Commentary: Octagon's Hiring of Player's Mother Sleazy

Commentary: Octagon's Hiring of Player's Mother

Another example of sleaziness in the agency business

As the North Carolina Secretary of State's Office continues its probe into the circumstances surrounding Octagon's hiring of the mother of Celtics first round pick, Joseph Forte, some questions have been answered in light of interesting new developments.

It is now being reported that Wanda Hightower's employment was terminated by Octagon, just five days prior to her son being selected in the 1st round of the NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. It was disclosed that she had been employed by the firm just over one year. That Hightower was terminated by the sports marketing giant is not all that was revealed, however. It is now well known that her son chose Octagon to represent him.

As it turns out, Hightower has been convicted for writing bad checks and was arrested twice just last year, for failing to return rental vehicles for long periods of time. She is under two years of supervised probation in the state of Virginia. Additionally , she has filed for bankruptcy three times since 1997.

Curiously, executives from Octagon claimed to have no prior knowledge of Hightower's criminal record or her filings for bankruptcy.

Maybe they didn't want to know. Maybe all they were interested in was securing her son as a client, once it became apparent he was destined to soon enter the NBA draft out of college early, as a prime draft selection. It sounds something like an act-first, think-later mentality, not to mention, poor ethical standards for doing business. You've got to wonder how in the world a firm such as Octagon ever could have hired a woman with such a background. Unless of course, it's because of their desire to retain her son as a client.

No one is likely to ever admit to this, but the Secretary of State's Office is investigating for more than routine reasons. It doesn't take a genius to realize the circumstances of this particular case warranted investigation, and that was long before the latest revelations concerning Hightower's record.

Certainly it has to be assumed that these revelations are why she was terminated by the company. Yet, amazingly enough, they did hire her in the first place. And, in the accounting dept. of all places. Will we ever find out if Hightower was hired as part of an agreement with Joseph Forte, who in turn would choose Octagon as his representative?

Probably not. Regardless of the ultimate findings, a large degree of suspicion will no doubt remain especially after these recent disclosures. A spokesman for the Secretary's Office, has said that just one full-time investigator is working on the probe, with the assistance of attorneys within the office.

Just one full-time investigator? It has to make you wonder, if even they, are giving full effort in order to find the truth.

Anyone naive enough to assume such investigations are automatically conducted with complete efficiency, needs a very strong dose of reality. It's incredible beyond belief that U.N.C. officials supposedly investigated the case and actually came to the conclusion that Hightower was qualified for the job.

That is astonishing. It tends to lead a person to believe those officials are more than willing to bury their heads in the sand. Or, maybe they are just horrible investigators.

It's no wonder that the sports representation business has the reputation that it does. Is anyone ever going to take steps that seem rather necessary in order to clean up the business?

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David Burkey
E-mail : daveywriter@hotmail.com