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Was John Blake Involved In Marvin Austin’s Agent Selection Process?

Marvin Austin was front and center in the 2010 UNC Football Scandal.  He is now at the head of the Maximum Sports Management 2010 Draft Class.  The company is currently celebrating having 6 players selected to the 2010 Pro Bowl (Jairus Byrd, Steven Jackson, Larry Fitzgerald, Jason peters, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, and Adrian Wilson), but  be sure that Roosevelt Barnes, Jr. is also quite happy about the Marvin Austin signing.  Even though Austin sat out all of the 2010 season, NFL Draft Scout lists him as the 3rd best Defensive Tackle in the country and projects Austin as a 2nd round pick.  If he impresses scouts at his Pro Day and/or the NFL Combine, expect him to jump back to a 1st round rating.

At least one person thinks that John Blake (former UNC assistant football coach) could have had something to do with Austin’s selection of Barnes and Maximum Sports.  We already know about the connection between Blake and Gary Wichard, but what about a potential tie between Blake and Maximum Sports?  Here is a Tweet from September 22, 2010, made by ESPN’s Bruce Feldman:

I assume that J-Clowney is Jadeveon Clowney, a 5-star Defensive End from South Carolina.  That guy Suh, Ndamukong Suh, is a Maximum Sports client.  Did Blake ever make that recruiting pitch?  Did he influence Suh’s decision to sign with Maximum Sports?  What else could he have been referring to when he stated, “I got him right?”  How could he possibly be taking credit for Suh’s success at Nebraska?

My thought is that it has nothing to do with a pitch to deliver Suh to Maximum Sports.  Blake was probably recruiting Suh to Nebraska while Suh was still at Grant High School in Portland, Oregon.  Prior to becoming a coach at UNC, Blake was the D-Line coach at the University of Nebraska from 2004-2006.  But I do see why that recruiting pitch makes certain people wonder what Blake was trying to sell.

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

One reply on “Was John Blake Involved In Marvin Austin’s Agent Selection Process?”

@Darren – The part that’s missing is the calls that John Blake made TO Suh while still coaching at UNC that have come out as part of the media investigation into this NCAA mess. He immediately called Wichard after some of those calls to Suh, but who else was he calling? When the media was investigating, Wichard was the only name they were looking for. Who else was Blake trying to hook Suh up with?

Agreed that the quote above may have to do with recruitment, but we know that Blake was also calling Suh after he had left for NC trying to push him towards at least one agent.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/06/1742187/blake-contacted-suh-during-unc.html

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