ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHESTNUT HILL, MASS.
SOURCE: N.Y. Times News Service
Four Boston College football players linked to a university gambling investigation were told Monday that there was no evidence to suggest their involvement, according to a lawyer representing them.
The four players - Kiernan Speight, Jermaine Monk, Jamall Anderson and Brandon King, all sophomores - met early Monday afternoon with Chet Gladchuk, the school's athletic director, according to Bill Keefe, a Boston-based attorney representing the players in their dealings with the Boston College administration.
``He stated unequivocally that there was no evidence against these kids,'' Keefe, who attended the meeting, said of Gladchuk, ``that they are not going to take any action with respect to suspending them or throwing them off the team, or affecting their student-athlete status. They are expected and encouraged to come back and play.''
Keefe, reached at his office Monday evening, said the players had been implicated only because reporters became aware of a contentious meeting they had with the team's captains last Saturday. Gladchuk declined a request to discuss the meeting or the school's investigation, referring all questions to the office of public affairs.
Dan Henning, the football coach, listed Speight, who has a shoulder injury, as one of five players whose status for the game against Notre Dame on Saturday was uncertain. Keefe said he was unaware that Speight was injured.
The university is working with the Middlesex County district attorney's office and has established an internal review committee to investigate the allegations. Both Gladchuk and Henning emphasized over the weekend there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, but that the investigations were necessary to clear the program's reputation. They have not commented on how the investigations will proceed.
In a contentious news conference held before a closed practice Monday, Henning said that Steve Everson, a receiver who was suspended indefinitely for refusing to go into the game at Pittsburgh last Thursday, was the only healthy player who would not prepare for the game.
After three days of intense speculation that some of his players may have been involved in point-shaving, Henning was asked Monday whether he did not have total confidence in any of them.
``I have everybody that's going to be out on that practice field,'' the coach said, ``and I just told you who they are, and everybody on the team right now, with the exception of Steve Everson who was dismissed, is playing and practicing to play this game.''
Asked if it was safe to assume that players would have been suspended if he had any evidence of gambling, Henning said, ``That's correct.''
Henning said this past weekend that he first heard the gambling allegations the weekend before, that he confronted his team about them and that he was assured they were not true. But speculation was revived after an upset loss to Pittsburgh.
Henning would not discuss Monday what was said in the meetings last Saturday, and said he was not aware of the questions players had been asked in the course of the investigation.
``It's in the hands of the investigative forces of this university and the people that they have asked for assistance,'' Henning said. ``My concern is for the coaching staff and for the players, those players that are having to go through a great deal that are innocent of anything. I hope that's everybody.
``If and when that time comes when they find anybody that has any measure of wrongdoing,'' Henning continued, ``it will be sanctioned by whatever power I have, whatever power the university has, whatever power the NCAA has. We want it to be thorough. We want it to be complete. And we want it to be through.''
Henning was asked whether he was concerned that this would linger for the rest of the season.
``I'm concerned that it's here, period,'' he said.
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