UF Coaching Staff Paid Athletes, Knew of Drug Use, Testimony Shows

University of Florida basketball Coach Norm Sloan, his assistant Monte Towe and university boosters gave thousands of dollars to athletes--including former basketball star Vernon Maxwell, who used the money to buy cocaine--according to grand jury testimony revealed in several newspaper reports today.

The damaging testimony was included in a motion filed Tuesday on behalf of four Florida sports agents charged with defrauding the university, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Education by making secret payments to athletes during their college careers, according to a report by The Gainesville Sun and a copyright story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

‘Demonstrable Corruption’

“Given the demonstrable corruption of the University and the government’s knowledge of that corruption, this indictment is both morally reprehensible and legally unsalvageable,” states the motion seeking dismissal of the charges. “The ‘victim’ in this case actually has the dirtiest hands of all.”

Defense attorneys Donald Bierman and Hugh Culverhouse Jr. quoted Maxwell’s grand jury testimony that he went to Sloan or Towe whenever he needed money, and used some of the cash to feed a crack cocaine habit during his junior and senior years.

“Any time I asked for money, you know, I could get money from them--$200, $50--whatever I asked for I could get,” Maxwell told the jury. “I don’t know who the money was coming from but I know who was giving me the money. Monte Towe was, assistant head coach.”

Maxwell and several former Gator football players who were given immunity from prosecution told the jury that university personnel knew about extensive drug use by athletes as well as the cash payoffs, the motion states.

If the athlete’s claims prove true, UF’s basketball and football programs could face the NCAA’s most severe sanction: the elimination of both programs for two years, a punishment known as the “death penalty.”

Sloan was on a fishing trip and did not return messages left at his home and with UF athletic officials. Towe was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Maxwell, who left UF in 1988 as the school’s all-time leading scorer and now plays for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, said he received $800 from Towe while still attending high school, and $1,000 when he signed with Florida.

Maxwell told the jury that he received about $1,000 a month from Sloan and Towe during a six-month period in his sophomore and junior years at the university.

The money came despite urine tests showing that he used marijuana as a sophomore and cocaine as a junior and senior, Maxwell testified.

Clifford Charlton, a Gator linebacker in 1987 who now plays for the Cleveland Browns, implicated then-Assistant Coach Ty Smith, saying Smith sold Charlton’s free season tickets to “boosters or fans” and gave him “around $500” in return.