UCLA Basketball Scandal: Quick Notes on Sports Illustrated's George Dohrmann

George Dohrmann is apparently set to publish was appears to be a scathing piece about Ben Howland's program. Many of you recall the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from his work concerning the Minnesota basketball and Ohio St. football investigations. He has been labelled the "Coach Killer" and clearly has a nose for scandal. As it turns out, Dohrmann also has quite the history with UCLA.

After the jump, we'll discuss some of the previous articles written by Dohrmann.

Dohrmann's first encounter with UCLA came during one of his early assignments at Sports Illustrated as a reporter for the LA Times. Dohrmann received a tip that Baron Davis was driving a suspicious vehicle, and he broke the Harrick auto story.

In 2010, he reported Josh Luchs' confession of playing players, including some allegations of improper benefits to UCLA football players in the mid-1990's. The topic was discussed here, especially regarding ESPN's follow-up on the subject. Luchs' story was how he went around the schools to get to the players, and was more of a condemnation of the system than of any particular school.

Also in 2010, in his book, "Play Their Hearts Out", Dohrmann accused Ben Howland of a recruiting violation in relation to the recruitment of current Oregon St. So. Roberto Nelson. At the time, the allegation was essentially dismissed due to the fact that the source had a serious credibility problem. The allegation was that Coach Howland called the recruit twice in a month which only one call was allowed, and it probably got more press than it deserved.

While we don't know what Dohrmann's new piece consists of, we do suspect it has something to do with players who have left the program. Dohrmann wrote a piece about Chace Stanbeck and Mike Moser for Sports Illustrated last December, which could have easily been based on information he gathered during an investigation into the UCLA program.

What does this all mean? Well, it does appear that Dohrmann has failed in repeated efforts to nail UCLA in the past. The Davis story, while eventually leading to Harrick's dismissal, did not result in any institutional penalties. The Luchs story did not gain any traction, and the Nelson story backfired due to the fact that he source ended up in prison. That said, those stories have NOTHING to do with the current allegations, and a journalist with an ax to grind can be dangerous.