Category Archives: Gambling/Cheating

Nine Men Arrested for Betting $100K on . . . Youth Football?

How bad does your addiction to gambling have to be to cause you to wager money on youth football played by kids not yet in high school?

Pretty bad, it would seem, and cops in Broward County (FLA) even have surveillance video showing parents exchanging money in the stands while watching their kids’ play.  And it wasn’t just parents putting money on the games: coaches may also have been involved, making you wonder if they ever played kids who were hurt, or pulled healthy kids from games to intentionally lose. And we’re not talking about a couple of bucks or a wager for beer: investigators believe the wagering on games topped $100,000 for a championship game.

Amazing video below, but first, more on the story from the Huffington Post:

Coaches routinely met before games and set point spreads, investigators said, but they do not believe the games were thrown or that coaches encouraged players not to complete a touchdown in order to control the outcome. Authorities said they had no evidence that the players were aware of the bets.

“It’s about kids being exploited unfortunately by greedy parents and greedy grown-ups and coaches who were basically nothing more than criminals,” Sheriff Al Lamberti said.

After months of surveillance, digging through trash cans and raiding two gambling houses, authorities arrested alleged ringleader Brandon Bivins, known as ‘Coach B’ in the community, charging him with felony bookmaking and keeping a gambling house. Eight others were also charged Monday with bookmaking and some were charged with keeping a gambling house.

Father Threatens to Kill Volleyball Coach, Rape Family After His Daughter is Benched – John Kasik

At BadJocks, we always applaud parents who get involved in their children’s lives and support their athletic efforts. But John Kasik, 61, of suburban Chicago may have gone a bit too far. Just a tad.

As we understand it, Kasik has a couple of daughters who play for the girls volleyball team at Lisle High School. At recent match, the coach/Athletic Director Dan Dillard pulled one of his daughters during a game and replace her with her sister. For some reason, Kasik disliked that move and let the coach know it. In fact, he allegedly followed Dillard home, pulling up along side his car at one point to yet at him on the road, then once at Dillard’s home, Kasik reportedly said he would kill the official if his distraught daughter “didn’t make it through the night.” To make sure his point was made, Kasik then repeatedly called and texted Dillard for the rest of the evening, at one point suggesting that he would rape Dillard’s wife and daughter.

Now THAT’S how to get a coach’s attention! Despite the threats though, Dillard offered to meet with Kasik at his office the following day and–not surprisingly–that did not go well either, with the coach claiming the irate father refused to let him leave the office and bumped him.

Not surprisingly, Kasik has now been charged with felony telephone harassment and misdemeanor counts of battery and disorderly conduct.

UPDATE: According to one source Kasik should know better: he coached varsity boys volleyball at Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1992 to 2005 and led the Huskies to three Illinois High School Association state finals appearances.

Source: Daily Herald

UNC Football Player Accused of Plagerized Paper Written by 11-Year-Olds

If you’re going to steal, why not from the best, right?

The real question for UNC is whether this is just an isolated incident or a pattern of cheating that Erik Highsmith, an other players, have participated in.

Here’s more from the News & Observer:

As the spring 2011 semester wound to a close, UNC-Chapel Hill football player Erik Highsmith had nothing to show for the blog students were supposed to contribute to for a communications class, his instructor said. The blog accounted for 30 percent of a student’s grade.  Highsmith wrote two posts in seven days. The first was about poultry farming, the second about people and pets.  Very little of either post was in his own words.

The first entry was virtually identical to a passage on an education website written by four 11-year-olds for their peers. The second mirrored much of an essay someone posted on Urch.com, a website that helps people prepare for the SAT, GRE and other college entry exams.

Instructor J. Nikol Beckham said she spotted the plagiarism and reported it to the academic support program for student athletes. By then, an NCAA investigation had turned up numerous examples of a tutor providing improper help to football players, and Beckham was concerned the plagiarism went beyond Highsmith and her class.

“I suggested that they consider that this isn’t an isolated incident,” she said, “and I expressed my disappointment considering everything that had been going on for the last year. And I received a great deal of assurances that it would be handled.”