DETROIT (AP) — A booster accused of giving cash payments to Michigan basketball players bought tickets available only to people close to the school more recently than the university admitted in a report to the NCAA, the Detroit Free Press reported on Monday.
The newspaper said Ed Martin bought tickets from the special athletic department pool of tickets as recently as a year ago — two years later than Michigan athletic officials said he had last obtained tickets in a lengthy report last month to the NCAA.
An NCAA investigation into the university’s basketball program began more than a year ago, but so far has revealed only two minor violations involving Martin.
The university said in a report it submitted to the National Collegiate Athletic Association in March that Martin received free tickets or was given a chance to buy tickets reserved by the athletic department 35 times in the 1990s. But the report said Martin had not received that kind of treatment since the 1993-94 season.
A Free Press review of ticket lists used by players and coaches indicated that Martin bought two tickets for a Feb. 18, 1996 game against Indiana.
Such preferential treatment is not against NCAA rules.
The Detroit News reported last week that Martin was on lists to receive free tickets for 30 Michigan games during the past seven seasons. The same games were also attended by prize recruits.
Michigan officials told investigators that Martin never assisted in recruiting players.
Martin remains under scrutiny in the wake of allegations by two anonymous sources, who told the Free Press last month that Martin provided money and other improper benefits to players and may have helped some obtain cars.
Keith Molin, a senior associate athletic director, said he was not in a position to explain why Martin’s ticket purchases for last year’s game were omitted from the report.
But he did confirm the tickets were for seats in the blue section that are rarely, if ever available to the public.
In lists of people who received special access, Martin is identified repeatedly as a “friend of the program.”
Molin said the term is used to describe someone who, as defined by the NCAA, could be considered a potential representative of the university’s athletic interests.
Martin was deemed a friend of the program because he was a season-ticket holder, had a son who attended the school and had been on the department’s complimentary ticket lists for years, Molin said.
Martin’s use of tickets in 1996 will be reviewed by a Kansas law firm previously hired by the university to look into Martin’s activities, a member of the firm told the Free Press.
The newspaper’s review of the school’s complimentary lists also showed that former Michigan standout Chris Webber provided free tickets to his future agent while playing at Michigan.
The review also showed teammate Jalen Rose provided tickets more often than previously reported to three men who were with him in 1992 in a Detroit house raided by police suspecting drug deals.
The Free Press reported on Saturday that the three men with Rose in the raided house received free tickets from the athlete the following year.
But university records also show that Rose’s friends — Garland Royall, Fred Hogan and Damon Holmes — received free Michigan tickets just six weeks after the raid.
Rose and his friends could not be reached on Monday by the newspapers for comment.