LOS ANGELES -- Sam Gilbert, a surrogate father and adviser to UCLA athletes for 15 years, allegedly arranged and paid for abortions for the players' girlfriends and helped athletes get discounts on cars, stereos and airline tickets, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
Gilbert, 69, a multimillionaire Los Angeles contractor, has denied the newspaper's allegations.
Lucius Allen, a former All-America guard who played on the Bruins' basketball team in the late 1960s, told the Times that when he and other players got girls pregnant Gilbert, if asked, would arrange and pay for an abortion.
'It happened all the time,' Allen told the Times. 'If a ball player impregnated someone there was always a hospital available. I never paid for it and it was my case.'
Gilbert, however, said he never paid or arranged for any of the abortions.
'I think the comment on the abortions is outrageous,' Gilbert said Sunday. 'It's dreadful. I think this kind of journalism is the pits. It's rubbish. I don't know what's happening to our society. That's not journalism. There's another name for it.'
The UCLA basketball program was placed on two years probation by the NCAA Dec. 8 after an investigation revealed recruiting violations. Gilbert was also cited by the NCAA for co-signing a promissory note so a UCLA basketball player could buy a car.
The Times said in its Sunday article that it interviewed more than 45 people connected with UCLA basketball, many of them former Bruin players and coaches, and found that many infractions were not uncovered by the NCAA investigation.
Players who led UCLA to seven of its NCAA-record 10 championships - a dominance unmatched in college basketball history -- said Gilbert helped them scalp their season tickets and then helped them get a good deal on cars, stereo equipment and airline tickets.
Under NCAA rules, scalping tickets and helping students get discounts on goodsis a violation.
The newspaper said that Gilbert negotiated professional contracts for players before their college eligibility had expired -- also an NCAA violation.
One condition of the NCAA's sanctions against UCLA was that Gilbert cease recruiting activities for UCLA.
Three players -- Darryl Mitchell of Minnesota, Greg Goorjian of Loyola Marymount and Michael Johnson of Nevada-Las Vegas -- told NCAA investigators that Gilbert offered them cars as an inducement to attend UCLA, the Times said.
Larry Farmer, the current coach of the Bruins, has told his players that they are not to associate with Gilbert.
'As much as that hurt him, it hurt me,' Farmer said.
Over the past 15 years, UCLA players became the favored sons of Gilbert and his wife, Rose, the Times said. On weekends and holidays, many players would go to Gilbert's home where they got good food, free advice and warmth.
Gilbert's relationship with the players was such that they often asked him to negotiate their pro contracts.
He charged Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the center for the Los Angeles Lakers, $1.00 for negotiating his initial pro contract. He later accepted an autograph picture of the star player in place of his fee.
Gilbert said his motive for helping the players -- many of them black and from poor families -- was to provide needed services the university could not provide, the newspaper said.
'People can say what they will,' Allen said. 'As far as I'm concerned, he's still my daddy.'
Larry Hollyfield, a starting forward in the early 1970s, said: 'Mr. Gilbert always had an ear for you. I could bawl and fight and kick the walls and Sam would listen to me.'
When the Times told one former Bruin All-America about Gilbert's activities, he told the newspaper: 'What do you want me to say? That's my school. I don't want to see them take away all those championships.'
