Buckeyes have more to fear than their HBO report itself
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Bruce Hooley
Plain Dealer Reporter
Columbus
-- Ohio State won't suffer any additional damage from an HBO story to be broadcast tonight, but follow-up interviews by the NCAA may result in additional violations being levied against OSU's men's basketball program.
The HBO report, entitled "The Nanny," covers familiar ground regarding Kathleen Salyers' housing of and provisions for former OSU basketball player Boban Savovic. It is scheduled for broadcast at 10 p.m. on the HBO program, "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel."
Reporter Bernard Goldberg interviews Salyers, her daughter, Amanda, and their former neighbor, Wanda Dworkin, about Savovic's career at OSU from 1998-2002 when the NCAA alleges he received improper financial and academic benefits.
Those charges were contained in a May 16 letter from the NCAA, which Ohio State must address via written response by July 26.
By then, the school also may be asked to address two other apparent violations that surfaced just before the NCAA's correspondence with OSU.
The first concerns Columbus insurance agent Samuel Farb, who admitted to The Plain Dealer in a May 13 interview that he provided Savovic a ride from Value City Arena to a home in suburban Columbus during Savovic's freshman year.
Farb has four $7,500 seat-license seats in Value City and has given more than $57,000 to the OSU athletic department, and therefore qualifies as an OSU booster. Boosters cannot provide scholarship athletes with free transportation.
Farb told The Plain Dealer he drove Savovic to the home of "a mailman in Gahanna." Salyers lived in Gahanna, and her husband was, at that time, a U.S. Postal worker. Farb did not return telephone messages left Monday at his home and office.
The second possible additional violation involves former assistant coach Paul Biancardi, now the head coach at Wright State.
Michael Sierawski, who befriended Savovic on his initial recruiting visit to Ohio State in May 1998, testified in a court deposition related to a lawsuit Salyers filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court that Biancardi asked him to furnish "some money or some spending money" to former OSU recruit Aleks Radojevic.
Sierawski testified that he never informed the NCAA of that violation in his initial interview because he was not asked about it.
The NCAA has since re-interviewed Seirawski, who also did not return a telephone message.
Biancardi, now the head coach at Wright State, has not spoken with reporters since being implicated by Salyers and Sierawski for numerous NCAA violations. Biancardi's attorney, James Zeszutek, Monday denied his client's role in the violations Sierawskli and Salyers have alleged.
"[Salyers] wants to bring Paul into this because she has a motive," Zeszutek said. "She's trying to collect money and bring notoriety to herself. . . . Mike Sierawski says a lot of things. If he says Paul asked him to take care of Aleks by providing him any money or any gifts, there is no basis in fact for any of that."
Neither Sierawski nor Biancardi were interviewed by HBO, which does not name either former OSU coach Jim O'Brien or the boosters - Dan and Kim Roslovic - it repeatedly references as the reason Salyers provided improper assistance to Savovic.
Salyers' lawsuit against the Roslovics charged that they hired her to house and care for Savovic for $1,000 per month, plus expenses.
That case, seeking more than $150,000 in damages, was dismissed May 9 when a judge ruled that the verbal contract Salyers said existed with the Roslovics was not valid under Ohio law.
Salyers has appealed that decision.
