Report: Booster Paid for Bailey’s Job : College football: Seattle newspaper says friend of Washington football made loan to cover athlete’s salary.

A University of Washington booster loaned money to the son-in-law of Husky football Coach Don James to hire a football player for a summer job, an apparent violation of NCAA rules, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

“You have to get paid from the people you work for,” NCAA legislative services director Bob Oliver told the newspaper.

The report in Saturday’s editions said Jim Heckman, publisher of the tabloid Sports Washington, got Herb Mead of Bellevue, Wash., to pay $1,000 to $2,000 in salary to wide receiver Mario Bailey during the summer of 1991. Heckman and his wife, Jeni, daughter of Washington football Coach Don James, are in the midst of divorce proceedings.

Bailey, now with the Houston Oilers, was hired to place the Sports Washington display racks at convenience stores, and “Mead wrote the (pay)checks,” Heckman said.

“I am completely confident that the Pac-10, the NCAA and the University of Washington have no business or right to tell me how I raise funds for my business,” Heckman said. “The money came out of our pocket for work done for our company.”

He said he signed a promissory note and repaid Mead after being assured by university officials whom he declined to identify that the arrangement met NCAA requirements.

“The question is, does (Mead) pay the salary of other people at that establishment?” Oliver said. “If not, that player is being paid because of his publicity, reputation, fame or personal following.”

Mead was out of town and neither he nor Bailey could be reached for comment, the Post-Intelligencer reported. Barbara Hedges, the school’s athletic director, declined to comment pending the outcome of an outside investigation of the football program.

The investigation was ordered after a series of revelations in the past three months, starting with $50,000 in personal loans that cost quarterback Billy Joe Hobert his eligibility. Most recently, the Pac-10 has investigated claims by Notre Dame linebacker Demetrius DuBose, a Seattle native who said Heckman tried to encourage him to transfer to Washington.