Hot Tickets: Crimes, Championships and Big Time Sports at the University of Kansas

by H. George Frederickson

Overview

In 2010, University of Kansas officials were shocked to learn that the FBI and IRS were on campus investigating Rodney Jones, former head of the Athletics Ticket Office, for stealing Jayhawks basketball tickets and selling them to brokers. Investigators found that for more than five years Jones and a small ring of university officials had conspired to loot the university of $2 million in tickets, reselling them for $3-5 million. In what was perhaps the biggest scandal in college sports history, all seven members of the "Kansas Ticket Gang" pleaded guilty to RICO Act indictments. Five went to prison--two were given probation for turning state's evidence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476677873
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	11/06/2019
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

The late H. George Frederickson was the Edwin O. Stone distinguished professor of public administration at the University of Kansas, president emeritus of Eastern Washington University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. He lived in Lawrence, Kansas.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: The Kansas Ticket Gang
 1. Rodney Gets a Job
 2. Lawrence, the University of Kansas and Basketball
 3. Basketball
 4. Changing Athletics Directors, Coaches and Conferences
 5. Tickets: A Brief Biography
 6. Charlette Coble and the University of Oklahoma
 7. Rodney “Tickets” Jones: Ticket Whisperer of Mass Street
 8. Junction City
 9. Money and the AD Shuffle
10. Charlette: When Home Becomes Work and Work Becomes Home
11. Perkins
12. Charlette Comes to Town
13. It Worked!
14. Complimentary Tickets and Ticket Ownership
15. The Ticket Gang Scales Up
16. The Greatest Year in the History of KU Athletics
17. Big Trouble Visits Big D
18. Coming Apart
19. Everybody Knows
20. Cooperation
21. Adieu, Lew, Adieu
22. Indictment: A True Bill
23. Here Comes the Judge for the Family Blubaugh
24. Here Comes the Judge for Rodney “Tickets” Jones
25. Judgment for Kassie Liebsch and Ben Kirtland III
26. Reciprocity at Home: Tickets for Tickets
27. The Oklahoma Connection and Poor Accounting
28. Summing Up: The Box Score and the Original Rules
Epilogue
Appendix A: Code of Ethical Conduct, Kansas Athletics, Inc.
Appendix B: Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Frederickson provides a highly detailed account of the systematic theft of basketball tickets that occurred at the University of Kansas over a span of 16 years. The book is so meticulously researched that at points the backstory and ancillary facts almost obscure the thrilling story of hubris, deceit, and corruption, motivated by greed but also by thirst for power and reputation. ... Frederickson leaves no subject unexplained, from the story of the ticket scandal itself to the history of Lawrence, Kansas. ... the story is told with so much passion that the book is hard to put down. ...recommended”—Choice

From the Publisher