Miami Hurricanes Football Scandal Linked to Chicago Bears WR Devin Hester

Published: 17^th Aug 11 3:50 am

by Dan Parzych
Director of Content

2 Rants

Miami Hurricanes Football Scandal Linked to Chicago Bears WR Devin Hester

(Jason Miller/US PRESSWIRE)

After an 11-month investigation by Yahoo!, the University of Miami is facing some serious trouble after news broke on Tuesday that former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro provided benefits to 72 student athletes from 2002-10. While numerous former Hurricanes have already been linked, there’s one specific name on the list Chicago Bears fans didn’t want to hear–Devin Hester.

According to Yahoo’s Charles Robinson, Hester received numerous benefits from Shapiro–including rims for his car, tickets to a Miami Heat playoff game against the Detroit Pistons in 2005, and an engagement ring priced between $3,000-$4,000. What’s even more ironic–Hester used the ring to propose to his girlfriend at the Heat playoff game.

The allegations against Ohio State over the last few months seemed pretty bad–but this news about Miami takes this continuing problem to a whole new level. The list seems to go on and on as Robinson goes into specific details for each benefit Hester supposedly received from Shapiro. Considering all of the recent scandals from other universities, it’s obvious Miami isn’t the only school this is happening at. Here are a few quotes from Shapiro courtesy of Robinson:

“Devin Hester was a really introverted kid. Very quiet. [I] saw him sitting outside Larry Coker’s office, where he was unsure if he was ever going to play a down of football at the University of Miami. [I] started off taking him for lunches, meeting him for dinner, coming to my house often. He stayed at my house a few times, but was in my house often. I bought him rims for his [Lincoln] Navigator I believe it was. It was a truck.”

“I was giving Devin cash. Three hundred here, four hundred there, two hundred there, four hundred there. … He was getting serious with an athlete at the University of Miami. Her name was Tamara James. We called her T.J. She played basketball. I bought him an engagement ring, which was a promise ring. I think it was about $3,000. He gave it to her, proposed at the Miami Heat playoff game seven against the Detroit Pistons, sitting up in about the 22nd to 25th row.”

“He was always on my yacht. I mean at least 15, 20 times. He wrecked one of my jet skis. Cost me 8, 9, 10 thousand. I don’t remember exactly.”

Dan Parzych is the Lead NFL Content Editor for www.RantSports.com/NFL, where he writes and edits NFL content for www.RantSports.com.

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