Published: June 01, 2008 12:26 am         

COLUMN: Rodriguez’s agent all about selling dreams

MORGANTOWN — Here, all along, I thought Adam Sandler was “The Waterboy.”

But what did I know?

Turns out “Waterboy” was a nom de plume used by Rich Rodriguez’s agent, Mike Brown (aka “Ice Cream”), according to surprising testimony that came out of his May 5 deposition taken at Marriott Courtyard in Holland, Ohio, on May 5.

Turns out that WVU lawyer Bob Fitzsimmons was able to uncover a tie Brown had to a fringe gambling enterprise between Rodriguez’s attorney’s Marv Robon’s many requests to “run to the potty,” as he so delicately put it once, and 258 objections — many of them on the subject of Brown’s involvement in this endeavor.

And with the revelation the already entertaining law suit over Rodriguez’s claim that he doesn’t owe the $4 million liquidated damages he agreed to pay if he quit as WVU football coach because of unfulfilled promises and fraudulent inducements turned into something straight out of “Guys and Dolls.”

We were introduced to “Vegas Vic” and the “Chicken Shack,” all part of shtick Brown read on the air on Cleveland radio station WKNR as a huckster of selections for upcoming games.

Brown, as he did so well at Michigan and Alabama but far less successfully at LSU, Arkansas and North Carolina, all while Rodriguez was under contract at WVU with at least four more years to run on it, was selling dreams.

For $99, he told the listeners in what he insists was simply a voiceover job, they could call in and get the three top college and three top professional picks for the week … obviously for amusement only, as they say on those parlay cards that float around every football season.

Now Brown claimed that he didn’t have anything to do with the picks and that he wasn’t paid — maybe he should have gotten himself a new agent — for this service.

Somehow, though, you suspect that he may have been slightly more involved in this business than he was letting on, considering a person named Jennifer Krompass, someone Brown identified as “as friend” … “a person who worked for me as an intern when I was a sports agent 1999 and 2000.”

Brown later would say that Krompass “was like a sister to me.” The script Brown read said that Krompass answered phones, as did her roommates Stacey, Sandy and Kelly, who was more than like a sister to Krompass; she was her sister.

Brown, however, denied they answered phones, that it was all part of the illusion, even though the script reads, according to Fitzsimmons, “Maybe Jennifer, Sandy, Stacey or Kelly may discretely get back to you to handle your order.”

Now the chances are this will never see the light of day in the Rodriguez trial, should it come to that, as Robon objected furiously that it was immaterial and happened before Brown’s 2005 involvement with Rodriguez.

Then again, it may go to character because, at the time Brown was doing this, he was licensed as a player agent by the NFL Players Association, working for a defense company called Touchstone and using its computers in the sports prediction business.

Perhaps Brown sees nothing wrong with a sports agent involved — even in a fringe way — with gambling on sporting events, that his having inside information via his contacts and influence on such clients — eh, he calls them customers, not clients — raises yellow flags, if nothing else.

Now Robon, who not only had to “go to the potty” on occasion and who on another point had something of a sinus problem as he told Fitzsimmons “you’re making my sinuses drain more” when it was suggested that he had only another hour or two of questions, objected to Fitzsimmons’ references to this a “sports betting” business.

Robon continually and emphatically objected to Fitzsimmons using the term “sports betting,” but, as always, he spoke up once too often. An e-mail was produced that had been redacted to black out something.

Here’s the testimony:

MR. ROBON: What was struck out on this exhibit that I can’t read on top?

MR. ROBERT P. FITZSIMMONS: I didn’t strike anything out, sir.

MR. ROBON: I know. What’s written on there?

THE WITNESS: “Sports betting.”

Brown knew what it said.

Robon didn’t say so, but you know he wished he’d gone to the potty instead of bringing that up.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

     

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