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This past week, former NFL agent Josh Luchs came clean in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated and said that he provided cash and a number of benefits to college football players to try and get them to sign with him as clients. There have been many cases of this recently in college sports and it seems like it goes on all the time. However this was the first time that I can remember of an agent coming out an openly admitting something like this and naming names as well. He mentions many prominent players in the interview, including Santonio Holmes, Jeremy Shockey, Tony Banks, Jonathan Ogden, Ryan Leaf, and former USC wide receiver R. Jay Soward. R Jay Soward joined WGFX in Nashville with the Three Hour Lunch to talk about how he got involved with Josh Luchs, why he decided to admit to taking money from Luchs, what kind of relationship they had, how often this happens in college sports, and whether or not more people from USC were involved with him.
On how he formed a relationship with Josh Luchs:
“Josh basically came with another guy named Harold ‘Doc’ Daniels and both of them, I don’t really recall how they found me, but they found me and they started to talk to me and we sat down, had lunch, and we talked a little bit and they said we can give you some money and help you out while you’re in school. Once it started from there, it started with a little bit of money, $1500 a month and it wasn’t even big money but it was something that helped me out to make it through school.”
On why he decided to come out with this information:
“Because honestly I didn’t like the fact of how Reggie Bush was being singled out. He’s a fellow Trojan and kids are doing this everywhere in the country. I feel the NCAA is making so much money off kids in every aspect and every sport in collegiate sports. It’s hard to go to college and when your parents can’t help you out and you’re on scholarship and you can’t have a job and they feed you for one semester of school while you’re playing and the other semester you have to fend for yourself. Let’s be for real about it, kids need help when their parents aren’t able to provide for them and they have to earn their way in college.”
On how prevalent this kind of thing is in college sports:
“It’s super prevalent. If you’re going to score a touchdown and your agent is going to make three percent off of whatever your signing bonus and your contract is going to be. Of course they’re going to try and do their best to be a part of that situation. It’s so many agents out in the world and it’s so hard for an agent to get a top player. The bigger agents feel like they don’t have to do it because they have super clients. The smaller guys, they have to go out and do whatever they need to do to get that client. Sometimes they’re like we have to bend the rules and get this guy on the team just do we can build our company up.”
On whether or not more people from USC could be found guilty of this:
“That’s very true, but like I said nobody knew that I even dealt with Josh Luchs. They just see me on campus walking around and they didn’t know anything about what was going on. Josh was more of a friend to me than just a guy giving me money. We did have deep conversations, we talked a lot whenever I had a problem, and we did have a relationship outside of him just giving me money. The money was just money to me, but he was a great guy, he was a mentor, and he told me what to expect coming out, and he gave me some good advice that helped me out a lot.”
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