Shoe Kickbacks

[Knight Commission]

Anyone with any anecdotes about shoe kickbacks?   KO yelled at me once when I asked him why MU signed with LA Gear?

Not suggesting anything, but lets remember KO was vocal about being underpaid, not having a parking spot....and LA Gear didn't really help with recruiting. Or did it?

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-31/business/fi-365_1_l-a-gear-sneakers/2

Point is...lets be careful before we start throwing stones.

[Benny B]

I used to shop at this place called the Shoe Box when they had a store in Baraboo... even gave me a discount on some new baseball shoes.

[Goose]

Shoe kickbacks have been around a long, long time. Directly or indirectly the Nike's of the world have helped create the landscape that exists today. An MU alum was an early member of the Nike footwear team and I am sure could share a great deal of the behind scenes action.

[The Lens]

KO's LA Gear deal could have been 100% above board.  Colleges for a long time wanted to pay their coach inline with top profs / admin so the local TV deal + shoe deal (plus the Schmidt Ford and the Mark Paasch suits, etc) helped make up the difference. 

[Goose]

Lens

I'm not so sure KO's deal was 100% above board. Might have been 80% above board, but I'm not going all in on this one.

[bilsu]

Maybe all basketball fans should boycott these shoe companies. This was all done for marketing. Destroy these companies market and that will end the problem.

[The Lens]

Lens

I'm not so sure KO's deal was 100% above board. Might have been 80% above board, but I'm not going all in on this one.

The shame you get with publicly aligning with LA Gear makes up for the 20% of under-the-table-ness.

[Goose]

Lens

That is so very true. What a guy does for a buck or two.

[4everwarriors]

Basketball fans should lock arms and come together. Sorry, just couldn't resist, hey?

[thebigjake]

I absolutely love KO, but he was not clean. Not $100k payment type dirty, but he wasn't clean.  Not in the sense that I'm guessing most of you guys assume he was.

However, I'd be pretty sure the stuff he was doing was no different than any other coach trying to win at the level he ended up winning at, i.e. tourney team level.

[B. McBannerson]

I absolutely love KO, but he was not clean. Not $100k payment type dirty, but he wasn't clean.  Not in the sense that I'm guessing most of you guys assume he was.

However, I'd be pretty sure the stuff he was doing was no different than any other coach trying to win at the level he ended up winning at, i.e. tourney team level.

Most of us don't assume he was clean.

[Eldon]

The shame you get with publicly aligning with LA Gear makes up for the 20% of under-the-table-ness.

Hindsight is 20/20.  I mean look at how fresh these are

[lurch91]

Weren't the LA Gear shoes the ones that blew out mid game on players? The team didn't wear them for long.  If LA Gear paid someone for us to wear their shoes, they didn't get their monies worth due to shitty shoes.

[WI inferiority Complexes]

I like Kareem's jersey.

[94Warrior]

I used to shop at this place called the Shoe Box when they had a store in Baraboo... even gave me a discount on some new baseball shoes.

Ahhh.  The Shoe Box. 
The entire Badger Athletic Dept received 'heavily discounted' shoes there.