ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 22, 1993                   TAG: 9304220067
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

DEACONS IMPLICATED FURTHER

A French professional basketball coach, who says he is a friend of Wake Forest coach Dave Odom, says he gave Senegalese recruit Makhtar Ndiaye a Wake Forest T-shirt and urged him to attend the university. Those actions may have violated NCAA recruiting rules.

Wake Forest is conducting an internal investigation into its recruitment of Ndiaye, a 6-foot-9 center out of Oak Hill (Va.) Academy who signed a letter of intent with the Deacons in November.

Olivier Veyrat, who spent 10 days at Wake Forest as a guest of the coaching staff in 1992, told The Charlotte Observer in a telephone interview from France that he gave Ndiaye the T-shirt in Odom's presence last April after Odom watched Ndiaye play in a tournament.

If the NCAA determines that Veyrat was a representative of Wake Forest's athletic interests, the university could be held accountable and penalized.

People considered athletic representatives are not permitted to participate in recruiting and may not provide gifts or benefits to prospects. Veyrat said he never considered himself an agent for Wake.

Veyrat is the second potential representative of athletic interests who may have violated rules in the recruitment of Ndiaye. A key focus of the investigation is on linguist James Nyema-Davies, a Liberian native who says he was retained by Odom in May to interpret and serve as a liaison between the basketball staff and Ndiaye's family.

Veyrat said Odom did not instruct him to give the T-shirt to Ndiaye, who was playing for a Senegalese national team in the Espoies tournament in Mantes, France.

Odom and athletic director Ron Wellman declined comment. An athletic department source said Tuesday that Odom told university officials he did not see Veyrat give the shirt to Ndiaye and did not know about the exchange. 


 by CNB