They Play by Their Own Rules : Colleges: Sports agents are everywhere, and the NCAA estimates 70% of current athletes have had contact with them.

By MARYANN HUDSON and ELLIOTT ALMOND

Oct. 13, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

They seem to come out of nowhere, yet seem to be everywhere--in hotel lobbies, at football practices, even at the 901 Club on Figueroa.

Some sports agents, college coaches say, can be found running across the floor when you turn on the lights.

“They use women and money, they offer you gifts, but I am smart enough to realize it’s not something they are going to give you,” said Johnnie Morton, former USC wide receiver. “Nobody is going to give you something for free.”

Larry Smith, former USC football coach, once threw an agent out of the locker room, called campus security, then closed his team practices forever. He traveled to road games with two security guards.

“I walked into the locker room and there is an agent talking with one of my players,” said Smith, now coaching at Missouri. “I asked him who he was, and he lied to me. I went nose to nose with the guy.”

Trojan wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson says so many agents thrust business cards at him when he leaves the Coliseum after games that he gets through the crowd by moving his arms like a windmill while his family forms a human shield for him.

The father of another football prospect pretends to represent his son so he can deflect agents’ phone calls--and his son is only a sophomore.

For outstanding players, that’s usually when it starts.

“After a while, you don’t even want to have a phone anymore,” said Morton, who said he could have had whatever he wanted from agents, but never took anything. He was drafted in the first round in 1994 by the Detroit Lions.

“I don’t know how they get your number, but they call you all day,” Morton said. “I remember one day, one of my friends came over and my phone was ringing and I said, ‘Watch this. I’ll turn the phone off and won’t turn it on again until tonight and I bet it will ring when I turn it on.’ So we waited the whole day, turned it on and it was still ringing.”

It is probably the biggest game in college sports, this nether world of sports agents, who lure student athletes into relationships and put them on the take. Not all of the estimated 3,000 football and basketball agents and recruiters are unscrupulous, but many are. The NCAA estimates that 70% of current athletes have had contact with or received benefits from sports agents.

“Our coaches say agents are the most serious threat to their sport,” said David Price, associate commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference.

It is not a new problem for colleges, but it has increased significantly in recent years in football and basketball, rising along with professional players’ salaries. There are 800 certified agents in the NFL who employ about 2,000 recruiters and runners who, literally, run around vying to represent the top 300 college athletes. An agent’s commission is a maximum 4% of every contract.

This year’s first-round picks signed for an average of $1.2 million a season, including bonuses, which is about $50,000 annually in agent fees. An ethical agent takes 4% of the signing bonus and 4% of the annual salary as the athlete is paid. There are some agents, however, who take 4% of the entire contract up front.

The NBA certifies about 210 agents. But the requirements in both sports for certification are limited. In the NFL, an agent needs a college education and a clean background. In the NBA, an agent basically needs a client.

“This is an extremely difficult business to crack,” said Ralph Cindrich, a Pittsburgh agent whose firm represents about 50 professional athletes. “ . . . Any time I hear a newcomer coming into the business representing well-known prospects, in almost every instance you can look beyond that player and see other circumstances. In a nutshell, payola in some form.”

In this agent game, however, the rules seem to apply only to the athlete. An athlete’s eligibility is jeopardized under NCAA rules if he or she takes anything from an agent, whether it be a hamburger or a car. An athlete can talk with an agent, but cannot have any type of agreement with one. That rule is designed to draw the line between amateur and professional athletes.

The agent, on the other hand, may be governed by state legislation and players’ association rules, but they are rarely enforced. The NFL Players Assn. has never decertified an agent for improper dealings with an athlete. The NBA Players Assn. hasn’t decertified an agent this decade. And only about 20 states have laws governing activities of agents, including California.

“The pro scouts tell us they are looking at 18 guys now in the [football] program and we assume all of them have been approached,” said one USC staff member.

“Most of the time, it’s a phone call to a senior player. It’s something like, ‘Hey you’re a senior, don’t you want to be comfortable your senior year? I can make you comfortable.’ ”

But there are some who find the NCAA agent rule incompatible with another NCAA rule--one that prevents the institution from paying an athlete a stipend.

“Student-athletes sometimes live as second-class citizens within the student community, unless they have a family that can send them money for gas and clothes,” Smith said.

Athletes can receive room and board, books and tuition from the school, and can apply for a grant and money from a special assistance fund. If they live off campus, they receive a sum equivalent to the on-campus expenses, which athletes say is not enough. They also can work only during the summer and school holidays.

“Giving more money is not going to solve the problem of agents paying student athletes, because we are never going to give a kid $250,000,” said Bill Saum, an NCAA enforcement officer.

Morton, who lived off-campus, said his stipend averaged about $3 a day after he paid rent.

“Some players will sell drugs, some guys will get jobs on the side--like a bouncer in a club,” Morton said. “I’m not saying what schools, but I know what is going on.”

Once a player is identified as an NFL prospect, agents descend. They study the player’s character and analyze his background. Morton says if a player comes from a single-parent home, the agent might move in as a father figure. If an athlete is emotionally and financially supported by his family, few of the “bad agents” approach, Morton said.

But there is another aspect to this game. Agents sometimes sign athletes with little potential as a way of reaching a star player. And they hire runners to establish relationships with the player and to funnel benefits.

“Runners can be friends, sometimes roommates, sometime girlfriends, sometimes former teammates of the players,” Price said. “Sometimes the player is unaware of the source. . . . The benefit to the agent in this case would be at a later time, when he would make it clear to the player that he or she should show gratitude, or there could even be threats.”

The NCAA enforcement staff has been working overtime to expose agents, and is under an edict to impose harsher penalties. Penalties usually include a loss of playing time and repayment by the athlete of the benefit received. The money usually goes to charity.

But the NCAA’s work has also started a national debate among some members who wonder what the fuss is all about. Is there really harm in an athlete receiving a pager, which has become a standard introductory gift by agents? Coaches say there is.

“I hear frustration on the coaches’ part that the agent gets the kid’s ear and listens to the agent more than the coach,” Saum said. “There are kids who are being convinced [by agents] of what they should do in a particular game to improve their marketability and maybe what they need to improve on in the off-season--whether it’s speed or weight gain. I would tend to believe that the coaches know that best. I’m not suggesting this is rampant, but these are some instances.”

Saum says there are several steps that can help curb the problem, including uniform state laws with some teeth in them.

In a case considered the first of its kind, USC recently sued Oxnard sports agent Robert Troy Caron for allegedly giving money and gifts to three of its football players. The NCAA is investigating Caron’s relationship with 12 players at seven schools. Even the FBI is looking at Caron, who had denied any wrongdoing.

But Caron’s father, Stan, is among those who believe the system is wrong.

“The players walk around hungry,” he said. “It’s always been there, it will always be there. There always will be somebody with a handout.”

Morton signed with the Lions for $3.5 million for four years. His signing bonus was $1.2 million. But he remembers clearly how going to a school in Los Angeles can bring added pressure.

“I was fortunate to have parents who helped me out,” Morton said. “But there you are on a campus where students are driving BMWs and girls get asked out by guys who will take them to five-star restaurants. And all you can take them to is Taco Bell.

“I remember one time, I went shopping in Beverly Hills with this girl when I was a sophomore, and she was just rich, and she was looking at this $800 dress and saying, ‘Gee, I don’t know, I think my dad would be a little upset with me if I got this.’

“And I’m thinking, ‘What? If I had 800 bucks, I could live off that for months.’ ”

* Times staff writers Earl Gustkey and Steve Springer contributed to this story.