“I have privacy rights,” Stewart complained.
“And I have rights too,” I said and turned to Mr. Morris and glanced down at Special Agent Bryn to remind everyone who was in the room. “If I remember right, you said something about Mr. Chadwick’s actions meeting the legal definition of extortion.”
“I recommend that you watch this video and listen to the audiotape of a subsequent phone call. You’ll want all the information,” Ms. Addison interjected.
“I was only trying to convince David that it was in his best interest to assist in the investigation,” Stewart said. But he sounded like he was trapped and knew it.
“Play it,” Mr. Ellison said.
The way he said it made Stewart cringe.
◊◊◊
Once we were done showing the NCAA everything we had, they wanted to take a break and left us in the conference room. We all sat there quietly as Special Agent Bryn did stuff on his phone. Ms. Addison had advised us on the ride over to not say anything in front of him.
I leaned over to Mr. Morris.
“Good job on your presentation. It appears they learned everything they needed to,” I said quietly.
“Thanks.”
Ten minutes later, the NCAA team returned without my nemesis, Mr. Chadwick. Mr. Morris reached over and squeezed my knee. I was almost positive he wasn’t hitting on me. It looked like he felt this might actually work out.
When everyone was seated, Special Agent Bryn finally spoke.
“Before we go any further, I want to make something perfectly clear. While I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, I trust that the people in this room, and the NCAA as an organization, will keep the existence of
“Furthermore, I trust that the NCAA realizes that any attempt to continue to use eligibility issues to extort extraordinary actions out of Mr. Dawson would be a grave mistake. That would apply to the NCAA as an organization, its personnel, and its agents.”
Yep, the FBI was scary.
“If we can come to a satisfactory conclusion, is there anything else you need?” Mr. Ellison asked.
“I’m sure that Ms. Addison can fill me in. I’ll let you get to it,” Special Agent Bryn said, then gathered his stuff and left.
The tension level in the room dropped several degrees.
“What exactly did you want to achieve today?” Mr. Ellison asked.
“I’d like to see all my clients get their eligibility back. They’ve cooperated with both the FBI and NCAA and will continue to do so. While I think we can agree that while Mr. Chadwick’s motives were laudable, his methods may have gone a little far,” Mr. Morris said.
“Is that it?” Mr. Ellison asked.
“We do have a couple of other issues we’d like to be heard on. They deal with David’s movies and personal image. We’d like to get a couple of waivers to make sure he doesn’t cross any boundaries that might cause problems in the future,” Mr. Morris added.
“So, you’re just trying to be proactive?” Mr. Phelps, the Michigan AD, asked.
“Why don’t you explain what you’re looking for?” Mr. Ellison directed to Mr. Morris.
Mr. Morris spent a few minutes giving the details of what I was worried about.
“The wording on the personal image waiver might get tricky, but I expect we can agree in principle and hammer out the details,” Mr. Ellison said.
“As long as we can get Tim, Wolf, and David’s eligibility reinstated, we have time to work on the rest,” Mr. Morris agreed, and then he gave them some background.
“When we met last year, it was because David is a bit of a unicorn, and the NCAA was struggling with his uniqueness. Besides playing sports, he has both modeling and movie careers, each of which started entirely independently of his football and baseball activities.
“David also owns several successful businesses. We worked together to recognize this, and you declared that he met his amateurism requirements, and he was made eligible to be recruited to play college ball.
“What we need to come to grips with is that when he enrolls in college, the rules change for him. He will then be subject to all the rules and regulations of the NCAA. Activities that were perfectly fine while he is in high school are forbidden as soon as he steps on campus.”
“Are you talking about his modeling, acting, and the promotion of the movies?” Steve Anchorage asked.
“Exactly, but there’s more,” Mr. Morris said.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘more’?” Jackie Davis asked.
“It still has to do with David’s image. We can’t allow a university to have sole control over it while he’s in college. In particular, there could be no justification for that university to have any access to or control over his acting and modeling images.
“We realize that David will have to relinquish some of his rights so he can be shown in regard to football and baseball activities. We recognize that it would be silly to believe that a university wouldn’t want him to be the face of the program if he excels like we expect he will. What we want is a common-sense approach that affords him certain safeguards,” Mr. Morris explained.
