re: Pete Thamel would be STUNNED if Pearl is back at Auburn next year...

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During the 1988–89 basketball season, Pearl, then an assistant coach at Iowa, was at the center of a recruiting scandal involving Illinois. Both Illinois and Iowa were recruiting Deon Thomas, a top high school player from Chicago. Pearl lost this recruiting battle when Thomas committed to Illinois. Thereafter, Pearl called the high school student and recorded a phone conversation with Thomas, which may have been illegal depending on where Pearl originated the call. (Illinois requires prior consent of all participants to monitor or record a phone conversation according to Ill. Rev. Stat. Ch. 38, Sec. 14-2; however, Iowa, where Pearl was coaching at the time, only requires one party's consent to record a phone conversation.) During the conversation, Pearl asked Thomas if he had been offered an SUV and cash by Illinois assistant coach Jimmy Collins, and Thomas seemed to indicate that he had. Pearl then turned over copies of the tapes to the NCAA, accompanied by a memo describing the events. During the subsequent NCAA investigation, Thomas denied the allegations and said the story was false, that he was agreeing with Pearl only to try to get rid of him. Thomas later passed a polygraph test in which he denied Pearl's accusation of Illinois's offering cash and a car. The NCAA did not find Illinois guilty of any wrongdoing relating to Thomas's recruitment, finding that the purported evidence provided was not "credible, persuasive and of a kind on which reasonably prudent persons rely in the conduct of serious affairs.

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