New York Times setting the stage

Not a member, sorry.

You screwed the pooch on the link retard

You want to enlighten us as to what is on the other end of that there link, homeboy?

The link is working for me, and I don't have a NYT account or anything.

Auburn and those sociology classes.

I hear something's about to go down. What are you hearing?

worked fine for me

somethings always about to go down

quote:

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A Hard-to-Forget Voice From Auburn’s Haunted Past
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Eric Ramsey is one of the best-known players in Auburn football history, yet he holds no records and won’t be found on any highlight reels.

His stature as an unforgettable figure in Tigers lore was secured when he brought down the football program — all by himself.

Now 43, Ramsey has been following the stories about the N.C.A.A. investigation into the recruitment of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, and wondering how much things have changed.

Ramsey was a defensive back at Auburn from 1987 to 1990. He made national news in November 1991 with the blockbuster disclosure that he had secretly tape recorded three years of conversations with coaches and boosters that showed improper payments to athletes and, according to Ramsey, backed up his allegations of rampant racism within the program.

Ramsey has always maintained that he was not out to put Auburn on probation, which occurred in 1993. He said he went public with the tapes to prove a point.

“I wrote a term paper for a sociology class about what it was like to be a black student at a predominately white university,” Ramsey said by phone from his home in Los Angeles. The treatment of black football players by the Auburn coaching staff made up a significant part of the paper.

After his professor leaked the paper to The Montgomery Advertiser, Ramsey came under attack from all corners, especially from the Auburn athletic department.

“The reason I brought the tapes out is because the backlash was so intense,” Ramsey said. “I just felt like, O.K., if they don’t believe me, then I know they are going to believe this because I have proof.”

In the process, he also outed himself as being on the take, revealing N.C.A.A. violations pertaining to improper benefits he received from a booster and members of the coaching staff. The fallout was significant: Pat Dye resigned as football coach and athletic director, and in August 1993, the N.C.A.A. placed Auburn on probation for two years with significant penalties. A former football coach, a former administrative assistant and two boosters were permanently barred from involvement with the program.

One of the most chilling — and poignant — moments on the Ramsey tapes occurred when one of the barred boosters explained to Ramsey the so-called facts of life for a black athlete at Auburn. In one taped segment, a man identified by Ramsey as a booster who had given him food and money warned that, despite his football accomplishments, Ramsey would be shunned if he ever exposed the gifts.

“Don’t you know, Eric, there are all kinds of people who will look you in the face, say that they love you and tell you what a great guy you are,” the booster said. Ramsey said he was stunned when the booster told him white fans who cheered him so vociferously were referring to him with racial epithets behind his back. “Eric, that’s the real world.”

The tapes also revealed that Dye loaned money to Ramsey and called a loan officer at a local bank to help him get an unsecured personal loan. Ramsey said boosters gave him $1,200 to help buy a car and a $300 monthly stipend, and offered performance incentives ranging from $100 for big hits to $500 for touchdowns. He said at the time that he knew of at least 15 players who took cash from coaches and boosters. Terry Bowden, who replaced Dye in 1993, said in a 2001 interview that boosters were paying players cash — $12,000 to $15,000 to sign — when he arrived.

Ramsey married his first wife, Twillitta, in the middle of their freshman year at Auburn. Later, when the tapes were made public, they feared for their safety and moved with their son, Ahmad, out of Alabama, their home state.

They later completed their undergraduate requirements elsewhere and walked across the stage together at Auburn in 1992 — to jeers — to receive their degrees. Ramsey currently works as an actor and a screenwriter and runs his own security company. He has produced two short films and is hoping to produce a film titled “The Promise,” about his childhood and time at Auburn.

Ramsey was clearly not a hero and does not portray himself as one. He participated in and profited from an underground system of gifts and payments that violated N.C.A.A. rules.

“I lost a little bit of myself when I took the money,” he said. “You always do when you get bought; most athletes don’t realize it at the time. Players for the most part don’t care about integrity. The light they see at the end of the tunnel is money.

“Maybe that’s why I told. I felt guilty about it and wanted to clear my conscience.”

His experience at Auburn and everything he has seen since — megacompensation packages for coaches and unprecedented revenue in big-time football and basketball — has only reinforced his position that football players should be paid.

As for the tapes and revealing the underground cheating at Auburn, he said: “I’d do it again. I’d just do it a different way.

“At the end of the day, people you thought cared for you really didn’t care for you. It was just more about them getting what they had to get out of it.”

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It's another 'where are they now' piece on Ramsey, as if he'd actually accomplished something newsworthy in the past 17 years. Which he hasn't.

He's still a bitter bastard, pissed off that he didn't get famous enough for exposing AU.

Memo to Eric: congratulations, you busted our sorry asses, and we got hammered for it. It doesn't make you a better person. Move on and try to do something worthwhile with your life while you still can.

ok so what new info came out of that that didnt come out in 1993