NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Book Richardson doesn鈥檛 sleep much past 5:30 a.m. anymore.
That was around the time seven years ago that FBI agents pounded on his door, barged in, handcuffed him and dragged him away while his 16-year-old son, E.J., looked on.
鈥淓ver since then, everyone looks at me differently,鈥 the former University of Arizona assistant coach told The Associated Press about his arrest, designed to clean up college basketball.
He is one of four assistant coaches 鈥 along with a group of six agents, their financial backers and shoe company representatives 鈥 arrested in the 2017 federal probe aimed at rooting out an of off-the-books payments to players and their families that, at the time, was against NCAA rules.
All four assistants are Black. Of the 10 men arrested, only one was white.
鈥淟ow-hanging fruit,鈥 the 51-year-old Richardson said when asked why 鈥淲ho do you see all the time that鈥檚 out there? Black assistants. Who is forging the relationships? Black assistants.鈥
An AP analysis of schools in the six biggest basketball conferences found the ranks of Black assistant coaches have risen from 51% to 59% between 2014 and 2023. But Black men only command about 30% of head-coaching positions.
All the arrested assistants are banned by the NCAA, while the agents and shoe reps saw their connections in the college world vanish.
鈥淪ome people in the college space I very rarely talk to because, to them, I鈥檓 toxic,鈥 said Merl Code, a Black former rep for Nike and Adidas who served 5 1/2 months in jail in the case.
Meanwhile, most of the head coaches Richardson and the others worked with are white and still have jobs in college basketball.
Richardson served 90 days in jail and says he wears the 鈥渟carlet letter F鈥 鈥 for felon. The NCAA booted him out of college hoops for 10 years.
Some see promise in the fact that Black men fill more assistant coaching positions now than in 2014. Others believe they are still the lower-paid, higher-risk jobs in the 鈥渢alent-acquisition鈥 part of the game rife with turnover and shadowy dealmaking 鈥 and landed Richardson and others in jail.
Code said conditions in college basketball mirror America. In his he notes that his alma mater, sports powerhouse Clemson, was like many large southern state universities built on former plantation land cultivated for decades by slaves.
These days, Richardson runs the boys鈥 basketball program for the New York Gauchos, a venerated hoops proving ground in the Bronx.
Whereas he says he made 鈥2-3 hundred thousand dollars a year鈥 at Arizona, he now clears around three grand a month. He is shaping lives with the Gauchos in much the same way he did as a college assistant 鈥 doling out everything from advice to tough love to recommendations about high school and college. Most of the players he works with are Black.
Monique Hibbert, whose son is among the eighth graders Richardson coaches, said the coach brought the parents together to tell them why he ended up in jail. 鈥淗e said 鈥榯ake it or leave it,鈥 and I said, 鈥業鈥檒l take it. Every day,鈥欌 Hibbert said.
In many ways, Richardson鈥檚 job hasn鈥檛 changed much from seven years ago, when he was a top assistant for coach Sean Miller at the highly rated Arizona program. (Miller, who is white, got fired in the wake of the scandal but now has a high-profile head-coaching job at Xavier.)
For decades, college recruiting has involved relationships. Shoe-company reps identify talented players as early as junior high. They connect with college assistant coaches, who stay close in hopes of signing the players. Then there are the agents, who hope to land a piece of the action if a player turns pro.
Underpinning it all is the quiet and, prosecutors said, illegal movement of money to the players and their families, who often come from poor backgrounds.
鈥淭hese are young men and women who have actual, real-life situations they鈥檙e dealing with at a really young age and they鈥檙e using their athletic ability to assist their families," said Code, who remains unapologetic about using shoe-company money to help families.
When the charges against Richardson, Code and the rest were announced, an FBI assistant director proclaimed: 鈥淲e have your playbook.鈥 The arrests came after an undercover operation that lured the accused into meetings where they picked up envelopes of cash.
Richardson was jailed and banned by the NCAA after pleading guilty to bribery for accepting $20,000 from shoe reps in exchange for steering Arizona players their way.
Richardson admits to using some of the money for a trip to Spain. But most of it, he said, was to pay for a high school recruit and his family to travel to Tucson to watch 鈥淢idnight Madness,鈥 opening night of practice in college basketball. The player had already committed to Arizona.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 like I was buying a player,鈥 Richardson said. "I鈥檓 trying to get him back on campus鈥
Richardson now lives on the outskirts of an industry that has, in fact, undergone a seismic change, though not in the way the FBI thought.
New state laws and have brought about the so-called 鈥淣IL鈥 era in college sports 鈥 for 鈥淣ame, Image and Likeness.鈥 Players can now profit through sponsorship deals that begin as early as high school.
Richardson says NIL should stand for 鈥淣ow It鈥檚 Legal鈥 鈥 a nod to the harsh reality that most of those under-the-table payments can be made legitimately now.
The coach still has dreams of returning to college hoops, though he鈥檚 aware by the time his ban is over, 鈥淚鈥檒l be 60, no one鈥檚 hiring me.鈥
Among the questions Richardson ponders when he bolts awake before sunrise: If he and the rest broke NCAA rules, does that mean they also broke the law? Also, what really changed because of those arrests?
Both the U.S. attorney鈥檚 office that prosecuted the case and the NCAA declined comment to the AP on these or any questions about the case.
Richardson has reached his own conclusions.
鈥淭ruth be told, out of 10 people who got arrested, nine of those guys were some kind of shade of me,鈥 he said. 鈥淎nd now, none of us are coaching, which we were pretty good at. And we weren鈥檛 good because we were cheating. We were good at what we did.鈥
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AP sports writers Aaron Beard, Stephen Whyno and Steve Megargee contributed.
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