In professional sports, solid ethics is almost as important as physical prowess, since cheaters pay a very high price, often being forced out of the sport they love. Corrupt athletes are reviled in pro sports, and even hints and allegations that a player is less than honorable can tank a career. Over the years, famous and successful athletes at the top of their respective sports have demonstrated a not-so-great grasp of ethics, sportsmanship, and the law, whether it's fraud, doping, money laundering, illegal gambling, or even working with the mob. There are some of the most corrupt athletes in history.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Did the Chicago White Sox throw a World Series title after getting paid off by gangsters?
00:05How did a beloved NFL player become the subject of one of the most famous murder trials in
00:09history? These are the most corrupt athletes of all time.
00:13Lenny Dykstra was an unlikely superstar. He was gritty and a hard worker, but when he
00:17came up with the New York Mets in the 1980s, no one pegged him as a future all-star. Then
00:22he bulked up, got traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, and became that team's driving force
00:26on their way to the 1993 World Series. At the height of his career, he was making more
00:31than $6 million per year.
00:33After retiring, Dykstra sought to reinvent himself as a businessman. He invested in a
00:37chain of car washes, which he sold for millions. Then he became something of a stock-picking
00:42guru and was hired to be the columnist for TheStreet.com. That inspired him to launch
00:46The Players Club, a magazine and brokerage company focused on helping professional athletes
00:51invest their money and plan for retirement. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly.
00:55But it was all a front for an increasingly corrupt life, fueled by a drug habit that
01:00began when he was still playing. The Players Club was a complete mess. After the debut
01:05issue came out, the company was drowning in debt. Dykstra reportedly started using his
01:09employees' credit cards to cover his costs, and things got worse from there.
01:14By 2020, Dykstra had been convicted of grand theft auto, financial fraud, and indecent
01:19exposure, to name just a few of his crimes.
01:22In 2000, track and field star Marion Jones was celebrated as one of the greatest athletes
01:27in Olympic history. She'd just won three golds and two bronze medals in Sydney, Australia.
01:32There were rumors that she was using illegal performance-enhancing drugs, but there was
01:35no compelling evidence. Jones eventually took a break from competing to have a baby, and
01:40she wasn't quite at the same level when she returned.
01:43In 2004, she was accused of using drugs by Victor Conti, the head of the Bay Area Laboratory
01:47Cooperative, which had supplied professional athletes with various steroid products. Jones
01:52sued and issued fierce denials. But everything fell apart in 2007, when Jones admitted that
01:58she'd been doping for years and had lied about her involvement in a money-laundering scheme.
02:02She was sentenced to six months in prison and was reportedly basically broke, despite
02:07once being a millionaire with lucrative endorsement deals.
02:10"...Mom made a poor choice. She went to prison because of the poor choice. But then after
02:15that, she didn't give up."
02:17Lance Armstrong used to be almost universally beloved. A champion cyclist in his teens,
02:22and early 20s, he was diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer at the age of 25. He then
02:27successfully battled the disease, founding the Livestrong Foundation, and won seven consecutive
02:32Tour de Frances. But nowadays, Armstrong is better known as the ringleader of a sophisticated
02:38cheating scheme. In 2013, he finally admitted that he'd used a variety of performance-enhancing
02:43drugs during his career. He was stripped of his Tour de France titles and banned from
02:47competition.
02:48His elaborate cheating had involved setting up doping labs in hotel rooms and bribing
02:52doctors and officials in order to escape detection. Armstrong also had to face a lawsuit filed
02:57against him by the U.S. Justice Department for unjust enrichment. He ultimately settled
03:02that suit for $6.65 million, a fraction of the fortune he'd built by cheating and a small
03:07amount of the $32.3 million paid to him over the years by the U.S. Postal Service, which
03:12had sponsored his Tour de France teams.
03:15In all seven of your Tour de France victories, did you ever take banned substances or blood
03:22dope?
03:23Yes.
03:24By pretty much any standard, Pete Rose was one of the best players in baseball history.
03:28The all-time leader in hits, he should have been remembered as a Hall of Famer. Instead,
03:33he's largely known as the guy so corrupt that he placed bets on his own team. It was an
03:37open secret that Rose had a gambling problem as early as the 1970s, but since he restricted
03:42his bets to horse racing and other sports, it was considered a personal issue that had
03:46no effect on his playing or managing career. That all changed in 1989, when he was managing
03:51the Cincinnati Reds. He was accused of not just betting on baseball, but also betting
03:56on his own team. As a result, he was banned for life from the game, and is thus ineligible
04:00for the Hall of Fame induction.
04:02Rose claimed he'd never bet on baseball while he was playing, but a notebook kept by one
04:06of his associates shows that he did so, including on his own team's games. He always maintained
04:12that he only bet on his own team to win, thereby implying that there would be no reason for
04:16him to throw a game. But even if that's true, that wouldn't change his corrupt reputation
04:21all that much.
04:22Pete, you're not supposed to be in the hall.
04:25Even at home?
04:26Denny McClain was the last Major League pitcher to win 30 games in a season, and he won back-to-back
04:31Cy Young awards in 1968 and 1969. But just a year later, his life turned upside down.
04:37In 1970, it was revealed that he was involved with a bookmaking scheme run by the Syrian
04:42mob, and he was temporarily suspended from baseball despite denying most of the charges.
04:47Without his playing income, he declared bankruptcy, and when he returned to the game, he simply
04:52wasn't the same. He lost 22 games in 1971 and was out for good by 1972.
04:58It's been a long criminal run for McClain since then. He hustled golf for a while and
05:03then began a loan-sharking business, and even smuggled the wanted criminal out of the country
05:07in his airplane for $160,000. In 1985, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for racketeering,
05:14conspiracy, extortion, and attempting to sell three kilograms of cocaine. He was released
05:19after 27 months, but then in 1996, he was convicted of money laundering, conspiracy,
05:25theft, and mail fraud in a pension fraud scheme. At this point, it's easier to list
05:30the crimes that Denny McClain hasn't committed.
05:33After a decent college football career, Ray Carruth was drafted by the Carolina Panthers
05:37in the first round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He then signed a $3.7 million contract with
05:43a $1.3 million signing bonus. He got injured the next year, but by 1999, he was angling
05:48for a comeback. But there was trouble brewing in his personal life. He was worried about
05:53the child support he owed to Sharika Adams, a woman he'd gotten pregnant, so he decided
05:57to have her killed. He was already paying $5,500 per month to the mother of his first
06:02child and wasn't keen on the responsibility. His plan to avoid paying out more was to hire
06:07a man named Van Brent Watkins to kill Sharika before she gave birth. Carruth also directly
06:12participated in the murder himself. He and Adams went out to the movies, but he insisted
06:16on taking separate cars. While driving home, he suddenly stopped in the road, forcing Adams
06:21to stop behind him. Watkins pulled up alongside and shot her. Sharika died, but her unborn
06:26son, Chancellor, survived. Carruth attempted to flee to California, but he was arrested
06:31and ultimately convicted. He was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years and 11 months in
06:36prison. He was released in October 2018.
06:40Any list of the most corrupt athletes of all time has to include O.J. Simpson. He was once
06:45beloved by the American people for his incredible athletic talent that led to business opportunities
06:49and even an acting career. But then, in 1994, he had a very bad year. His estranged wife,
06:55Nicole Brown Simpson, and her acquaintance Ron Goldman, were murdered. Simpson then led
06:59police on an infamous car chase, but he was ultimately acquitted after a sensational trial
07:04that was widely covered by the media. Goldman's family was outraged, and they brought a civil
07:09wrongful death suit against Simpson.
07:11In 1997, a jury found Simpson liable for the deaths of his wife and Goldman, ordering him
07:16to pay the Goldman family $33.5 million. Simpson's image then got even worse, as he
07:22tried to evade consequences. He even attempted to publish a book describing how he would
07:26have committed the murders if he'd actually done it, but the Goldmans were awarded the
07:30rights to the book.
07:32Simpson also began working hard to hide his assets, and in 2007, he hatched a scheme to
07:36steal back some memorabilia by way of armed robbery. This didn't work out so well, as
07:41he was ultimately sentenced to 33 years in prison for the robbery. He served nine and
07:45was released on parole in 2017.
07:47I've been in nowhere, USA, for the last nine years doing nothing.
07:53Corruption in American athletics is at least 100 years old, as demonstrated by the example
07:58of the Black Sox. As portrayed in the film, Eight Men Out, eight members of the Chicago
08:03White Sox agreed to throw the 1919 World Series in exchange for a total payout of about $100,000,
08:09which is about $1.5 million when adjusted for inflation.
08:13First baseman C. Arnold Chick Gandal met with gambler and gangster Joseph Sullivan, and
08:17then Gandal conveyed the scheme to seven of his teammates. One of them, Buck Weaver, was
08:21largely innocent. Although involved in the very early stages, he pulled out, though he
08:26was ultimately accused and punished with arrest. Outfielder shoeless Joe Jackson, meanwhile,
08:31always insisted that he played his best, although he did accept about $5,000 from the gamblers.
08:37The players weren't convicted of anything, in part because key evidence mysteriously
08:41disappeared. But baseball had recently installed a commissioner, Kennesaw Mountain Landis,
08:45who was determined to preserve the sport's reputation. He banned all eight members of
08:49the White Sox for life, and they've been remembered by history by their Black Sox nickname.
08:54No player who throws a ball game will ever play professional baseball again.
09:02Gambling addiction took everything away from Art Schliester, a once-promising football
09:07the fourth overall pick by the Baltimore Colts in the 1982 NFL draft, he couldn't resist
09:12the thrill of illegal gambling. He received a $350,000 signing bonus from the Colts, along
09:18with a low-interest loan of $125,000 from the team's owner. By the end of that year,
09:23he owed all that and more to his bookies.
09:25In 1983, Schliester was suspended from the NFL due to his gambling. He was worried that
09:30he would be asked to throw games, so he called the FBI and confessed. The act of contrition
09:35gave him another chance in the NFL, but by 1987, he was out of the sports and arrested
09:40for illegal betting. Still, he almost managed to get back on straight and narrow. He signed
09:44with the Arena Football League and was even named the league's MVP in 1990. But he never
09:49stopped gambling, and he's been in and out of jail for various crimes, like writing bad
09:53checks, forgery, and fraud ever since.
09:56In 2011, Schliester was arrested for a scheme in which he took money in exchange for hard-to-get
10:01tickets to events like the Super Bowl. But he simply kept the money and never actually
10:05had any tickets to sell. That resulted in an 11-year prison sentence.
10:10South African cricketer Hansi Kroonje never met a match he couldn't be paid to throw,
10:15and it may just have gotten him killed. Kroonje was a hero to his fellow South Africans and
10:20the captain of the national cricket team in the 1990s. He was first approached by gamblers
10:24about throwing a match in 1995, though he initially refused. But just a year later,
10:29he accepted $30,000 to persuade his teammates to throw the match. Except that he didn't
10:34actually convey the offer to his teammates. Instead, he kept all the money to himself.
10:39You might well conclude that Kroonje loved money even more than he loved cricket. He
10:43reportedly had no fewer than 72 bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. He admitted to accepting
10:48at least $130,000 from gamblers to throw matches between 1996 and 2000. But it's widely suspected
10:55that he may very well have accepted a lot more money, thrown a lot more matches, and
10:59convinced many more players to cheat. Some even suspect that his 2002 death in a plane
11:04crash wasn't an accident but a targeted killing to make sure that the secrets he knew about
11:08corruption in the sport remain unspoken.