and he thought at the time that the media was creating a story out of nothing. He views Lyles as a mentor, Lance Seastrunk’s mom might have a different opinion.
Someone needs to tell these kids that they don’t need guys like Lyles to pimp them out to colleges. If someone is gonna get paid for you to go to college it might as well be you.
Buker’s response:
FOrwarded this to the UO writers working this story.
Thanks. INteresting stuff… PB
Brooks of Sports by Brooks going on Canzano’s show here in the 4 o’clock hour to talk all things ‘uck related.
I’ll try to recap for those who miss it.
They are playing clips from Lyles Houston radio interview. The man is pretty thick, he basically just admitted to steering players to Oregon. Of course we already knew this since in every interview Lyles gives he admits to steering players to schools and receiving payments but doesn’t seem to realize why this is bad for the schools he “works” for.
It could be that the computer Ms. Whitlock used to use while working for Lyles in 2008-2009 at MSL sports, still had her name attached to it after she left the company. Not saying she’s off the hook, but there is another angle to this. Lyles or anybody else could have created the documents on that computer.
True. Doesn’t even have to be her computer, really. Could just be that she installed the Microsoft Office suite and registered it in her name (or someone else did).
dude, are you guys serious?? That proves ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!…..
humor me here and open any excel spreadsheet to which you are not the author. Then click “File, Save AS”…. and change the file name. then open that file….. whatdaya know!! you are now the author of the file and all the dates have changed. Thank god you aren’t detectives! PLUS the authors name is based on what the computer is named. If Lyles was using an old computer that was once Michelle’s she would be the author! For a guy starting his own business cutting expenses by using an old friends pc is a great way to do it.
For someone who writes a blog, you have some pretty crappy IT knowledge! oh, wait, forgot that any idiot bark muncher can write blogs these days and pretend to be a journalist.
Damn bark munching trolls! Maybe if you spent more time worrying about your own program, instead of investigating (poorly) Oregon’s you’d make it to a BCS Bowl…..
A) Nah, that’s not how it works. If it WAS how it works, it should have been Oregonlive or somebody in the Ducks athletic department as the author…
What you CAN do is copy and paste the info into a new spreadsheet…that will change the author. But the author is the creator of that original file. But clearly that didn’t happen.
Seriously…you try it. It doesn’t work the way you outlined.
B) How did Michelle Csatari, employee or recently former employee of Dartmouth University, get the Oregon’s recruiting info anyway?
C) You must not read this blog much. We worry plenty about Oregon State. Sometimes we worry too much. On the other hand, Oregon fans worry too little.
you are right, never seen this blog before. and don’t get me wrong, I am VERY WORRIED! VERY worried. Right now, I hide my head. I wanted to believe whole heartedly that we ran a completely legit program (as I also believe OSU does) and now I have my doubts. I haven’t given up hope, but this definitely causes worry.
Be proud that Riley and the beavs have such a great rep in that regard. and I hate to say this, but the doggs and Sark too!
Make no doubt about it, most people here understand that allegations like these, potential infractions like these, could happen to any university. It’s very likely that a high percentage of DI schools cheat the system one way or another… I don’t think OSU/Riley are morally above that.
“Damn bark munching trolls! Maybe if you spent more time worrying about your own program, instead of investigating (poorly) Oregon’s you’d make it to a BCS Bowl….”
The delusion of the Oregon Duck fan is so adorble…they actually think they have a hand in what happens on Saturdays…
“Did you see that run by LaMichael James?!”
“Yeah, all my blogging is really paying off!”
So if you are right why was Willie, the Ducks, or anyone else creating/editing the 2010/2011 recruiting spreadsheet on February 18th, 2011? Shouldn’t Oregon have had these files for months?
That’s not right. There are properties associated with the original author (and who saved it last, but completely different properties).
Oh damn you WebOfLyles!! Why did I not think of your username!?
Full disclosure, the name came from a SPORTSbyBROOKS Twitter hashtag.
First of all, show me where anyone said this proves guilt? It doesn’t, but it definitely provides more circumstantial evidence. If Csatari didn’t create the document, who did? This should be a simple task. Go to Lyle’s office and see which employee logged into Csatari ‘s computer on Feb 18th at 9:40am. That information would be in the system logs. So, if the document wasn’t created from her home in New Hampshire, the issue should be easy to clear. Hand over the logs, Wilie, and make this a non-story.
Also, Office doesn’t really work like that. You’re talking about system level ownership (i.e. NTFS file structure on Windows) versus metadata. To appease you, I just did what you said, and Michelle Csatari is still the author. You’ll notice the document says “last saved by Oregonian”, and if I do what you said that changes to my name, but the Author remains as Michelle Csatari. I believe metadata can only be removed with software (or preemptive measures, like setting preferences not to archive it). Not positive, but I think so.
Finally, email headers give IP addresses. Whoever emailed the document to Lyles would become known by looking at Lyles computer, opening the email, reading the header, and analyzing the IP address. In fact, the Oregonian can do this and see who sent the email to them. There are other ways to trace this, too.
Dear Friend Duck,
One issue is there is no UO blog called “A Critical View of Oregon Athletics.” It would help with the dangerous amount of money that is flowing into the UO program. The Angry Beav group is both critically analytical of OSU sports and supportive. It is refreshing and I recommend it. Sometimes I think we even provide Duck fans with their best material.
Regards,
FatDog
Brownale…. did you even try to duplicate what I mentioned? Try it…..
easy answer Max…. you get an email with an attachment and then save that attachment to your drive. Save as, once again
In my career, I have misplaced documents sent to me months prior and then asked the sender to resend it. Re-saved, wholla, new dates, authors, and all. The UO never once said that was the first time the document was sent. That was just the one they released. Is it possible that the identical document was sent months prior, but they didn’t see the need to release duplicate spreadsheets so they released just one?
I like the Beavs, so I apologize for my bark munching comments….. I’m a little worked up over this because every one wants to the Judge/Jury/Executioner. I, for one, am waiting for the investigation to be over to form my opinion. If, in fact, the UO did something wrong….. by all means, punish us….. badly.
and to those without Excel. I duplicated this at work before I came home and posted, just to be sure. A spreadsheet was sent to me by my marketing manager, suddenly the author, original save dates, modify dates, and everything changed. There is a difference between simply saving, and “saving as”
The “Author” doesn’t change, just “Last Saved By”.
You are incorrect about the excel files. I have documents that were created years ago that show the original author even though I change and edit them all the time and it show I was the last to edit but does not change the author. Example, I have timesheets I have “save as” a thousand times and the original author name is on all of them. Jeeze!
if it wasn’t confidential company info I tested this on, I’d send you the files to prove it! It is possible.
maybe it has something to do with the file I tested it on was located on a remote server and was never on my computer until I “saved as”…. I don’t know, but I can swear on my families name, it can happen and can be done! I purposely tested it because of this article.
I tried with an Outlook attachment and it didn’t overwrite the Author or Content Created date. It could be the case that file didn’t have properties before you saved it? It is possible to save a file, and then clear all the properties.
If the original file is a TEMPLATE file, you open it, then save as, it will give a new author.
This was not a template file. Was she at the Oregon Athletic Department office that day? Was she working at the Oregonian? Was she in my office when I saved that file?
But that wouldn’t explain why her name is listed anyway.
You can also change the author within the properties tab…again, that doesn’t explain why her name is there.
In fact, it’s KNOWN that the Oregonian saved the file last. Otherwise, Willie Lyles sent Oregon a file with the phone numbers redacted.
Which wouldn’t shock me, considering Willie Lyles is clearly a friggin idiot.
ok, I don’t know enough to know how/why I did it, but whatever version of excel I was using and the way my work servers are set up, It worked. I promise you that! But, either way I admit fishy crap is going on….
on a side note, I am quite pleasantly surprised at the quality of comments on your blog. I felt the USC issue was a black eye to the product that is the PAC10/12, and urge you all despite our rivalry to hope that this doesn’t’ become what it seems. Otherwise we will have a 6-6 team playing in the Rose bowl with the top two schools in the conference on sanctions!!
Go Ducks! (and beavs, except Civil War week!)
I went to the Oregonian Website and tried what Angry and 3yo discussed, by first downloading the document and then performing a “save as”. Sure enough, Miss Csatari was the author. On my system the document can’t be open to review “properties”. Instead, I had to right click from the folder view. Here’s the Oregonian link.
http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2011/06/uo_releases_more_documents_fro.html
Agreed about the comments and blog, had to bookmark the blog for future reading and entertainment. Husky fan but grew up in Oregon. This whole Oregon topic and willy is soooo entertaining.
This is a pretty good interview:
http://audio.1080thefan.com/a/41113928/brooks-sportsbybrooks-com.htm?
He’s predicting Chip Kelly will be fired via a 10.1 violation. If Oregon/Kelly said anything but “we were defrauded” he’s done. Thing is, if that were the case Oregon would have asked for their money back by now…
Also, I thought it was known that Kelly talked to the NCAA. Brooks is saying that isn’t known.
Yeah, I loved that interview.
Even as bad as I think this all looks for Oregon, Brooks thinks it’s worse. And he even claims to LIKE Oregon.
A few more things…
1) The screencap above is from ONE of the two files…the North Carolina prospects. There’s a 2nd file with South Carolina prospects. Those two files were AUTHORED 13 minutes apart.
If Michelle Csatari created those files, she did so in a big, big hurry. Just as fast as she could copy and paste the info, basically.
2) It’s interesting that, and I only looked at the North Carolina juniors and cross-referenced that to scout.com’s info.
There are 4 players on scout.com that have a listed ‘interest level’ in Oregon. 1 of the 4 has an offer but he’s not on the spreadsheet. One guy who IS on the spreadsheet is Keith Marshall, the #1 RB recruit in the country. He holds offers from about 20 programs. But not Oregon.
That seems odd.
I noticed that. But, I believe that can be explained one of two ways:
1. Copy/paste quickly, as you mentioned.
2. Open a new document, begin working on it…13 minutes later open another document and begin working on it…close it hours later. “Created” just means when that blank page is opened.
Let’s not ruin this woman’s life and slander her. She might very well have nothing to do with this…all I am saying is her name is on the document and that deserves an explanation.
No, absolutely I agree. In fact, I’d go as far as saying she probably did nothing wrong. She was probably freelancing and did this for her buddy for a few bucks while she looked for a new job.
Even if she did all the work herself, it’s bizarre that she only STARTED work on it after Oregon told Willie Lyles that he needed to provide decent info for the $25k they paid him 1 year before.
Unless of course Oregon was paying for influence and not recruiting info – which Lyles had already provided.
Angry,
Thanks for writing this article!
I learn more IT on this blog than I ever learned in a course. Now, if you guys could just figure out a way to intercept Phil Knight’s communications on this matter . . .
Not that I advocate criminal behavior, but a technique called “social engineering” would work best on a target like Phil Knight.
Guys, the more I think about this, the less I believe the “Lyles sat down at Csatari’s computer” argument.
Think this through with me:
1. Her job description reads: Created and managed accounts, databases, invoices, contracts, payments, and product distribution for College Football Programs.
Does that sound like a computer that would lack a password? Does it sound like a computer anyone could access?
2. Therefore, I have to be reasonable and assume this computer had a password on it. So, if Lyles did share the computer with her, he’d either (a) know and use her password or (b) have his own profile.
3. If he had his own profile, MS Excel works in a manner where the user who is logged in is the author. Create two accounts on your computer and try it yourself. Excel does not issue an author based on the computer name.
Let’s entertain option 2.(a).
This option would mean that Lyles kept this employee’s computer profile a year after she left the company. Now, does this make sense? This is a man savvy enough to start a business, weasel his way into Seastrunk’s mother’s life, and scam hundreds of thousands of dollars from major universities. But he’s not savvy enough to lock down access to said money? He’s not savvy enough to know you never allow an ex-employee access to a computer with financial information on it?
I understand it’s possible he left the computer wide open or used an ex-employee’s password, but reasonable doubt? Eh. It seems like unreasonable doubt.
Suppose I should write the woman and ask her flat out.
Alright, I have a query in to her. We’ll see!
It never hurts to ask…but good luck with that one!
Is her surname actually Csatari or is C a middle initial attached to the last name Satari?
Fascinating stuff. Kudos to all. Only place you can find this stuff. You are GOOD and are on my “must read” shortcut.
I’m a Beaver,
You’re a Beaver,
We are Beavers all.
And when we get together
We’ll give a Beaver call.
Gotta love you’re coach. Top notch.
It’s usually not this exciting, Jim. Usually we just bitch about Riley and our poor recruiting classes and mid-tier bowls.
Did I mention that I’m really happy about Gavin Andrews’ commitment, and I’d really like Garrett Weinreich to come block for his QB in college?
Ditto JB. DITTO!!
Isaac and Suke covered all of this with Ted Miller today pretty much word for word, including referring to the situation with Michelle Csatari as a prisoners dilemma.
So, they plagiarized?
I mailed this to Miller this afternoon.
I just called him out on Twitter. What a jerk.
Guys, follow me on Twitter (angrybeavs)…I use it for weird things like this sometimes.
Isaac or Suke ripped you off verbatim. Ted Miller didn’t sound like he knew about the excel spreadsheet angle yet. Did you forward this info to them?
Angry, I suspect your writings and those of other bloggers on this site are plagarized more than you know. Also, that many OSU athletes and coaches read it without admitting to doing so.
done!
listen to the interview: http://audio.1080thefan.com/a/41745215/ted-miller-espn-com-pac-12-reporter.htm?
isaac(?) mentions that this site (although he doesnt specifically say the name) was forwarded on to them.. and it’s pretty clear that he’s just reading off of this post as he goes along
lol. he’s reading right off the post: “And it’s a you know it’s it’s — someone says here — it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma where she may be liable to crack or say something before… –“
No, someone else must have forwarded it to them.
I sent it to the Pac-10, Ted Miller, Buker, and SportsByBrooks. I don’t even know who Isaac and Suke are…
they have a sports talk show in the afternoons up here in portland.. anyways, they don’t say who forwarded it to them, just that it “got forwarded on to us” …
if this is Cloud_D I might have to go HAM on some ninjas!
This document keeps getting weirder. I ran an analysis of the metadata, and is has these 3 hashes.
1. MD5 hash: 23B71CF2CDBCE6D3B7F6EBC50AC299BF (translates to “Slow Down Cowboy”, but I find this unreliable).
2. SHA-1 hash: 1B033EAD443B6C707B25897786C67BA6530D6DCB
3. SHA-256 hash (these are impossible to crack other than years of brute force and guessing): 9F453249B8C468D86A178BED58D005F68DA41F5B55D590F5858D6616BE753BD1
Odd.
Edit: JackBeav, thanks–fixed.
So Chip Kelly and associates will defend that they received a half-assed spread sheet for their 25k, yet this is the same program that designed an innovative offense that has set the college football world on fire? Disconnect. I guess we will be seeing Mr.Kelly coaching a D-2 program in a three years after all of this has died down.
Complete and total topic change: When you’ve had enough of (alleged) dirty deals and, if you haven’t already, check out the Beavers without Borders trip in Macedonia. Lots of youtube stuff, but here is one that is especially fun. Kevin McShane has more on his website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqDZMEQYtT0
Saw that yesterday. Fun stuff.
If you have’t yet, check out “Sports by Brooks” where he provides interview summary whetein Lyles says U Texas resents him because he steered Seastrunk away from Texas and towards Oregon….Brooks I think will be another site that pushes for facts too see light.
Didn’t he also say Texas was paying for players as well?
Dude’s a cult of personality, and the kids he handles will all drink the kool-aid if it comes to that. The problem is that they’re not as bright as their bhagavan on the compliance level. Every time they open their mouths in defense of Lyles, they admit to some violation and wonder incredulously why anyone thinks he’s dirty.
Haven’t heard back from Dartmouth other than Coach Teevens’ quick note last night. That info will be passed on as soon as it comes through. I can only imagine some of the media types alerted to this are also asking questions, and they need to investigate thoroughly before making any statements which will be both definitive and public. It would be absolutely hilarious if they made a public statement regarding this issue, and the sports media world did a giant “Whaaa? Who? Dartmouth? Whaaa? Didn’t see that one coming.”
My personal take is that once Coach Teevens saw the documents I linked on O-live he recognized them, and they have likely been in compliance overdrive since. It doesn’t matter that some kids are highly rated or just no-names. Sophs and juniors are still on target sheets because of the limited contact coaches can make until after their junior year. At that time, lists are culled due to express disinterest in what prospects think are lower level football schools. But you still need to talk to these kids, their families and their coaches and school officials first. Going to an Ivy League school is no small accomplishment. In fact, like Stanford, it’s harder to get into these schools than it is to graduate once you’re there.
Any prospect recruited by an Ivy League school should take that recruitment seriously. That most don’t is, frankly, a shame. I think that’s why we don’t see any senior lists. They are considerably culled and focused by that time.
I went back to Shaggy Bevo to reread the roots of this story.
http://www.shaggybevo.com/board/showthread.php/40098-Will-Lyles
There are a lot of good links starting at the end of p.2. You can find your way to the Lache Seastrunk thread as well, but it has been heavily redacted since Lache’s aunt was there defending her nephew’s honor… until it was proven there was none, and she deleted everything. Seastrunk’s recruitment took the odd turn after his junior year as well. With increased conversation came increased understanding by the schools recruiting him. Though I think Texas half expected obstruction once they knew who was involved.
Regardless, this has been known for years, but there has been no smoking gun until now. And Nikegon keeps trying to throw the gun away, only to find out it has a boomerang app.
Poor suckers. Can’t tell the guy to go to hell because he’ll talk. Can’t pay the guy because the NCAA doesn’t allow that. What’s a school to do?
One of the links caught my attention in a big way.
http://recruitocosm.fantake.com/2011/03/02/brandon-alexander-were-larger-forces-at-play/
Read through that and tell me Mike Riley and some North Carolina recruits don’t come to mind.
Hmmm?
I have a request into Dartmouth, too.
PS. Remember how furious Riley was about the NC kids? He yanked all scholarships after the one kid de-committed to Texas Tech. Wonder if Riley knew the reason. He was definitely more angry with that situation than when other kids have de-committed There was a guy going around all the Beaver forms at the time touting those kids…forget his handle.. He ran a camp in NC and acted as their prep coach. Interesting (coincidence?) that Lyle’s spreadsheet has so many NC kids on it. Was there a prep coach/”mentor” in South Carolina taking kids around the country, too?
It will be interesting to see how Texas plays into this. If they’re clean (and they could be, since they don’t really need to pay kids to play there) then they’ll help expose Oregon. I don’t think they took kindly to Oregon plucking kids they wanted from their backyard. People assume Oregon will get away with this because they have money…Texas has money, too. If Texas isn’t clean, they might partner with Oregon to cover this up…
Tedford has a ton of dirt on Oregon, too. But Cal cheats, so…
I think it’s just coincidence that the players are from those two areas. Consider that Teevens has connections in La and East Tx from his days at Tulane. And he certainly has a connection in the Carolinas with the Old Ball Coach.
Hmm – I wonder if Dartmouth willl long put up with anything or anyone scandalous.
Remember Cal is one school who paid Lyles in 2010… according to Lyles in his conversation with Jason Whitlock. LSU was the other.
Lyles’ cult is strong at Dallas Skyline, and Cal did sign one CB Steve Williams in 2009 and one CB Adrian Lee in 2010.
And the guy’s name is Otis Yelverton. This is all making sense now. On top of the NC recruits to us last year, Keenan Allen’s recruitment last year was more hinky than it looked to even the most cynical observer.
http://bogieonbama.blogspot.com/2010/02/brothers-allen-and-brown-and-mentors.html
Tedford can’t afford to out Nikegon. He’s in bed with them. One would think after the Gary Campbell/JJ Arrington LOI-forgery thing, Tedford would have impetus to out them.
He didn’t then, and he can’t now.
Btw… how many times can we read one of these links and not find Gary Campbell mentioned?
I know, but I’m hoping Tedford/Cal talks to someone off the record. He HATES Oregon, and for anyone who followed recruiting in 2008/2009 you know why (hint: it, too, involved highly coveted NC kids). Tedford wants to talk. Maybe I should make a “tipster”/whistle blower link at the top of the page??
Re: Gary Campbell
Hahaha
Whatshisname here at South Eugene last year? Was that Gabe King?
There are a lot of unresolved questions from fans of Duck High who were miffed at the time they unceremoniously “let Cal have him”… *sniff*… they “didn’t want/need him anyway”… *sniff*.
Exactly. But that was a couple years ago now.
He had a posse, too.
Gabe King, Chris McCain, Keenan Allen and Zach Maynard are all associated with Otis Yelverton.
The reason King ends up transferring to Eugene of all places?
Dino Philyaw is Yelverton’s cousin and still lives here in town.
There’s no need to ask for money up front from the schools in Yelverton’s case. He’s pulling a World Wide Wes.
It turns out Lyles is a bigger idiot than we thought for going for the immediate payday instead of waiting for a sustained 15% off the top of some lucrative NFL contracts.
This really sucks.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t any “donations” coming into schools and camps with Yelverton “interests” tied to them.
Ahhhh…. Sonny Vaccaro and the Pumps would be proud.
A brief article about those 5 kids Yelverton took on a whirlwind tour of Eugene and, presumably, Berkley…
http://al.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=957496
Yep, 4 kids from NC sign with Cal, the other with Oregon. And I am supposed to believe Yelverton wasn’t a street agent…
Cal’s gotta be on deck after this Oregon thing settles.
Speaking of Yelverton’s future plans, I don’t know why I missed this at the time, but he abruptly left Oak Ridge Military Academy in March.
http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/03/21/article/yelverton_postgraduates_not_part_of_ormas_future
Wow, talk about killing a school. That makes me want to make all public education private.
“Yelverton said 18 football players from his first-year program were moving on to college programs, including 12 headed to Division I schools.”
Someone needs to mentor… er… babysit… um… protect their investment until their investment is in the NFL.
Jackbeav said: Read through that and tell me Mike Riley and some North Carolina recruits don’t come to mind.
–
Yes, it came to mind.
You know what else is strange about the NC list (and points to that Dartmouth connection)…?
Of the 134 prospects with a listed GPA, 79 have a reported GPA of 3.5 or higher. That seems awfully high. All 134 have a minimum GPA of 3.0. 66 of them are listed as DII prospects, 37 as DI/II tweeners, and 72 as clear DI prospects. So 59% of these guys aren’t DI prospects, and 134 have a GPA of 3.0 or higher??
And this was prepared for Oregon/national programs?
(note: I haven’t examined the SC list yet)
Update: The SC list is similar. Not going to run all the numbers…you can do that on your own, but I see the same pattern.
Thanks for beating me to it, I noticed that last night and was considering a post on the subject.
I agree – that looks like a Dartmouth list, not an Oregon list.
I wonder what Buddy Teevens thought when he saw his list of recruits in that spreadsheet?
Their silence to date should translate as:
HOLY SHIT!!!
haha, yeah…that sounds about right.
You know, I wonder what they think of relevant recruiting info landing at Nikegon for a price. This would pretty much kill any competitive advantage Teevens has through his legitimate connections.
Can someone enlighten me. Do Ivy League schools have any good lawyers who might take a bite (or two) out of everyone involved? Or do they care? I mean, it’s not like the Ivy League really cares about amateurism in college sports.
Right?
LOL!! “Ain’t that about a B*#$h.” -Buddy Teevens
Hey guys. I may start another Beaver blog as a complement to the great work Angry does.
What are some names you would be most in favor of for a Pac-12 quality Oregon St. blog?
Please reply ASAP if possible. Thanks!!
Orange Pulp: A Blog With a POWERFUL Brand
This borders on brilliant comedy:
http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2011/6/22/2238112/complete-scouting-servicess-2010-national-scouting-package
I’m sure some angry blogger has spotted this . . . but in case not – Someone named Tom Csatari involve with Dartmouth football.
http://www.fodf.org/newsletter/The%20Green%20Line%20-%20Volume%201.2%20Screen.pdf
We may have caused some internal strife as well? Tom Csatari was a football player at Dartmouth in the early 70’s, and he remains involved with the college in a large way today.
I’m going to create a story:
Tom Csatari, former player, dedicated alumnus, financially very well off, gives considerable time and energy to his alma mater; especially the football program. A noble guy. He would, however, like to see Dartmouth become more of a football power, not just in the Ivy League, but with some national recognition. It happens that his (insert relative type: daughter, cousin, . . . ) has worked with a “recruiter” and if the athletic department and the administration agree, she can assist in this endeavor.
She is hired but soon thereafter, her non-Csatari connections seem to be mired in a bit of controversy which is ballooning into scandal – something about water birds in the northwest and $25,000 ($10,000 less than a year’s tuition at Dartmouth), Willie someone, and the NCAA.
Worse yet, the Dartmouth football program is being thrown into the conversation. Dartmouth dumps the Csatari hire faster than you can say Go Green.
To be continued: (?)
Strap your helmets on.
http://www2.registerguard.com/cms/index.php/duck-football/comments/oregon-brings-in-the-cleaner-to-assist-with-ncaa/
“Glazier’s strategy sometimes involves admitting violations and seeking to atone for them with self-imposed penalties.”
Too late for that unless they clean house.
Ahhhh…
“Not everyone is a fan. Back in 1994, then-Pitt football coach Mike Gottfried — angry that Glazier’s tactics often led to a dismissed coach or at the least, a coach with a tarnished reputation — called Glazier a “bounty hunter.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=3437266
Cleaning house is a tactic. If Chip didn’t contradict himself and the story so many times, he could be saved. He may still if Glazier can convince the world that Campbell is the Todd McNair in this case. We now know why Campbell has been in hiding for the last four months.
Who pays for the lawyers?
I have quickly become a BIG fan of your blog…. (although I hate you all for making me worry so much!! LOL)…. great posts and investigating (even though I slammed it in my first post)…
this just in from RG
http://www2.registerguard.com/cms/index.php/duck-football/index/
Well for what it’s worth I don’t like you.
I’m losing sleep over it too!!
Heh, heh.
Something else has been bothering me.
I emailed the link to this blog post to one of the chumps at the Register Guard, thinking somebody might care. I received a brief response that was basically “Yeah, looks like she freelanced this list for Will Lyles…they used to work together.”
Fair enough, it’s a possibility.
But flash back with me to May of 2011: Chip Kelly stated to the Oregonian that what Will Lyles had provided to Oregon was ‘names and numbers.’ Basically insinuating that this was valuable information that not just ANYBODY could get. And it was well worth $25k because not just anybody could come up with this valuable contact info.
So in February, Michelle Csatari created at least these 2 spreadsheets for Will Lyles…maybe on her own time, maybe while employed at Dartmouth…who knows.
But how did SHE get this info? I thought this was incredibly valuable stuff that not just anybody could find?
And don’t give me the ‘they worked together, they could have used the same computer’. By all indications, she was in New Hampshire and Will Lyles was in his 2 bedroom apartment in Houston.
Maybe she should have been changing Oregon the $25k since she was able to come up with this incredible list of amazing information that not just anybody could find?
Seriously, now every school in America gets the $25,000 “national package” for free! I’m sure Riley’s eagle-eying it…
lol
Nothing in The Oregonian today. I guess they believe that they are current on the story. I sure the hell wish I had thought about “street agent” as a career. Use the free one week trial to get on scout.com, cut and paste some crap into a spreadsheet and then have top d-1 football programs pay me 25k!
Anyone heard if the “video” Lyle and associates provided turned up? I can find a beat up VHS copy of Top Gun in my garage that I paid $9.99 for, but the university can’t find video that was part of a 25k package? So far it’s….I paid 25k and all I got was this lousy spreadsheet.
From: http://www2.registerguard.com/cms/index.php/duck-football/comments/column-ducks-are-pulling-out-the-big-guns-in-ncaa-inquiry/
“Oregon will contend it simply made a bad business decision, which isn’t against the rules. Lyles, the Ducks will say, provided useful information in other forms than spreadsheets, video and outdated documents”
‘(Lyles) provided useful’ in ‘other forms’ such as? Aside from spreadsheets, documents and video what else could he have done that was ‘useful’?
Oh yeah, steering recruits to UO.
They’ve had Glazier on since March, AND they’ve been this quiet and handled it so poorly? UO, a marketing school, knows the value of managing perceptions. Their lack of effort in message development and control suggests to me that they’ve had to focus on other, more serious problems.
It was actually a brillant business decision…invest 25k…get one of the best RB recruits in the nation…until they got caught!
Mandel’s summary at bottom of page.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/06/22/mailbag/index.html?sct=cf_t11_a0
I can’t get into details, but…wow.
Anything short of “lack of institutional control” and we may as well disband the NCAA and go anarchist.
Yeah?
So let me get this straight, UO only paid 25K to Lyles ostensibly because that is the limit for a no bid contract in the state. This Glazier guy is definitely going to cost more than 25K, probably in the 500K – 1 Mil range (based on history) that the university is going to be paying, not the athletic department. Are lawyers subject to bidding?
ESPN–Ted Miller picked this up today:
http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/22668/oregon-lawyers-up-just-in-case
National attention continues. That keeps the heat on the investigation. Only thing that keeps the playing field level…kind of.
Just an observation, but it seems like this is getting more national attention than in Portland, right now. The Oregonian is not doing much with it, the more interesting points I have read are coming from the Eugene paper. I find it odd that the Oregonian would let the Register Guard run with this.
They appear to only be reference material. It took them a heads up to even reference themselves on Monday, so what are we going to expect?
The half assed approach by the local media might be a feast for any conspiracy theorists on the blog. A seriously sanctioned Duck football program would not be a good thing for a state that is already facing serious long term economic issues.
I am a little bit surprised and perturbed at the lack of developments on this story, or any push from the Oregonian.
I recall seeing somewhere there is an audio record of a Kelly interview where he tells Canzano he didn’t even know Lyles. Is this true? If so, I’d think Canzano would be pressing a bit more, given all the evidence that Kelly dined with lyles and exchanged all the text messages.
Why the silence?
It’s the same as when the story first broke. A lot of chatter, then it died down. I have a feeling it’s for a couple reasons this time around:
1. The media doesn’t have anything new.
2. The “cleaner” told Oregon to shut up.
3. Oregon is paying key people to remain silent.
4. Many feel like this is in the NCAA’s hands now, so there’s nothing to say until they speak.
I agree…people in the media should be keeping the story alive. I don’t want to turn this into a Duck blog by bringing it up every week. Writing the Oregonian staff and asking/demanding follow up might be the best idea.
Canzano did mention that on his radio show recently, kind of in passing really. He didn’t dwell on it but he did say that Chip had called him back after the interview to say he was confused and retracted his statement of not knowing Lyles. Sounds fishy.
The story died down after a few days partially due to the NBA draft, Blazer rumors, etc. I would suspect it comes back to life soon, if for no other reason than there’s literally nothing else for the local sports media to talk about with the NBA going into lockout.
Another possibility: they’re working on something even bigger.
Yahoo sports has indicated that it has 2 more scandal stories about to break.
Rumor has it the first one involves Willie Lyles. Same rumors say that Texas A&M and LSU are two programs with the most to fear (along with Oregon, who already has enough to worry about and maybe Oklahoma State.) Allegedly, Mack Brown may have hired a private investigator to follow Willie around to dig up dirt. If that’s true, it’s hilarious. The first story is supposed to come out within a week or so.
The second story supposedly has nothing to do with Willie Lyles.
A Houston area radio host tweeted this today:
LanceZierlein
@BarkingCarnival the real headline story is going to be whatever happens with Charles Robinson’s piece. My guess is Oregon will get it
Robinson has a piece he’s been working on for quite a while that is set to hit in August. Robinson has stated that his August story is easily a ’10’. For reference, he called the Jim Tressel/tOSU story an ‘8’.
Considering the fact that Ohio State had their head coach fired, lost their best player and half their team for half the season…this has got to be pretty huge.
So what would be the worst thing that could come out of all this that would affect Oregon? Hard to say, but I’d guess it would have to involve Nike in some way.
Two months ago, I really didn’t think Oregon would get more than a slap on the wrist – with Gary Campbell POSSIBLY getting fired. Now, I think they’re going to receive a penalty as close to the death penalty as any team since SMU.
Ooh, very exciting.
Shadiest recruits, in order: Seastrunk, DeAnthony Thomas, Cliff Harris, L. James, and Lyerla.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cal get busted soon. Glad Larry Scott negotiated the Pac-12 contract already. There’s going to be some BAD football for a while.
Yeah, Cal is so dirty it’s ridiculous. And if they put Cal’s feet to the fire and Tedford starts to feel the heat, how long before he airs ALL the dirty laundry he has on Oregon?
Off topic…
I knew Lance way back when in the late 90’s when he and John Granato had the morning show on 610am in Houston. I wasn’t the greatest of friends with him and John. I was a very good friend of their news/weather/research/producer guy, Rob Costa.
Rob was a native Bostonian who was in the process of transitioning from his accounting career to being a sports radio dude… something he loved. But I always got the sense that the accountant in the back of his mind told him to always have a “day job”. It’s odd that I was thinking of him the other day.
Re media: If you notice, every time Canzano comments on Oregon he gets huge push back from duk fans. He often crafts his columns from the perspective of a reasonable Ducks fan who would question what constantly occurs at Nikegon. I think the Oregonian has to have sure things to pursue pissing off an intense group of true believers and the bandwagon supporters.
What push back?
Arlgrlghhh! I not lick yoo Cantzona. You maek sumtheeng in my brane buzzz liek a tayzor. I not lick tayzors. Gett it? Arlgrlghhh!
Boom goes the dynamite!
And that’s just the FIRST story. The next one will be bigger and worse.
I dont remember….what happened to SMU?
Edit — Yeah, I am lazy… but I googled it and found out. And the only reason Kentucky didnt get the same treatment in Basketball was that the President was quick with self imposed sanctions. I wonder what the UO President will do. He promised to clean things up after the Belotti buyout scandal. I wonder if Nike is really running the place.
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