Former LAT sports reporter: I took $5K in cash while playing for USC

Interesting confession from Lonnie White today...

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2011/06/lonnie_white_i_took_cash.php

 

Did you pay him in cash?

 

As invisible on the field as he was in print. At best, an eighth fiddle during his stint at the LAT.

 

This is interesting (I think it would probably get more reads and reply posts on the JTO board, BTW).

In my opinion, the little snippet of what he wrote in the letter to SI way back when is more damning than his having taken cash from a booster. Given his confession of his personal experience, those words ring hollow and are/were an outright lie, which potentially brings into question anything he ever wrote, or will write, in his career.

As for why he's coming out with this now, I'd guess it's just to be able to give a first-person account of something. That format is popular with readers, and therefore, effective, on Web sites like the one for which White writes.

But, in this case, at this point, it would have been better not to come out with this. It's a dumb move.