by Josh Luchs
Contents
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION: Why Should You Believe Me?
CHAPTER 1 Congratulations Mrs. Luchs, it’s a 7-pound 9-ounce sports agent …
CHAPTER 2 I’m an agent; now all I need is a client.
CHAPTER 3 Paying a player is like losing your virginity. You can never get it back.
CHAPTER 4 Call the Doctor: Harold “Doc” Daniels
CHAPTER 5 Sudden Death
CHAPTER 6 Post-Doc: Doing Things Less Wrong
CHAPTER 7 Going Hollywood
CHAPTER 8 Luchs vs. Wichard
CHAPTER 9 Coming Clean
CHAPTER 10 Can This Sport Be Saved?
POSTSCRIPT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PICTURE SECTION
A NOTE ON THE AUTHORS
From Josh Luchs:
To my father, Dr. Saul M. Luchs, M.D., graduate attorney, and eternal scholar—my inspiration—for setting an example of high goals and overcoming all obstacles, for having confidence in me even as I traveled an “unconventional path.” And to my mother, Barbara Luchs, for giving me your unconditional love, passing on your sense of humor that makes challenges surmountable and good times better; your warmth and compassion live on in me and my children.
From James Dale:
To my wife, Ellen, who recognizes a great project when it comes along (like this one), who is supportive through all the hours of writing and rewriting, who tells me I’m crazy (in a loving way) when I get discouraged, and who reads the final manuscript and turns out to be right in the first place—it was a great project.
FOREWORD
I first met Josh Luchs in the summer of 2010, and I learned his name only a few days before we gathered at his home in Southern California, but it would not be inaccurate to say I had been searching for him for a decade.
Anyone who has covered or worked in sports understands the integral role that agents play at almost every level. They occupy the space between the players and the professional teams, and it is in this gray area where so many of the great stories begin. When I joined Sports Illustrated in 2000, as an investigative reporter, one of my goals was to find an agent willing to disclose how the business really worked. This was no small task; there is no incentive for agents to talk. Disclosing the inner workings of that world would anger the athletes, fellow agents, and raise the ire of coaches and league officials. An agent who was honest about how he rose up in the profession and how he succeeded would be blacklisted—out of the profession forever.
It was no wonder then that I failed many times in my efforts to find an agent willing to blow the lid on the profession. But then, ten years after I started searching, happenstance led me to Josh and to one of the most important stories of my career.
In Josh, I found an agent who had seen the business from all angles. He started at the bottom, the youngest agent ever to be registered by the NFL Players Association, with few clients and little understanding of how the business worked. Year by year he moved up the ladder, eventually representing All-Pro players and conducting business from the swank offices of a Hollywood talent agency. The triumphs and setbacks he experienced along the way make his story a universal one: A young man who succeeds but pays a price for his success.
The Sports Illustrated article I wrote with Josh—his first-person account of his career—was over seven thousand words, one of the longest narratives to run in the magazine in several years. Yet even at that length it felt like a thin outline of his incredible journey. During the editing process, anecdotes ranging from funny to poignant to heartbreaking were chopped. I knew a book publisher would be eager to bring Josh’s full story to light, and so with each painful trim I offered a consoling mantra:
“Save it for the book.”
The complexity and significance of Josh’s story will become apparent as you read Illegal Procedure. As an avid consumer of sports titles, I find that too many are propaganda, tools used to burnish the image of an athlete or coach. In Sports Illustrated and now with this book, Josh has offered something different: an uncompromised examination. Rare is the insider willing to give an unvarnished account of themselves and their profession, for whom getting the truth out supersedes self-interest.
Some have branded Josh a whistle-blower, but that descriptor has never been a perfect fit. He exposed wrongdoing, pulled back the curtain on some of football’s shadiest dealings, but his wild odyssey through a cutthroat business is about far more than the rules that were broken.
Simply put: It is a heck of a story, an important story, and one well worth the wait.
—George Dohrmann
2011
INTRODUCTION
Why Should You Believe Me?
My name is Joshua Morrison Luchs. I was an NFL agent for eighteen years. And I broke the rules, over and over. Not minor technicalities but brazen flaunting of the rules. I learned how to do it from other agents: paying players while they were in college, slipping cash to players’ friends or families, doctoring data on past players’ draft grades or contracts to convince new ones to sign on as clients, feeding Wonderlic IQ tests and answers to players, getting coaches to funnel prospects our way, buying trips, tickets, dinners, and favors and more. Much more. It’s rampant. It’s flagrant. It’s the norm. Some agents did it—and do it—more than I; some do it less. Some former agents will admit what they did and some former players will, too. And some may claim they’ve never broken the rules. They’re lying. After all, it’s just one more offense.
If we all know it’s wrong, how does it happen? The same way most wrongs happen. A little at a time. Almost unnoticeably. Five miles over the speed limit, “borrowing” someone’s Internet signal, bootleg DVDs, cheating—just a little—on your income tax or on your spouse, fake IDs, too many groceries in the fifteen items or less line … Small sins, white lies, and gray areas. Is it okay to admit an athlete to a college he couldn’t get into on his grades? Is it all right to give him a scholarship? And tutors? And professors who go easy on jocks? What if coaches “find” playbooks from opposing teams? Is it pass interference if the referee doesn’t see it? Can’t a player sell his own jersey since the school does? Is it wrong to buy a steak dinner for a hungry nineteen-year-old offensive tackle? How about a plane ticket home to see his mom? Extra money for rent or gas? How about an American Express card billed to someone else? How about a Cadillac Escalade?
Where along that list did you say, whoa, that’s going too far? At the beginning, it’s not so obvious. By the time you get to the end, you know it’s wrong. And somewhere in the middle it crosses a line. But it’s gray, it’s vague, it slides by. And pretty soon you’re deep in the muck. Climbing out of the muck is a lot harder than slipping into it.
So now I’m coming clean, confessing my sins. Why should you believe me? Why am I suddenly telling the truth now? Once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel, right? Well, sometimes a scoundrel can’t live with himself anymore. I got sick and tired of being me. I looked around at my colleagues and didn’t like them. I looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I’d become. All those reasons. But the biggest reason was vanity. I have two little girls who think their daddy is a really nice, kind, good guy. I want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the other guy anymore, the one who pays players and fixes stats and slips into and out of the gray areas. I think there’s something wrong with a system that makes that kind of behavior acceptable, widespread, and almost okay. I don’t want to pass that legacy on to my two little girls. I want them to be proud of me. And I don’t think it’s too late.
I can’t make you believe me. I can only tell my story. You be the judge.
CHAPTER 1
Congratulations Mrs. Luchs, it’s a 7-pound 9-ounce sports agent …
; I was born in Brooklyn on September 8, 1969. In 1989, as a nineteen-year-old NFL agent, I handed an envelope full of cash to a college player.
Contract Advisors (agents) are prohibited from: Providing or offering money or any other thing of value to any player or prospective player to induce or encourage that player to utilize his/her services.
SECTION B (2), NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION REGULATIONS
Agents pay college players every day. A few hundred dollars or several thousand. Players and their families take money every day. As much as they can get. The agents are investing in the players’ futures, to represent them when they turn pro. The players need cash, want cash, figure they’ve earned it by playing for free in college, or just feel everybody does it—so why not them? The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), which makes the rules for agents, doesn’t want to know about it. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the body that enforces the rules for college players, doesn’t want to know about it. And of course, the fans don’t want to know about it. Everyone just wants the best football money can buy. And that’s what they get. Agents make sure.
No one is born a sports agent. You don’t come out of the womb clutching a BlackBerry preloaded with the private number of the maître d’ at The Palm. Some time after breast-feeding and potty-training, circumstances collide to make you an agent. It can start with a primal love of sports, jumping off furniture, tackling the dog, or thinking the “Star-Spangled Banner” means “game time!” It can be wanting to rub shoulders with heroes—the neighborhood kid who can hit the ball over the fence or the proverbial captain of the football team who’s shtuping the prom queen. It can be impressing your friends that you know and hang out with the guys in ESPN highlight films. It can be trying to win the most elusive prize, parental approval, especially when, like me, your father is an academic professional, your mother holds you to high standards, and your siblings outshine you in the classroom and out. It’s finding your own niche; instead of SATs, Law Boards, and CPA exams, it’s people-skills, networking, persuasion, and deal-making. You’re the puppeteer behind the scenes who helps stars who are good at what they do but not so good at looking out for themselves. And you’re the guy everyone wants to talk to at the cocktail party. What’s Ryan Leaf really like? Who’s better, Manning or Brady? How intimidating is Al Davis? What’s the biggest deal you ever made? No doubt, all agents share one trait: the need to be liked and trusted by the most popular guy on campus. If you can’t be the star, you can be the star’s confidant, advisor, and shrink.
That was me. And, in one way or another, it’s most agents. A combination of love of sports, being in the right place at the right time, and a large dose of chutzpah makes us who we are. Tank Black, one of the first powerful African-American agents, was an assistant coach at the University of South Carolina who set up his business with one marquee client: the Gamecocks’ star receiver, Sterling Sharpe. Tom Condon, who played for the Kansas City Chiefs, was described as “… a very mediocre player on a very bad football team,” but he thought he was smart enough to make deals for other players. He went to law school in the off-season, joined sports management giant IMG, later went to CAA to form the premier Hollywood sports agency, and was named by Sporting News the most powerful agent in football. Drew Rosenhaus, the first agent to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, self-described as “a ruthless warrior” and “hit man,” grew up worshipping the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes. To bluff his way into Dolphins’ practice in his teens, he told the security guard that he and his brother were punter Reggie Roby’s nephews. Roby is black; Rosenhaus is white, but he and his brother got in anyway. And he’s been “persuading” people ever since. Jimmy Sexton, one of today’s elite agents, especially renowned for representing marquee coaches, began his “career” in 1984 by being the college roommate of Tennessee star defensive end Reggie White. According to at least one sports blogger and numerous chat sites, the USFL paid Sexton’s way to the Hula Bowl to keep an eye on White to assure one of their teams signed him. When he did sign with the USFL Memphis Showboats for more than $1 million a year for five years, White said twenty-year-old Sexton was his agent, so from then on (after certification), he was one. Don Yee, who now represents, among others, four-time Super Bowl quarterback Tom Brady, was a first-generation Chinese-American whose mother never spoke a word of English. At age thirteen Yee applied to be a batboy for a Triple A baseball team and fell in love with American sports. Leigh Steinberg, who was one of the inspirations for the movie Jerry Maguire and its eponymous lead character, was originally going to be a public defender after UC Berkeley Law School but met Cal’s star quarterback Steve Bartkowski along the way, and helped make him the number-one overall pick of the 1975 NFL draft, which helped create Steinberg’s reputation as the quarterback agent.
Why do we want to be agents? Because it’s fun. It’s that simple. Every day is a contest, a game, a showdown. Who’s ahead; who’s behind? I win; you lose. Next game. Next match. Gladiators and lions, glory and agony, Hail Mary passes and goal-line interceptions. Overtime is even called “sudden death.” It’s all adrenaline and testosterone. It’s a lot more exciting than being a dentist.
And don’t forget the money. Sports make fortunes. Especially at big-time colleges, where they make headlines and wow alums. College sports revenue builds arenas and domes and complexes and monuments—the Big House in Ann Arbor, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and Cameron Indoor Arena at Duke. It’s March Madness and the Bowl Championship Series. It’s season tickets, network TV ratings, thirty-second ad sales, Nike shoes, UnderArmour sweats, and $200 official jerseys. It’s the glamorous, glitzy, glittery, greedy world of I-want-it-now. Everyone sees the big life and everyone lusts after a piece.
You may read about how most college programs don’t show a profit, but profits are what’s left after expenses; and when it comes to sports, colleges have lots of expenses. They put the money to work on their entire sports programs, with profitable sports—football and basketball—underwriting unprofitable sports such as lacrosse, swimming, track, and, right or wrong, many women’s sports. And remember, many colleges, including the massive state schools that seem to win conference titles every year, tend to be nonprofit institutions. They’re not supposed to make money. Suffice it to say, their sports programs generate sizable revenues and priceless publicity that often results in staggering alumni donations and powerful school brands. Profitable or not, college sports is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. It’s an economy bigger than most nations.
Sports agents like me find that a very attractive business.
From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills
My parents met during my father’s medical training, and soon married; he adopted my mom’s young son, Gary, from her first marriage, and then they had two more kids, my sister, Stacy, and me. Gary is sixteen years older, and I didn’t know he had a different father until my bar mitzvah. My sister was serious, strict, rigid, disciplined, uptight, and well-behaved. I wasn’t. She could never figure out how I got through life. She still can’t.
We lived on Ditmas Avenue and East Nineteenth Street, in this big old house that used to be the French consulate, with twenty-one rooms, inlaid marble hearths, frescoes on the walls, statues and antiques my parents bought around the world, at auctions. With a kid’s imagination, I thought I was a prince—not a little Jewish American Prince, but a real royalty-type prince, living in a castle that was different from my friends’ houses.
My father, who was a urologist, practiced out of a wing of our house, and he worked nonstop. My mother was a classic, dedicated mom. When my father did take time off, he took me to Shea Stadium to see the Mets, Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks, and the Meadowlands for Jets’ games. I was five when I saw my first pro football game, featuring “Broadway” Joe Namath. It was freezing and even though we had great seats, close to the field, my father had passes to go upstairs to the skybox area, where it was warm. He said
, “Come on, let’s get some hot chocolate,” but I wouldn’t leave my seat. My father always told that story, as if it explained how fanatical I was. Spencer Haywood and Earl the Pearl Monroe, the Knicks stars, came to our house for acupuncture treatments from my father, who’d been one of the first to go to the Orient and learn about it. I’d be shooting hoops in front of the house and Earl or Spencer would show up. These superstars were just people to me, but the fact that they dropped by our house made other kids on the block want to be my friend.
I loved sports from an early age but they were asphalt sports—football in the street, running between cars, no grassy fields or bleachers. We’d play wrestlers and, being bigger than some of the kids, I’d be Andre the Giant and we’d beat the snot out of each other, pretending we were jumping off the ropes. Except we were a bunch of Jewish kids who’d never grow up to be wrestlers. Our mothers wouldn’t let us.
My sister and I were sent to the neighborhood preschool … until the Christmas pageant. When my parents saw that my sister had been picked to play the baby Jesus in the manger, they pulled us out and put us into the yeshiva, East Midwood Jewish Center on Ocean Avenue. I wasn’t good at school, I got in trouble, I didn’t want to go to class. I was running a kind of baseball card flipping ring in the boys’ bathroom. I suspect I had ADD before it was labeled. My parents came to see the principal-rabbi and he said, “Look at his punum” (Yiddish for “face”). “Look how handsome he is. He’ll be fine.” I learned at a young age that a winning smile could get me a long way. An early agent lesson? Maybe.
To get away from the city, my parents bought a fifty-acre farm in upstate New York—near Peekskill—with horses and cows and sheep. And they sent me to summer camp in Pennsylvania. At five, the youngest kid at the camp, I got locked in a trunk, but I thought, hey, at least they’re paying attention to me. I always craved that. Then the family decided to really get away from the city when I was about ten, and we moved to Beverly Hills, California, a greater culture-shock than the Christmas pageant.