Former Adidas executive sheds more light on college hoops scandal involving Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis

Former Adidas executive Merl Code faces prison for involvement in college basketball bribery — but he is only a small part of the corrupt recruiting system. 

At last, the federal government is doing something about what has been a deeply corrupt system for recruiting college basketball talent, but it may not be enough to make a difference.

Former Adidas executive Merl Code faces federal prison for his involvement in a widespread, organized bribery scandal at the highest levels of NCAA basketball, but according to Code, the FBI is simply settling for his sentence.

“[I was] the bogeyman,” Code told Sports Illustrated this week. “But I wasn’t the bogeyman [federal investigators] wanted. They wanted high-profile names. They wanted Sean Miller. They wanted Will Wade. They wanted Rick Pitino.”

Instead, they got Code, who is now dishing it all in his new book, Black Market, An Insider’s Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball. The book includes insight into deals made for Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, and Brian Bowen.

“If anyone thinks that there is such a thing as a clean big-time program, they need to wake up and smell the donkey s—,” Code wrote in his book. “Somewhere along the line, even the so-called cleanest of programs has some dirt if you look close enough.”

NCAA insider sheds light on corruption in Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson college deals

Code, alongside codefendants Christian Dawkins and Jim Gatto, was found guilty of fraud, conspiracy and bribery charges in 2019. Ironically, many NCAA rules that forbade athlete compensation for their name, image and likeness are now obsolete, but Code was still found guilt of defrauding universities in “a scheme that actually was trying to help those schools win in basketball games.”

Before he was charged, Code was an executive at Adidas who procured talent for their college basketball shoe deals. He is one of the eight Black men out of the nine men implicated in the bribery deal, while the powerful white multimillionaire head coaches that were also involved have all continued their coaching lives without public disgrace. Code and his legal team even fought to have evidence introduced that would implicate Miller, Pitino, and Wade, but presiding judges never ruled in their favor. In his book, Code wrote, “I will simply say that a massive amount of evidence was never presented to the jury.”

If less involved and less powerful men like shoe executives and assistant coaches are taking the fall for bribery and fraud in college basketball, it means that the power players at the center of the issue go unpunished, allowing them to continue their corruption unmitigated. Perhaps Code’s tell-all book could throw a wrench in that.