A federal indictment yesterday alleged that K.C.
summer-league basketball coach Myron Piggie paid some of the
"nation's best high school basketball players to be on his
team," according to Morris, Funk & Richman of the K.C. STAR.
In return for "more than" $35,550 in payments to the
players, Piggie "expected them to repay him and then some
once they received professional contracts and product
endorsement deals." During the late '90s, Piggie coached
one of the nation's top summer-league teams, and was under a
consulting contract with Nike, which sent him "about"
$160,000 in "large lump-sum increments of $50,00 and
$15,000" to support the team. Nike canceled the contract in
January '99 and company Manager of U.S. Communications Scott
Reames said that Nike "has since tightened its accounting
for consultants." Reames: "When our coaches receive product
or money for their traveling team they now must produce
written documentation of where the product went. If it was
money for a traveling team, we have to know where and how
was the money spent." Piggie also "allegedly sold shoes
that Nike provided him to distribute for free." The
indictment also lists $76,100 in payments from various
sports agents (K.C. STAR, 4/14).
