Jerome Allen Rumors

Jerome Allen: [Stevens said], ‘Your young guys are good.’ And you don’t really be trying to hear that as you’re walking down the line after losing. But I told him that when the season was over for both of us, I was going to come out to Indianapolis, spend some time with him and just talk, because I figure Butler could make it to two Final Fours as a mid-major, Penn could. I just had to figure out what was the secret sauce, whether it was recruiting or something. And so, we spent some time together in the offseason … and talked about job opportunities and what we both said no to. … Three weeks later he takes the Boston job. … So, lo and behold, it’s kind of where our relationship started and everything else kind of took course.

Do you replay what happened over and over with the bribe? Jerome Allen: It’s not the story of my life, but it’s a part of my life. … I tried to pen the story from a real perspective. One of the stories in [the book] is I was a junior in college [at Penn] and we were about to play Harvard one night, and as I’m walking off the floor for pregame shooting, someone comes up to me, asks if my father needs money. And I’m like, ‘What?’ He asked me again, ‘Jerome, does your dad need money?’ I’m asking, ‘What are you talking about?’ And they say, ‘Oh, he’s outside, in front of The Palestra asking people for change as they come into the gym.’ And so, he was so high, that he didn’t realize where he was at. And for me to be on campus at an Ivy League institution inside The Palestra, for him to kind of embarrass me like that was, that judgment I’ve placed on him, I vowed to hate him for the rest of my life.