Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Charles Barkley on paying Auburn recruits: ‘I would do it’ (VIDEO)

Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley is seen before a152-pound title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather Jr., Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Eric Jamison)

AP

Charles Barkley has always been opinionated. So when Seth Davis of Campus Insiders asked him a hypothetical question about paying $100,000 to help his alma mater, Auburn, land a recruit, it’s not surprising he gave an honest answer.

“Sure,” he told Davis. “I would do it if my college asked me for money to help recruit a player.”

It’s worth mentioning (as the first commenter noted) that Barkley admitted to taking cash from agents this past September. He also admitted to accepting money while at Auburn back in 2010 during an interview on the Dan Patrick Show.

Barkley, the Hall of Fame forward and current analyst for TNT’s Inside the NBA, referenced the North Carolina academic scandal in his reasoning.

“The notion that they would get mad at me for giving a kid cash, and North Carolina has been letting kids not go to class for many, many years. They aren’t the only ones. They just got caught. The notion that they would get mad at me for helping recruit a kid instead of really worrying about getting theses kids an education, you think I’m going to respect them?

“You think about that?

“They aren’t putting the hammer down on North Carolina, think about it: what are those kids going to do when they grow up? They are uneducated and we made a lot of money of them. And the notion that helping my school get better is not worse than kids not going class ... they are putting young men, who have played football and basketball, who are not going onto the next level I might add, out into the society uneducated. What do you think is worse?”

To poke a hole in Barkley’s argument, how would he assure the recruit(s) he paid to go to Auburn would receive a proper education? He said it himself, North Carolina isn’t the only culprit, the university’s athletic department just happened to get caught.

Either way, this is probably the last thing Bruce Pearl, who had his show-cause penalty end in late August, wants to hear.

Follow @terrence_payne