Piggie Pleads Not Guilty

Myron C. Piggie, the former summer-league basketball coach who is accused of defrauding UCLA and three other schools, pleaded not guilty to those federal charges Monday in Kansas City, Mo.

An 11-count indictment, unsealed Thursday, said that Piggie conspired to defraud UCLA, Duke, Missouri and Oklahoma State by making cash payments to five players, thereby jeopardizing their amateur status.

The case is set for trial in June, although Piggie’s attorney said a more realistic starting date would be in August.

“He’s not guilty of any federal offense,” Piggie’s attorney Kimberley Kellogg Gepford told The Times. “It seems as though this is a publicity stunt.”

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Stephen L. Hill said Hill was out of the office and unavailable for comment.

The indictment stated that JaRon Rush, who was being recruited by Kansas but eventually went to UCLA, received $5,000 from Piggie in January 1998 for the lease on a 1998 Chevrolet Blazer, under the condition that he not accept a scholarship to Kansas. In all, Rush received $17,000 from Piggie, according to court papers.

Less than a month later, Rush, who had made an oral commitment to the Jayhawks, criticized Coach Roy Williams’ substitution patterns. Williams then announced--emphatically--that Kansas was not recruiting Rush.

What happened?

The book, “Sole Influence,” by Don Yaeger and Dan Wetzel, which came out earlier this year, reported that Kansas had been told by the NCAA that it had gained an unfair recruiting advantage, by virtue of booster Tom Grant’s long relationship with Rush, and that the school could no longer recruit him.

The school denied this.

Wrote Yaeger and Wetzel, “More interestingly, almost immediately following Rush’s commitment to UCLA, he stopped driving Tom Grant’s Geo Tracker. . . . That didn’t mean Rush was without transportation, however. CNN/SI reported that JaRon was now driving a white sports utility vehicle.”

There was no suggestion in the indictment that Piggie represented UCLA’s interests when he allegedly steered Rush from Kansas. That would have been an NCAA violation.