REPORTS: UCF used an ex-con to help steer recruits to Orlando

Yesterday, Kevin Ware -- a former Tennessee signee -- officially de-committed from UCF, ending a week's worth of speculation that the commitment was on the rocks.

I think its safe to say we now know why. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the news that Ware was de-committing from the Golden Knights, and Ware was quoted in the story as saying "There's a lot of stuff going on right now, personal stuff that I don't really want to speak about right now. I spoke with my family about everything, and I decided it was time to back off on UCF."

I wonder if that "personal stuff" had anything to do with the fact that Ware would be the focal point of a bombshell dropped by Pete Thamel of the New York Times on Friday night. Thamel meticulously laid out how Ware -- and UCF's other prized recruit, top five center Michael Chandler -- were steered to the Golden Knights by a man named Kenneth Caldwell, a convicted felon with strong ties to Andy Miller and the agency he runs, ASM Sports. Caldwell also helped to steer a star quarterback, and Louisville native, to UCF after convincing him to de-commit from the Cardinals.


Miller denied the claim that Caldwell was associated with ASM Sports, but there were number of comments on social media sites -- including the statement in Caldwell's LinkedIn profile that he worked for ASM -- that would indicate a connection. An associate of ASM confirmed to Thamel that Caldwell does work for ASM.

Pat Forde of ESPN.com was also involved in the story. While Thamel developed the connection between Caldwell and UCF, Forde (and Dana O'Neil) did some terrific background work on Caldwell and Brandon Bender, a former Louisville player that is connected to Caldwell. UCF currently has six players on their roster from Chicago, where Caldwell hails from. Three of them are products of Whitney Young high school -- AJ Rompza, Marcus Jordan, and Dwight McCombs. Caldwell refers to Rompza as his "son".

Caldwell has a son that attends UCF and apparently hosted recruits on unofficial visits to the campus, an NCAA violation. The Times also reported that Caldwell would patch recruits in on conference calls with the UCF coaching staff, another violation.

Bender, according to the ESPN report, was heavily involved in the recruitment of Braeden Anderson, a former DePaul commit that is now headed to Kansas. DePaul head coach Oliver Purnell is quoted in the story as saying that Caldwell and Bender approached him and offered to direct players to him. Purnell cut ties with Bender and Caldwell, which is likely why he lost out on Anderson. ESPN also reported that Anderson, a Canadian attending prep school in Massachusetts, spent two weeks in Louisville visiting cousins that he couldn't name when asked by Forde. A Bender associate, former Louisville football player Rodney Carter, lives in Louisville still.

Its all pretty damning stuff. You cannot paint a much clearer picture of runner than this.

The question is what will come of it?

Yahoo! Sports caught UConn and Jim Calhoun about as red-handed as it gets two years ago with their report on the Nate Miles recruitment, but the Huskies received some recruiting sanctions, Jim Calhoun got hit with a three game suspension, and two assistant coaches were forced to resign.

That said, not only does this story involve Donnie Jones and UCF -- not hall-of-famer Jim Calhoun and the winners of three of the last 12 national titles -- it involves a pipeline that seemingly was established before Jones arrived in Orlando.

Anyway, I strongly urge you to read all three of the articles linked above.

In an age where journalism appears to be dying, investigative reporting does not get much better than this.