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OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
Dispatch
3/27/06
3/27/06
Salyers: OSU case made her an outcast
NCAA probe hurt her, too, whistle-blower says
Monday, March 27, 2006
Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Kathleen Salyers, whose lawsuit prompted the NCAA probe of OSU’s basketball program, says she’s been vilified for telling the truth.
The whispering starts while she’s standing in line at the grocery store or Target.
Snatches of it reach her ears: "OSU ... that’s her ... basketball."
Every now and then, someone takes her picture with a camera phone.
Even now, two years after her revelations prompted a harsh look at Ohio State University men’s basketball, Kathleen Salyers is still something of a pariah in her hometown.
"It’s a difficult community to live in right now," Salyers, 48, said from the living room of a relative she’s living with.
"I’m very paranoid, always looking over my shoulder, not trusting. I used to walk down the street and smile and say ‘Hello.’ Now I look down at the sidewalk."
She’s been demonized as "disgruntled," "crazy" and worse on Internet blogs, radio call-in shows and in e-mails on the Web site she set up to defend herself.
And she’s been blamed for the firing of OSU men’s basketball coach Jim O’Brien and an NCAA investigation that cost the university nearly $1 million and stripped it of the honor of its 1999 Final Four berth.
All because she provided a home away from home beginning in 1998 for a basketball player known as Boban. And because five years later, she sued the couple she says promised to pay her for his upkeep.
In 1998, Salyers was living a quiet suburban life in the Gahanna area with her husband, Walter, their daughter, Amanda, and Salyers’ son from an earlier marriage, Rob Huston.
She cleaned houses for a living and baby-sat for the children of clients Dan and Kim Roslovic of Bexley.
That summer, the Roslovics asked her to provide a temporary home for Slobodan "Boban" Savovic, a Serbian who would begin playing basketball at Ohio State in the fall.
Kim Roslovic, who later admitted she had an affair with Savovic, agreed to pay Salyers $1,000 a month plus expenses to care for Savovic while he was in college, Salyers says.
The money showed up for a short time, then stopped. But Salyers, confident she’d be repaid eventually and increasingly protective of Savovic, continued to pay for what he needed: a special bed, a computer, clothes, his international taxes, a cell phone, travel.
Although he had a dorm room and later an apartment, Savovic became part of the Salyers family, celebrating holidays with them, hanging out with Rob and Amanda and bringing his friends to the house on Pathfield Drive.
The family cheered him on at games, helped with his homework and met his girlfriends.
Their relationship ended abruptly, however, after Savovic’s mother visited from Serbia midway through his senior year. She felt, he later told Salyers in an emotional phone call, that Salyers was trying to replace her as his mother.
Savovic dropped out of the family’s circle.
In the next few years, Salyers’ life turned sour.
The debts she’d wracked up for Savovic remained. To stay afloat, she borrowed and borrowed again. Money problems grew when her husband was forced to retire after several heart attacks and strokes. He moved out in March 2003.
Threatened with foreclosure, Salyers sold their five-bedroom house for less than she owed.
The family scattered.
Salyers moved into an apartment with Amanda, who was then 18.
In August 2003, Salyers filed a lawsuit against the Roslovics to recover the $360,000 she said she was owed.
As Salyers tried to gather evidence to prove that the Roslovics promised to pay her for Savovic’s upkeep, information about the financial and academic help that Savovic had received surfaced in depositions and other legal documents.
And another fact surfaced: O’Brien gave the family of basketball player Alex Radojevic $6,000 while he was being recruited by Ohio State.
That revelation from Salyers’ deposition became public on June 9, 2004, when Ohio State unceremoniously fired O’Brien over the payment. With that, Salyers became renowned practically overnight in Columbus and in the world of college sports.
Few believed her account of the $6,000 or her claims that she’d helped get Savovic’s grades changed, written college papers for him, provided him with spending money and received free tickets to basketball games from O’Brien.
Fewer still believed her when she said she’d provided the help at the direction of Paul Biancardi, an assistant coach under O’Brien.
"We live in a town that bleeds scarlet and gray," said Salyers’ sister, Rita, who asked that her last name not be used.
"To most people, especially the sports fans, Ohio State can do no wrong.
And anyone who says that they did becomes scum."
Salyers lost most of her cleaning jobs as a result of her notoriety. A few friends stood by her, but many turned their backs.
Once, she said, a man pushed her against the wall at a fast-food restaurant and told her to drop her lawsuit. Another time her daughter’s tires were slashed.
Much of what Salyers said in depositions and interviews has been verified by others in the past two years.
Two Ohio State teachers confirmed they changed Savovic’s grades. Several people admitted they helped Salyers write papers for Savovic. O’Brien admitted he’d given the Radojevic family $6,000, saying it was for humanitarian reasons.
The NCAA, after a nearly two-year investigation that included interviews with Salyers, declared her credible and punished the university, O’Brien and Biancardi this month for breaking NCAA rules.
A few days later, Biancardi was fired from Wright State University, where he was the head men’s basketball coach.
By then, Salyers had settled her lawsuit with the Roslovics. As part of the agreement, she can’t disclose details.
"People are under the assumption that because this case was settled, Kathleen walked away with some big, huge settlement," Rita said. "But I see how she’s living. She’s sleeping on a mattress that has coils sticking up out of it."
Salyers won’t say who she’s living with now in Columbus. She lived with a friend in Cincinnati for much of last year but returned here to care for Amanda’s 2-year-old daughter, Kayla.
"I don’t understand how people can be so angry with me now that they know I told the truth. I had to tell the truth. Would they rather I lied? "
Saddled with her "15 minutes of fame" and her responsibility for Kayla, she’s been unsuccessful finding a part-time job.
She’d like, she said, "to hold my head high and know that I at least attempted to do the right thing.
"I think that Ohio State should make some kind of an attempt to apologize or admit there was a breakdown in the system. The community would better understand my situation if they did that."
[email protected]
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I'm the kinda guy who always likes to be helpful, so let me explain why.
It must have seemed like a dream come true, a real Ohio State basketball player living in your home, becoming a member of the family and "wink-wink", "nudge-nudge" all of that reflected celebrity. The lawyers telling you that you could score big time, the erection of your own website that had only the objective of smearing The Ohio State University brand and everyone connected with it during the time of the disgustingly false Clarett allegations.
Who, in such desperate financial circumstances as you claim to have been, would continue to run up debts without surety? It appears to me that you knew that taking Savovic in violated NCAA rules and that therein lie your surety. Your attempts to collect from O'Brien certainly seems to me to be consistent with that and so does his refusal to pay you despite the possibility that public disclosure of this would probably ruin his coaching career forever. Seems to me that he might have thought this matter would never go away with just one payment.
Through all of this, you maintain that you are the truthful one, but lies come from speaking untruths or in speaking half-truths that obscure reality. Your protestation of innocence appears to me to be the latter.
So, I despise what you did to my Ohio State Buckeye basketball team through your actions, in taking Savovic in, in attempting to get paid in the way you appear to have done, and in you incessant desire to continue to be in the spotlight, even today, as if you were a wronged party speaking on behalf of everyone interested in good corporate governance at universities.
I have some advice for you. If you don't want people look at you as if you were low-life, then move to some other state where nobody gives a darn about what you have done. Oh, by the way, that is a bit rough, Ohio State fans are everywhere.
Just don't expect people like me to think of you as an innocent wronged one or someone in need of some apology from Ohio State-- you made your bed, now lay in it and leave us alone.
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Dispatch
HBO program still focused on Buckeyes
Monday, April 10, 2006
MOLLY WILLOW
The flogging of the Ohio State men’s basketball team will continue Tuesday on HBO. After Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel rolled around in the fallout of the Slobodan Savovic debacle, the show is coming back to wallow some more.
I’m sure absolutely none of this has anything whatsoever to do with incoming freshman Greg Oden being the highest-touted high-school recruit in years.
Just a coincidence.
That isn’t to say that fired coach Jim O’Brien’s lawsuit against OSU isn’t a story — it is.
(I always believed Kathleen Salyers, the whistle-blower. I almost feel sorry for her naivete. Even though doing someone’s homework isn’t smart, I’m appalled by the fans who directed their ire at her and not the program.)
The segment, ‘‘Buckeye Woes," will air at 10 p.m.
If someone could please keep Oden away from a TV set then, that would be super.
HBO program still focused on Buckeyes
Monday, April 10, 2006
MOLLY WILLOW
The flogging of the Ohio State men’s basketball team will continue Tuesday on HBO. After Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel rolled around in the fallout of the Slobodan Savovic debacle, the show is coming back to wallow some more.
I’m sure absolutely none of this has anything whatsoever to do with incoming freshman Greg Oden being the highest-touted high-school recruit in years.
Just a coincidence.
That isn’t to say that fired coach Jim O’Brien’s lawsuit against OSU isn’t a story — it is.
(I always believed Kathleen Salyers, the whistle-blower. I almost feel sorry for her naivete. Even though doing someone’s homework isn’t smart, I’m appalled by the fans who directed their ire at her and not the program.)
The segment, ‘‘Buckeye Woes," will air at 10 p.m.
If someone could please keep Oden away from a TV set then, that would be super.
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I happened to watch it last night...
It was nothing more than Salyers and her daughter getting the chance to air their beef with OSU, Biancardi, and "the system". She came across very nice...and yes, naive. She seemed pretty credible....and they even let one of her friends who is a school teacher with credibility corroborate her story. Then the daughter chimes in with her very condemning view of OSU and how this stuff was done in clear view of the administration and even a professor.
I'd say this piece should have been done during the first segment as it was actually the meat of why OSU should have been nailed. HBO did a pretty good job of making it look like Biancardi and the street agents in NYC that facilitated the flow of Eastern Europeans to not just OSU but other US colleges as well. In fact, the story started driving toward the bigger conspiracy of these 2 street agents in NYC (a father/son combo...the father was later named by Gov.Pataki as the director of the NYC Olympics 2012 movement). But it dropped that angle and brought the focus back to OSU. Too bad....because they showed 1 picture that had photographs of about 30 different Eastern Europeans in various NCAA uniforms and how they were all "handled" by these agents. THAT would have been a big story.
At the end, Bernie Goldberg and Bryant Gumbel discussed the situation and they did emphasize that OSU had to give back $800K and lose scholarships and remove banners from that era....but they didn't stress the 1 year self-imposed tourney ban. Interestingly, Gumbel's last comment was that Ohio State had fired HC O'Brien immediately after this came to light but a court in Ohio had found insufficient cause to fire him........and then Bryant kind of shook his head.
...the general theme that Salyers tried to convey was that everyone lost in this saga.....OSU, her and her family, Boban.......except the agents.
I do find it intersting that Salyers is now living with her daughter and has no money or assets to speak of. She is either incredibly unlucky or just plain street-dumb. It's clear that Biancardi (with O'Brien's certain complicity) manufactured and manipulated a situation where this naive simple woman could be taken advantage of and would never be in a position to blow the whistle.
I'm ashamed of our Coaching Staff (O'Brien and Biancardi, mostly) for doing this and for the Athletic Dept and Admin for not properly controlling it. This black eye is going to stick with not only our BB program but also our FB and other sports programs. O'Brien really had me fooled......completely. It's sad that Matta/Tressel and their players will have to face this kind of BS....and, yes, we alums as well. This sucks.....but at least the punishment is official and the future is more defined for us.
It was nothing more than Salyers and her daughter getting the chance to air their beef with OSU, Biancardi, and "the system". She came across very nice...and yes, naive. She seemed pretty credible....and they even let one of her friends who is a school teacher with credibility corroborate her story. Then the daughter chimes in with her very condemning view of OSU and how this stuff was done in clear view of the administration and even a professor.
I'd say this piece should have been done during the first segment as it was actually the meat of why OSU should have been nailed. HBO did a pretty good job of making it look like Biancardi and the street agents in NYC that facilitated the flow of Eastern Europeans to not just OSU but other US colleges as well. In fact, the story started driving toward the bigger conspiracy of these 2 street agents in NYC (a father/son combo...the father was later named by Gov.Pataki as the director of the NYC Olympics 2012 movement). But it dropped that angle and brought the focus back to OSU. Too bad....because they showed 1 picture that had photographs of about 30 different Eastern Europeans in various NCAA uniforms and how they were all "handled" by these agents. THAT would have been a big story.
At the end, Bernie Goldberg and Bryant Gumbel discussed the situation and they did emphasize that OSU had to give back $800K and lose scholarships and remove banners from that era....but they didn't stress the 1 year self-imposed tourney ban. Interestingly, Gumbel's last comment was that Ohio State had fired HC O'Brien immediately after this came to light but a court in Ohio had found insufficient cause to fire him........and then Bryant kind of shook his head.
...the general theme that Salyers tried to convey was that everyone lost in this saga.....OSU, her and her family, Boban.......except the agents.
I do find it intersting that Salyers is now living with her daughter and has no money or assets to speak of. She is either incredibly unlucky or just plain street-dumb. It's clear that Biancardi (with O'Brien's certain complicity) manufactured and manipulated a situation where this naive simple woman could be taken advantage of and would never be in a position to blow the whistle.
I'm ashamed of our Coaching Staff (O'Brien and Biancardi, mostly) for doing this and for the Athletic Dept and Admin for not properly controlling it. This black eye is going to stick with not only our BB program but also our FB and other sports programs. O'Brien really had me fooled......completely. It's sad that Matta/Tressel and their players will have to face this kind of BS....and, yes, we alums as well. This sucks.....but at least the punishment is official and the future is more defined for us.
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sandgk
Watson, Crick & A Twist
OK Davey - not - really not picking on you - but
That's shame which should reflect the sins of the PAST and FIRED coaching staff.
The black eye does not, repeat does not, do damage to the Football program. Finally, though Gumbel et al may choose to ignore the obvious, the NCAA did not and provided a measured response precisely because tOSU and the Administration cleared house, inflicted their own punishment and then wore sack cloth and ashes.
We have nothing NOW of which to be ashamed.
(The same cannot be said for what passes as journalism in the hands of Bryant Gumbel.)
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transgressions
I'm ashamed that my alma mater....The Ohio State University......had and still has basically the same Athletics Dept and Admin and they let this crap go on for YEARS....not weeks...but YEARS. This stuff was so egregious that some heads on the AD (other than Geiger's) should have rolled over the failure to monitor.
I had always thought it was fishy that O'Brien suddenly started recruiting Serbians...and good ones too...to a BigTen school.
I never intended to indict the current Basketball program.....or the Football program....but the HBO special mentioned nothing about FB. This was strictly a BB piece.....OSU, in my estimation, was very lucky not to get hit with the loss of institutional control even though we fired our HC and his staff immediately.
The phone records.....of the university furnished phone account.....had multiple hundreds of phone calls to sports agents in NYC and even "Uncle Simi" in Europe. That should have triggered some type of inquiry by the Admin.
....listen, I don't buy into journalistic hype and crap....but SOME of this saga rings true and falls squarely on the shoulders of the OSU AD Admin.
.....I'm as big of a defender of OSU's integrity as any....and you're dead on when you say that our FB program actually came out as clean or cleaner than any program would have come out due to 2.5 years of intense scrutingy by both NCAA and independent investigations. But the BB program was being run by a couple bigtime crooks....namely, Biancardi and O'Brien. And Geiger apparently was so caught off guard by the transgressions of his dear friend O'Brien that he must have let it cloud his judgement.
I trust that all is well in the AD now....but that doesn't mean that I'm not ashamed of what HAPPENED.
I'm ashamed that my alma mater....The Ohio State University......had and still has basically the same Athletics Dept and Admin and they let this crap go on for YEARS....not weeks...but YEARS. This stuff was so egregious that some heads on the AD (other than Geiger's) should have rolled over the failure to monitor.
I had always thought it was fishy that O'Brien suddenly started recruiting Serbians...and good ones too...to a BigTen school.
I never intended to indict the current Basketball program.....or the Football program....but the HBO special mentioned nothing about FB. This was strictly a BB piece.....OSU, in my estimation, was very lucky not to get hit with the loss of institutional control even though we fired our HC and his staff immediately.
The phone records.....of the university furnished phone account.....had multiple hundreds of phone calls to sports agents in NYC and even "Uncle Simi" in Europe. That should have triggered some type of inquiry by the Admin.
....listen, I don't buy into journalistic hype and crap....but SOME of this saga rings true and falls squarely on the shoulders of the OSU AD Admin.
.....I'm as big of a defender of OSU's integrity as any....and you're dead on when you say that our FB program actually came out as clean or cleaner than any program would have come out due to 2.5 years of intense scrutingy by both NCAA and independent investigations. But the BB program was being run by a couple bigtime crooks....namely, Biancardi and O'Brien. And Geiger apparently was so caught off guard by the transgressions of his dear friend O'Brien that he must have let it cloud his judgement.
I trust that all is well in the AD now....but that doesn't mean that I'm not ashamed of what HAPPENED.
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I will never be ashamed to be a Buckeye. Period.
I will agree with you DaveyBoy in that we all had an opinion of our former coaches that appears to give them far too much credit for following NCAA rules.
But ashamed? Nonsense!
If you put the microscope on any Div 1 football program as it was placed on Ohio State, and I mean any program, I assure you that you will find many more problems than emerged at Ohio State. Gosh, just look at the Police/Legal Blotter thread!
Nope, while I find it very hard to feel anything but revulsion for any of those people involved in the basketball story, it just reminds me that some people just don't buy into the values.
It doesn't make me ashamed to be a Buckeye. Period.:osu:
I will agree with you DaveyBoy in that we all had an opinion of our former coaches that appears to give them far too much credit for following NCAA rules.
But ashamed? Nonsense!
If you put the microscope on any Div 1 football program as it was placed on Ohio State, and I mean any program, I assure you that you will find many more problems than emerged at Ohio State. Gosh, just look at the Police/Legal Blotter thread!
Nope, while I find it very hard to feel anything but revulsion for any of those people involved in the basketball story, it just reminds me that some people just don't buy into the values.
It doesn't make me ashamed to be a Buckeye. Period.:osu:
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
I used to like the Celtics too.
O'Brien gets job offer
Former BC coach would be assistant
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff | May 20, 2006
The Celtics have offered an assistant coaching position to former Boston College head coach Jim O'Brien, league sources said yesterday
If O'Brien accepts the position, he would join Clifford Ray as the newest members of the coaching staff, replacing Paul Pressey and Jim Brewer.
Coach Doc Rivers said Ray agreed to join the staff as an assistant yesterday.
The Celtics job would mark O'Brien's first foray into the NBA.
O'Brien would bring welcome experience from the college ranks, where he started as an assistant at Connecticut, then coached at St. Bonaventure, BC, and Ohio State. The Celtics would look to O'Brien to help develop their players. Most of the Celtics' talented youngsters would still be in college if they had not entered the draft after high school or spent limited time in college.
O'Brien made three NCAA Tournament appearances in his last four years with BC, and spent 11 seasons at the Heights overall. At Ohio State, O'Brien led the team to the 1999 Final Four and enjoyed continued success in the seasons that followed.
Ohio State fired O'Brien June 8, 2004, for giving a $6,000 cash payment to onetime Serbian recruit Aleksandar Radojevic. O'Brien sued the university for $3.5 million in lost wages and benefits, claiming Ohio State improperly fired him. O'Brien won the suit.
http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2006/05/20/obrien_gets_job_offer/
O'Brien gets job offer
Former BC coach would be assistant
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff | May 20, 2006
The Celtics have offered an assistant coaching position to former Boston College head coach Jim O'Brien, league sources said yesterday
If O'Brien accepts the position, he would join Clifford Ray as the newest members of the coaching staff, replacing Paul Pressey and Jim Brewer.
Coach Doc Rivers said Ray agreed to join the staff as an assistant yesterday.
The Celtics job would mark O'Brien's first foray into the NBA.
O'Brien would bring welcome experience from the college ranks, where he started as an assistant at Connecticut, then coached at St. Bonaventure, BC, and Ohio State. The Celtics would look to O'Brien to help develop their players. Most of the Celtics' talented youngsters would still be in college if they had not entered the draft after high school or spent limited time in college.
O'Brien made three NCAA Tournament appearances in his last four years with BC, and spent 11 seasons at the Heights overall. At Ohio State, O'Brien led the team to the 1999 Final Four and enjoyed continued success in the seasons that followed.
Ohio State fired O'Brien June 8, 2004, for giving a $6,000 cash payment to onetime Serbian recruit Aleksandar Radojevic. O'Brien sued the university for $3.5 million in lost wages and benefits, claiming Ohio State improperly fired him. O'Brien won the suit.
http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2006/05/20/obrien_gets_job_offer/
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