Former NFL agent Josh Luchs decertified after admitting to paying college players

Josh Luchs, whose explosive tell-all article “Confessions of an agent” was published on SportsIllustrated.com on Oct. 12, was recently decertified by the NFL Players Association after admitting to paying more than 30 college players before their NCAA eligibility had ended.

Luchs’ career in the NFL spanned more than 20 years, and during that time, he went from a ball boy with the Oakland Raiders to a powerful agent in Gary Wichard’s Pro Tect Management firm.

From the very beginning, Luchs had a bit of a different route than your typical college-educated agent. Indeed, in his summers working for the Raiders, he quickly became the “little mascot” of Greg Townsend, the Raiders’ star defensive end. He helped Townsend sneak beer and girls up to his room, and even went so far as to give Townsend a urine sample that he could use during the NFL’s random drug screens.

Townsend soon thereafter asked a 19-year-old Luchs to become his agent, and that is when life rapidly changed for Luchs. “I was still living with my parents. I didn’t know anything about contracts and negotiating. But it didn’t matter. I was officially an agent,” he wrote.

Luchs soon found that recruiting college players was much tougher than he had originally anticipated. He paid a few different collegiate players in 1990, his first year. The first collegiate player he allegedly paid was University of Colorado linebacker Kanavis McGhee, who firmly denied the allegations in a radio interview with former CU teammate and roommate Alfred Williams.

Luchs later went on to say he also paid former Buffaloes Greg Thomas and Joel Steed during the 1990s. Steed denied the allegation to Sports Illustrated, and former CU coach Bill McCartney and former quarterback Darian Hagan both denied knowledge that players were being paid.

Luchs then partnered with Harold Daniels, an agent known in NFL circles as Doc. He explained to Luchs that if he was going to continue to pay players, he would have to give them smaller amounts, month by month, to ensure that the athlete continued his relationship with him, a problem that he had during his first year.

From that point, Luchs’ career took off. He recruited well up and down the West Coast, and would later catch the attention of Wichard, a highly regarded NFL agent, who brought him in to Pro Tect and ended his habit of paying players. Wichard allegedly used a connection to ESPN college football and NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper to secure Luchs. But, after another young agent burned his mentor and took a good chunk of clients on his way out, Luchs and Wichard’s relationship began to dissolve, and eventually Luchs moved on to a California-based talent agency, where he would compete directly against Wichard, with the lure of Hollywood to sell potential clients.

After a short while, Luchs eventually received a check from a former client when he was still at Pro Tect. Not knowing what to do with the check, Luchs gave it to his lawyer to put in a trust account. After suing Wichard for not continuing to pay the commission that he was owed retroactively, Luchs lost his lawsuit, and Wichard filed a grievance over the check Luchs gave to his lawyer. The NFLPA found Luchs in breach of his fiduciary duty to the player, then suspended him for a year and fined him $250,000. This would effectively end Luchs’ run as an NFL agent.

Luchs justified his actions by pointing out that these college athletes were making the universities they played for lots of money, while not being able to afford simple things like groceries and clothes. “I’m not sorry that I helped people,” he said. “I don’t regret giving these guys money.”

This is the second in a series of athlete’s and their investments. In these posts, we’ll explore investment managers that preyed on professional athletes, athletes that have done it the right way, athletes that have done it the wrong way, and sports agents that may not have their clients’ best interests in mind.

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