Atlanta Hawk forward Dominique Wilkins said that,...

Atlanta Hawk forward Dominique Wilkins said that, in high school, he had lucrative offers from colleges in the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences but turned them down to attend the University of Georgia in 1979.

“I had some really, really big offers,” said Wilkins, now in his fourth season with the Hawks. “But money wasn’t important to me at the time. I wanted to go where the education was good and where the program was solid.”

Several National Basketball Assn. players have revealed in recent weeks that they were offered illegal inducements to attend various colleges. Wilkins would not name which schools had made the offers to him.

“I had offers of $20,000, $30,000,” he said. “It was tempting. But when I got to Georgia, there was no way the alumni could get near us to give us anything. (Coach) Hugh (Durham) knew the NCAA was looking at him because he brought in so many good kids.”