Disturbing news coming out about Doc

knapplc

knapplc

International Man of Mystery
A disturbing report is emerging about Doc's involvement with a Houston-area businessman who took large sums of money from several NCAA coaches as "investments," but there never were any investments, and there were never any results from those investments. The implications are that this man was steering kids to coaches who "invested" with him, and Doc's name - and several of our recruiting targets - are all over the story:

More than dozen college coaches involved in possible Ponzi scheme
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While investors, a number of whom included high-profile Houston businesspeople, did appear to receive statements from Salinas, it remains unclear whether the bonds themselves ever actually existed, and it is uncertain how much each coach initially invested. According to government filings reviewed by SI.com, Salinas was never actually a registered investment adviser representative, and the J. David Group was never registered as an investment adviser firm with the SEC.

"He had a great reputation as a strong money manager, not just locally but nationally," one source familiar with the situation said. "People are shocked. A lot of these investors were his friends. There's a feeling of, 'How do you know what's safe?'"

Now, as names of clients continue to surface in what looks to be a burgeoning financial scandal, another regulatory body may be compelled to enter the mix: the NCAA. No existing NCAA bylaw prohibits university representatives from investing in what they believe to be legitimate securities, but a conflict of interest would seem to arise when the head of a successful AAU program is also the person managing (and profiting from) those investments.

The NCAA did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

Raising further suspicions is that several coaches who invested with Salinas, who was also known for his lavish Final Four parties, would sign players from Salinas' Houston Select AAU team. Dates of coaches' investments remain unknown. But the paths of Demetri Goodson (Gonzaga, before transferring to Baylor this summer), Henry Dugat (Baylor), Jawann McClellan (Arizona), Alonzo Edwards (Nebraska, later North Texas), Louis Truscott (Nebraska, then Houston), Rodney Williams (Nebraska), Justin Wiggins (Tulsa) and Joseph Jones (Texas A&M) spark potential questions, for example. Other notable Houston Select alumni include Dexter Pittman (Texas), Cartier Martin (Kansas State) and Toure Murray (Wichita State).

On Monday former University of Houston basketball coach Tom Penders told The Daily that Salinas had solicited a $100,000 investment from Penders and "made a strong, strong implication" that it would help him gain access to Houston Select prospects. "He talked about all these coaches that he had investing with him," Penders told The Daily. "I told him because he was an AAU guy, I couldn't possibly get involved in that. I said, 'I think that's kind of a rules violation, or could be.'"
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As scary as this is, it wouldn't surprise me that much. Doc is under a buttload of pressure and the AAU is filled with dirt bag coaches and clubs. Until the AAU is somehow regulated the "pay me for my players" issue will continue.

 
That same article says that Doc "invested" $38,000 with this guy, J. David Salinas. The problem is, if these investments weren't real, Doc is going to have to show that he had no knowledge it was a Ponzi scheme and that he was being defrauded.

Regardless, investing money with a guy who also controlled AAU players you were recruiting shows incredibly poor judgment. Even if Doc got scammed and there was no "investment" for players deal, it still looks terrible for Doc and the University.

 
NCAA said it sees no reason to investigate. It appears to be nothing more than a guy doing investments and apparently he was falsifying documents stating he had more bonds in his possession for his clients than what he actually did. It would be similar to you paying for whole life insurance with your agent only to find out latter he was pocketing the money and you didn't have a policy. If the guy hadn't started an AAU team for his son all those years ago it wouldn't even be an issue. His camps rarely contained highly rated players either.

 
da skers said:
NCAA said it sees no reason to investigate. It appears to be nothing more than a guy doing investments and apparently he was falsifying documents stating he had more bonds in his possession for his clients than what he actually did. It would be similar to you paying for whole life insurance with your agent only to find out latter he was pocketing the money and you didn't have a policy. If the guy hadn't started an AAU team for his son all those years ago it wouldn't even be an issue. His camps rarely contained highly rated players either.
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The NCAA would be negligent if they didn't look into this. You've got college head coaches giving this guy money and also recruiting players from his AAU team. That's at least smoke, if not fire, and should be looked at.

 
Except many of his clients had nothing to do with basketball. There were businessmen, churches, peoples retirement accounts, football coaches etc that were investing. I even have a buddy in Texas who is an attorney that was investing with him. They received statements just like I do from Edward Jones. They thought they were buying into legit business like IBM, Walmart, John Deere etc. Just regular old run of the mill corporate stocks and funds set up like any regular Capt. Growth Investment. His contacts started with Rice University and their alumni and then branched out as a friend of a friend kind of deal. Don't try to make this a guy who ran and AAU team all of the sudden started to do investments with the coaches who recruited some of his players. This guy was licensed by the securities and exchange commission to handle peoples investments. He basically embezzled money. This is closer to Enron than it is Cam Newton.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/6784945/source-ncaa-plans-no-probe-coaches-losing-cash-david-salinas-scam

 
da skers said:
Except many of his clients had nothing to do with basketball. There were businessmen, churches, peoples retirement accounts, football coaches etc that were investing. I even have a buddy in Texas who is an attorney that was investing with him. They received statements just like I do from Edward Jones. They thought they were buying into legit business like IBM, Walmart, John Deere etc. Just regular old run of the mill corporate stocks and funds set up like any regular Capt. Growth Investment. His contacts started with Rice University and their alumni and then branched out as a friend of a friend kind of deal. Don't try to make this a guy who ran and AAU team all of the sudden started to do investments with the coaches who recruited some of his players. This guy was licensed by the securities and exchange commission to handle peoples investments. He basically embezzled money. This is closer to Enron than it is Cam Newton.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/6784945/source-ncaa-plans-no-probe-coaches-losing-cash-david-salinas-scam
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This is likely how so many coaches got involved. Many coaches talk and are close, all it would take is a coach or two using this guy, thinking he's doing a good job, so they tell other coaching buddies and all of a sudden there's a dozen of them using him. Just look at Doc, his closest friend Billy G. was using this guy, and he didn't even have a team to be recruiting for.

 
Wow we stay as far away from AAU coaches and players as possible and we still get in trouble :facepalm:

This either means Doc sucks at recruiting or the athletic department is lying to us about AAU players and we just cant land anyone..

:facepalm: :facepalm:

 
da skers said:
Except many of his clients had nothing to do with basketball. There were businessmen, churches, peoples retirement accounts, football coaches etc that were investing. I even have a buddy in Texas who is an attorney that was investing with him. They received statements just like I do from Edward Jones. They thought they were buying into legit business like IBM, Walmart, John Deere etc. Just regular old run of the mill corporate stocks and funds set up like any regular Capt. Growth Investment. His contacts started with Rice University and their alumni and then branched out as a friend of a friend kind of deal. Don't try to make this a guy who ran and AAU team all of the sudden started to do investments with the coaches who recruited some of his players. This guy was licensed by the securities and exchange commission to handle peoples investments. He basically embezzled money. This is closer to Enron than it is Cam Newton.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/6784945/source-ncaa-plans-no-probe-coaches-losing-cash-david-salinas-scam
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I'm not trying to make this into a bigger deal than it is, and I'm certainly not trying to smear Doc. If Doc were cheating I'd expect far better results than we've seen, after all. But this part of the SI article tells me this guy wasn't even registered with the SEC:

While investors, a number of whom included high-profile Houston businesspeople, did appear to receive statements from Salinas, it remains unclear whether the bonds themselves ever actually existed, and it is uncertain how much each coach initially invested. According to government filings reviewed by SI.com, Salinas was never actually a registered investment adviser representative, and the J. David Group was never registered as an investment adviser firm with the SEC.
LINK
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That article also says the FBI is beginning their own investigation. Maybe there's nothing there and maybe it's just a bad deal for the guys who lost money, but Doc still should not be investing money with a guy who runs an AAU team from which Doc has signed a player. That's just common sense.

 
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