Rice athletes: Recruits entertained at strip clubs

12:41 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 25, 2004

By Anna Werner / 11 News Defenders

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HOUSTON -- Kevin Ford remembers his recruiting visit to Rice University.

"They showed me a real good time." he says.

Three years ago, Ford was a high school football star and top 100 athlete.

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"I had a lot of schools coming to recruit me," Ford recalls. But he says it was at Rice that his student hosts, college football players, used university money to pull out the stops.

In Ford's words it was "money just to take you out and show you a good time."

Ford says, "They took some of the recruits to strip bars on their official visits."

He says it was one night on the campus when someone brought up going to see strippers. He says the other recruits were "pumped up" by the idea. So he says he and about five other recruits were taken to a north Houston strip bar.

As for how they would get the recruits, who are clearly underage, into the strip clubs? According to Ford, "They would go and talk to the manager and pay them extra."

And once inside, he says recruits were provided with alcohol and strippers.

"It was like they had won a million dollars just because they could go and see a naked woman," Ford said.

And Ford did sign with the Owls where he says he learned that taking young recruits to sex bars was something that happened often. The idea was to impress the recruits so they would want to come play for Rice.

"When you're that young you're easily influenced by the wrong things," Ford said.

He says he eventually left Rice, after being suspended for allegedly cheating on a test.

And then there's a young man we'll call "Mike" who says the same thing happened on his recruiting trip to Rice.

"You're underage, going to a strip club, that's what you dream about," Mike says.

And how did the underage recruits get in what he says was a 21 and over club?

"A lot of players got bouncing jobs at clubs and strip clubs, old players that work there now," He said.

Because the clubs were for those over the legal age, anyone there could drink and Mike says that their Rice hosts would also usually pay for a lap dance for the recruits.

He says those lap dances were paid for "out of the money the coaches gave them, to take us out that night."

Mike too eventually signed with Rice.

"The job of the host" he says, "is to do whatever possible to get the recruit to sign, and y'know, one of the major things that men like is of course alchohol and women."

If it sound like it's almost a tradition, Mike agrees that's basically what it is.

In fact, six former Rice players we spoke to say the same thing: That high school football recruits were regulary taken to Houston strip clubs. How do they know? Because not only did it happen to them, but some say later on, they took recruits to these clubs themselves while acting as student hosts.

Ford, who says he never became a host, sees lack of supervision as the problem.

"They don't really give you any guidelines about what you can do or any time to be back," Ford said. "They just give you the money and they just let you go wild."

We spoke to both Owl's head coach Ken Hatfield and athletic director Bobby May. They declined to go on camera but May said he had no knowledge of his recruits going to strip clubs and says if it did take place, it was inappropriate, and that such an activity would be against Rice University rules.

And Coach Hatfield told us he also had no knowledge of recruits going to strip clubs. But the Coach also says he has not told student hosts not to take recruits to strip clubs, because he didn't think he needed to.

On Friday when 11 News spoke to Hatfield, the coach said that hosts and recruits might have to sign a new form that the univerity would create, letting them know what they cannot do during visitations. Previously no such document or agreement existed, said the coach.

Then this Monday, at a sports conference in Washington D.C., Hatfield announced the form would be implemented for all future recruit visitations.