Here’s a warning to whom it may concern, if indeed anybody cares about the sports sewer that exists on many of America’s campuses: The next college basketball game you see might be fixed. Or the next college football game. Could such a scary thought be possible?
“More than that, it’s probable,” says Joe Mangiamele. “And more than one or two games a week. The authorities know, starting right with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They just don’t know what to do about it.”
Joe Mangiamele, 38, of Arlington Heights, is not a voice in the wilderness, and he has a criminal record to prove it. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in the Arizona State point-shaving scandal, and that’s a felony.
“I’m not proud of that,” says Mangiamele, who lost his job as a deputy with the Cook County Sheriff’s Dept. and was sentenced to three months in a halfway house, eight months of home confinement and four years’ probation. He paid a $5,000 fine, but avoided jail. “I was lucky.”
Two former Sun Devils players, Stevin “Hedake” Smith and Isaac Burton Jr., weren’t so fortunate, nor should they have been after they admitted accepting bribes toward fixing four games during the 1993-94 season by making unforced errors. So much for any aspirations of a professional career for either. Both athletes were in debt and needed money.
During the course of being interrogated, Mangiamele says, he was asked whether he could assist the FBI in an ongoing investigation involving Northwestern basketball. He was a logical suspect, being a Chicago guy. Mangiamele said he was clean, and he was. But the authorities were onto something. The Northwestern case exploded soon after.
“That’s when the investigators talked to me about how much of this was going on,” Mangiamele says. “I told them they should wake up and smell the coffee. They would be naive to think Arizona State or Northwestern were isolated incidents. It’s widespread. I believed it then and I believe it now, more than ever. I could write a book about it.
“I don’t know what the answer is, maybe paying these players to play for their schools. These kids are basically hired hands anyway, and their schools are making big money by having them play games. A lot of the kids are poor, or at least scraping around for some cash just to get by on because the NCAA won’t let them do anything. Everything is illegal, if you know what I mean.
“Meanwhile, there are bookies all over college campuses. And all a player needs is a friend who’s a bookie or a friend of a friend. These kids are abusing their bodies and the temptation is everywhere to get something back in return. It sounds terrible, but I’m convinced there will be a lot of college basketball games fixed this winter.”
Mangiamele, who works in the family’s trucking business, is not a sports fan. But he still monitors betting lines. That was his “system” and he says it was a winner. When a point spread fluctuates, he becomes curious.
“I’m not compulsive,” Mangiamele says. “They already sent me to Gamblers Anonymous during the process of the Arizona State thing, and they decided I didn’t fit. But I did notice that the spread on last Sunday’s game with the Bears and New Orleans went from 5 1/2 to 3 1/2. If I were betting, I’d have bet the Saints, and I don’t even know who the New Orleans quarterback is.”
Mangiamele is not suggesting that NFL games are dirty. Players earn too much to be influenced, he surmises. Not so in college, however, and basketball is the easiest sport to fix because one vulnerable player out of five on the court is all a gambler needs.
“If they changed the system tomorrow and you could never bet colleges again, fine,” he says. “I made my share, legally. But I tell you, there’s trouble out there, bigger than you think. And if the colleges and the NCAA deny it, they’re just looking the other way.”
Enjoy the game.
