As public awareness heightens around the illegal tactics employed by some colleges and universities to recruit student athletes, a May report from The Undefeated suggests that the majority of the fall guys in these investigations happen to be Black men.

While the individuals in executive positions appear to be the ones who accepted payment from apparel companies and agents to bring top talent to their universities, in the end, assistant coaches were arrested and charged as a result.

In September 2017, the FBI arrested 10 people on charges of fraud and bribery, according. Out of those 10 individuals detained, four held positions as assistant NCAA basketball coaches. Coincidentally, these coaches — Chuck Person (Auburn), Lamont Evans (South Carolina, Oklahoma State), Emanuel Richardson (Arizona) and Anthony Bland (USC) — are all Black. The Undefeated reports all four accepted guilty pleas for the bribery accusations.

Two employees at sportswear giant Adidas and a runner for an NBA agent were also detained and eventually plead guilty for their actions. They faced charges of pay-for-play actions by enticing athletes to enroll in Adidas-affiliated schools. Those three men were sentenced between six to nine months behind bars in October 2018.

In May 2019, a second trial took place involving these same men, James Gatto (Adidas exec), Merl Code (Adidas consultant) and Christian Dawkins (former NBA runner). Dawkins and Code, who also happen to be Black men, were found guilty a second time for bribery. Their sentencing will be revealed at a later date. 

"We were definitely paying players, yes," Dawkins testified in May. "The idea that it's an amateur world is not real."

It's important to note that while Dawkins and Code have endured a considerable amount of responsibility in this ordeal, two head basketball coaches identified in the lawsuit have avoided punishment even after it was revealed they were aware of the scheming being done. Sean Miller and Will Wade, head coaches at Arizona and LSU, respectively, didn't even have to testify in court. For context, Miller and Wade are both white men.

In cases like these, we can acknowledge that what Dawkins and Code did was undoubtedly unethical. However, these are just a couple of many cases in which Black men are made examples in the criminal justice system. The Undefeated credited a December 2018 demographics report from the NCAA which reveals that nearly 55% of athletes spread across the Power 5 conferences (plus the Big East) in NCAAB are Black men. White head coaches make up 76% of the demographics while 56% of assistant coaches in the association are Black men.

In an industry mostly fueled by the success of Black players that, in turn, generate millions of revenue for these Division 1 institutions, it becomes somewhat ironic that men of color immediately become scapegoats when a revelation as serious as paying players to attend certain colleges attracts media attention. 

"We know well that Black men do not fare well in the criminal justice system, in any context," Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said to The Undefeated. 

Case in point, the pressure placed upon Black assistants to bring in top talent must be alleviated. Given the disparities in just this example alone, head coaches must also accept responsibility for allowing these actions to occur in their program, whether they were made aware of the illegal behavior or not.