A year and a half ago, while we were all minding our own business, a very special thing happened.
If you’re like me, you had no idea that this special thing was going on. In a few minutes, you will be terribly frustrated that the sports world allowed this special thing to occur right under your nose.
Now to introduce the special thing: a few weeks ago, my journalism professor told me to research a very real man named Bert Eugene Neff. If you are familiar with the name, you are both a very lucky person and someone who I have a lot of questions for.
If you are not yet familiar with him, you are about to be blessed.
It is now my great pleasure to bring to you the story of the most sensationally, magnificently, comically bad gambling heist ever attempted.
To do so, you must first acquaint yourself with Brad Bohannon.
Brad Bohannon was the (quite successful) head coach of the University of Alabama baseball team. Note well that I said “was.”
In the 2023 season, Bohannon, 48 at the time, had pioneered the Crimson Tide to a 30-15 record. After years of bottom-feeding in the Southeastern Conference, Bohannon, in his sixth year, led Alabama back to relevance. With a solid roster and rock-solid reputation as a player-friendly coach, Bohannon was poised to bring Alabama to the promised land: a first-ever national championship.
As you may have ascertained, this story does not have such a fairy-tale ending.
Rather, just like all good stories, we start our tale with a man walking into BetMGM Casinos on an early Friday afternoon.
This man is Neff, who has $100,000 dollars in cash on hand, naturally. He, of course, is in the BetMGM located within the Cincinnati Reds’ ballpark. You can ask our sports editor, Jonah Ring, FCRH ’26, and he can confirm to you that there is no more fitting setting for a story defined by incomprehensibly poor decision-making.
As you envision just how much of a walking red-flag Neff looks like at this moment, allow me to shift my focus 1,000 miles south to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the Alabama Crimson Tide are set to face the Louisiana State University Tigers. In the visitors’ clubhouse sits (or stands, whichever you prefer) Bohannon. He has just learned that his team’s ace, Luke Holman, is unable to start in the evening’s affair due to a back injury.
Since Holman was Alabama’s listed starter, it is now on Bohannon to inform LSU of the late scratch. Before he does, though, he has some other business to tend to.
Picture this: a 48-year-old man with a $500,000-a-year salary and many millions in future career earnings awaiting him, risks it all to text another grown man the following:
“HAMMER! … Holman is out for sure … Lemme know when I can tell LSU… Hurry.”
The recipient is — you guessed it — our dear friend, Neff.
Neff pulls out his phone and sees Bohannon’s message. He reads “HAMMER!” and hammer he most certainly does. He goes up to a window and slaps $100,000 dollars down; he tells the staffers that he wants to put it all on LSU. Suspect, to say the least.
They inform him that the maximum bet is $15,000. Neff, not content with the number, pleads with the staffers. How so, you ask?
I need to pause you here. What you are about to read seems fake. I promise that it is real. I submit as evidence the fact that this man is in prison as we speak. Okay, we can continue now.
Neff tells the staffers that the bet is, and I quote, “for sure going to win… If only you guys knew what I knew.”
Place yourself in the shoes of a BetMGM employee who, on the end of your shift, has just heard a fairly damning proclamation that some type of insider information is at play regarding a massive wager.
You roll your eyes, maybe, but probably don’t do anything about it. After all, you’re not letting him bet on it. You’ve done your part.
No. I pity you. You are so abominably wrong. Get ready to learn Bert Eugene Neff, in all his glory.
You watch fearfully as he reaches into his pocket. He unlocks his phone and opens his messaging app. He shows you text messages from the head coach of the University of Alabama telling him to bet against Alabama due to information he has disclosed to no one but Neff.
A man has just shown you a felony. He has walked into the sheriff’s office and shown you footage of himself committing a mind-boggling offense. He has handcuffed himself.
Neff was arrested and later charged with obstruction of justice, as he attempted to destroy the evidence he plainly presented (under camera surveillance, by the way) to multiple witnesses. Yearning insatiably to act even more dumbfoundingly, he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about it all and was charged for that, too.
He pleaded guilty and what was a maximum 10-year prison sentence turned to eight months with three years of supervised release. I sincerely hope he is doing well.
I know it’s hard to say bye to Neff, but we now must revisit Bohannon.
Bohannon was suspended and eventually resigned after a brief internal investigation into the matter. The NCAA led an investigation against him and found evidence damning enough to slap down on him the longest show-cause penalty in the history of collegiate sports. For 15 years, teams will essentially be heavily impaired and disadvantaged should they choose to employ Bohannon. Historically, no coach gets hired during a showcase — it is essentially a ban. Regardless, given the nature of the situation, it seems unlikely that any program will give Bohannon another chance.
It is unknown whether Bohannon is facing legal trouble for the matter. What is more uncertain and more pressing for us is his motive.
He gave insider information to someone so that they could bet against his own team. Why? To be frank, we have no idea. Did he get a cut? Was he just trying to help a friend? Was he bored?
Well, if he was bored then, he almost certainly is now. Alabama made their first Super Regional berth in 13 years; Bohannon had to watch from the couch instead of the top step of the dugout.
Bohannon was still fairly young and was either in a position to continue to lead Alabama toward national glory or to leave for a lucrative position in Major League Baseball.
Instead, he told a truly fascinating man named Bert Eugene Neff to “HAMMER!” and now his career and name are forever tarnished.
Now, since this is “Overtime,” we must end by suggesting some sort of moral lesson to be gleaned from the matter. Let this be the wake-up call to readers that it hasn’t been to the NCAA and other organizations who continue to allow the broadening commercialization and glorification of gambling in their sports. In doing so, they may profit financially. However, a close inspection of what goes on inside so many locker rooms would surely yield one harrowing thing: the integrity of sports has never been more jeopardized than it is today.
Without firm advocacy and action, Neff and Bohannon may look less like laughing-stocks and more like two of a great many who are taking advantage of a system ripe for the picking. Let their actions remind us of the sanctity and fragility of sports in the gambling era.
