Greg Hansen's Notebook: This entry is part of longtime Star columnist Greg Hansen's weekly notebook.
Subscribers can read this week's "Hansen's Notebook" in its entirety in the Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, edition of the Arizona Daily Star (Page C2) — either in print or at Tucson.com/EEdition. Or, dig into the Hansen archives at Tucson.com/Hansen.
Greg Hansen is the longtime sports columnist for the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson.com.
I spent the last few days reading “Hot Dog Money,’’ the New York Times bestseller about college basketball’s corruption and regrettable FBI scandal — the best players money can buy – that ultimately cost UA coaches Sean Miller and Book Richardson their jobs.
I don’t recommend the book because, frankly, it’s nothing but 314 pages of negativity and profanity. Miller and Richardson aren’t the main characters in the book; those all-too-familiar names are Christian Dawkins, Chuck Person, Munish Sood, Tony Bland and even ex-UA player Rawle Alkins.
Arizona assistant coach Emanuel "Book" Richardson, left, and head coach Sean Miller bring the team in for a timeout during the second half of the Wildcats' NCAA Tournament matchup with North Dakota on March 16, 2017, in Salt Lake City.
Dawkins, who linked players and coaches with under-the-table payments, is quoted as saying: “I can call Sean Miller and have a conversation and tell him what’s going on. And Sean will get in line. He’s crazy. He talks on the phone about things he shouldn’t talk about.’’
Many of Dawkins’ calls were wired by the FBI, which are widely quoted in the book.
The author, Guy Lawson, quotes Richardson as saying a $40,000 payment made to get Alkins’ high school transcripts approved by the NCAA did not go to Alkins. Said Richardson: “When you bamboozle everyone and that kid didn’t get any of the forty, that’s the problem I have.’’
The book further discusses how Arizona and LSU got in a bidding war for New Jersey high school prospect Naz Reid, who went to LSU.
Today, that’s legal. No questions asked. But in the 2015-17 period, it turned the Arizona program upside down.
