"It was a little stunning, I'm not going to lie. The idea that any person who causes a player to lose eligibility has potentially broken a federal fraud statute is kind of incredible; college athletes have been being paid forever... It's absurd these guys are facing federal prison time for something that doesn't seem like a crime."
-- Dan Wetzel.
Yahoo Sports columnist Dan Wetzel joined Outkick The Coverage to talk about the bizarre pay-for-play trail in federal court that continues to be one of the landmark moments in an eternally shady history of major college sports.
On Wednesday, three individuals were convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud when a jury ruled that the men intertwined in pay-for-play schemes with high profile HS basketball players were actually victimizing the universities that these young players ended up attending.
At one time looked upon as your nothing-to-see-here garden variety under the table payment of elite college athletes, all of the sudden the federal government has turned NCAA violations into prison sentences as the men behind the curtain face sentences ranging from 2-4 years.
Listen to the full audio below as Wetzel tells Clay Travis how shocking it was to watch a group of powerful federal prosecutors sway a jury who didn’t seem to have ever followed college athletics before.