Joe Pasternack declined to comment Tuesday on a Yahoo Sports story that revealed emails from agent Christian Dawkins about his relationship with Arizona’s former associate head coach.
UCSB spokesman Bill Mahoney told the Star that Pasternack will not be commenting. A message left on Pasternack’s cellphone was not returned.
Santa Barbara television station KEYI reported that Pasternack and UCSB AD John McCutcheon declined its request for an on-camera interview. However, KEYI sports director Mike Klan said Pasternack told him in a phone interview that he is allowed to talk with sports agents and their runners as long as no bribes are offered.
While there are no references to Pasternack having broken NCAA rules in Yahoo Sports’ report, it said emails showed how Dawkins “attempted to manipulate a powerful collegiate program like Arizona.”
Yahoo Sports reported that on Aug. 15, 2016, Dawkins wrote a memo to his boss, Andy Miller, saying that Pasternack was interested in recruiting five-star forward Brian Bowen.
Dawkins said “now that they need something from us, they’re all apologetic,” saying that UA coach Sean Miller was previously upset over a recruiting issue with a player’s parent.
Dawkins wrote that Pasternack told him he didn’t send players to the Bill Duffy or Octagon agencies, and added “now I can’t promise that this kid that they want (Bowen) is going to Arizona, but Joe told me verbatim he will help us get all the Arizona players so put his feet to the fire.”
Dawkins also told his fellow agent, Andrew Vye, that “if you have to make a call to these guys (Arizona coaches), the kid that they want from me is Brian Bowen … Arizona will do pretty much whatever we ask of them right now, until my kid decides on a school.”
Bowen committed to Louisville on June 4, 2017 but was suspended after news broke of an alleged payment between Louisville, Adidas and his father. He eventually opted to enroll at South Carolina.
Financial advisor Munish Sood met with two UA assistant coaches in Las Vegas just before last year's Pac-12 Tournament, according to a federal complaint released Sept. 26.
Pasternack is not named in the report, but the complaint said a review of Sood’s telephone records showed that he "exchanged two telephone calls with a cellphone number that I (an FBI agent) know is subscribed to by another individual who was then an assistant coach for the men's basketball team at (University 4)," according to the document.
University 4 was identified in the complaint as Richardson's employer. Pasternack is the only coach from last year's staff who is no longer at the UA.
The federal complaint alleged that Sood raised the prospect of paying UA coaches with an undercover witness “beginning in or around February 2017.” Sood told an FBI witness on March 14 that "the (Arizona) coaches are interested in definitely working with us."
"As of now, the coaches haven't asked for anything," he told the witness, "but I'm sure when the time comes, they will, right?"
There are no references to Pasternack being involved in bribery. Federal agents say former UA assistant coach Book Richardson took the bribes in June and July, after Pasternack had left the UA.
The Yahoo Sports report Friday also quoted an Aug. 18, 2016 memo from Dawkins as saying Richardson “basically told me he wants me to talk to Rawle Alkins. He said he is picking the agent, period.”
Two days later, Yahoo reported that Dawkins wrote: "Book at Arizona has the juice with the situation, they’re going to listen to him. Nobody else is involved besides book, the kid and Rodney (the cousin). The mom has say but I think she will depend on Rodney. He can get stuff done.”
The Star’s Zack Rosenblatt wrote about Alkins' family in a feature story last season. Alkins grew up in a home with eight family members, including his mother, Darlene Zephir, and cousin Rodney Labossiere in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Canarsie. Labossiere moved with Alkins to Tucson when he enrolled at the UA.
“He doesn’t have handlers,” said Joe Arbitello, one of Alkins’ high school coaches, told Rosenblatt at the time. “He has his mother, his cousin Rodney and a couple cousins who live in the house with him in Canarsie.”
Dawkins made reference to one basketball player at Arizona who already had received payments, "so we got no expenses there,” according to the federal complaint. That day, Dawkins said Richardson committed to steer a current UA player to Dawkins' company, saying "there's no ifs ands about that," according to the complaint.
"I've already talked with (the player's) mom, I've talked with his cousin," he told Dawkins, according to the complaint.
Richardson received $5,000 in cash at the end of the meeting, the complaint said.
Richardson was arrested on federal bribery and fraud charges. He has since been fired by the UA.
