Race and the N.C.A.A. - NYTimes.com: ...The central character in this drama, aside from Muhammad himself, is Benjamin Lincoln, a white, middle-aged financial adviser based in Charlotte, N.C. In 2007, when Muhammad was in seventh grade, Lincoln met Ron Holmes, Muhammad’s father, at a wedding. Over time, the two men became close.
Holmes is in the Las Vegas real estate business, and things got a little rough after the housing bubble burst. So when, as a top recruit, Muhammad wanted to visit Duke and the University of North Carolina — visits his family would have to pay for — Lincoln told Holmes he would pick up the tab. Under the N.C.A.A.’s byzantine amateurism rule, close family friends are allowed to pay for such visits, but agents, boosters and hangers-on are not. It almost goes without saying that the N.C.A.A. gets to decide who is a close family friend and who is a booster.
