A Tennessee Coach Told The NCAA He Withdrew Large Amounts Of Cash When Recruits Visited Campus Because He Still Shared A Bank Account With His Parents And Didn't Want Them To See That He Was Hitting The Bars
Knox News — Former Tennessee football assistant coach Brian Niedermeyer paid recruits and players from large ATM cash withdrawals and money stashed in his desk drawer, investigators found.
Niedermeyer, the prized recruiter of Jeremy Pruitt’s coaching staff, made large withdrawals surrounding the dates of impermissible recruiting visits. And a former UT player told investigators that Niedermeyer gave him permission to take cash from the desk in his office.
The player didn’t know the source of the money.
But the 31-year-old Niedermeyer said he used that money to live the “high-life of a single coach” while avoiding the disapproval of his father because, despite earning $355,000 per year as a college football assistant coach, he was still on his parents’ banking account.
Investigators found Niedermeyer routinely made large cash withdrawals from ATMs right before and during recruiting visits in the COVID recruiting dead period of 2020.
From July 22-24, Niedermeyer withdrew $1,700. On Aug. 14, he withdrew $1400. From Aug. 18-21, he withdrew $4,000. During the week of Sept. 25-30, he withdrew $2,800. On Nov. 13, he withdrew $800.
Those withdrawals aligned with impermissible recruiting visits and the testimony of players and recruiting staff, who said Niedermeyer funded some expenses.
During another recruiting weekend on Oct. 6-8, Niedermeyer withdrew $4,000. He told investigators that he gave money to his girlfriend for shopping and winery visits during a trip to Georgia for UT’s game against the Bulldogs.
"My girlfriend spends a lot, a lotta money," Niedermeyer told investigators. "My parents don't really like her. It's an issue. She has expensive tastes in different things. I try and keep that off my bank records.
"I mean I always carry a lotta cash and deal with that stuff in terms of goin' to the bars and other places that, you know, I'd rather not talk about that serve alcohol."
Tennessee's three-year saga with the NCAA finally came to an end on Friday when the Vols' punishments for violations under former football coach Jeremy Pruitt — probation, a few scholarship reductions and some limits on recruiting visits — were announced. Everybody on Pruitt's staff was seemingly being about as brazen as anyone could be when it came to the illegal recruiting activities that were going on, but nobody more so than defensive assistant Brian Niedermeyer.
While I'm dumbfounded at how UT somehow got coaches who had worked under Nick Saban and still found a way to be the worst cheaters possible, you have to respect Niedermeyer's commitment to the bit. He was doling out thousand-dollar handshakes to recruits and had the balls to look an NCAA official in the eye and say it was because he still shared a bank account with his parents and he didn't want them to see that he was hitting the town and letting his girlfriend use him as an ATM. I think I'd rather just let the NCAA do whatever they're gonna do anyway than say that, but I guess it was worth a Hail Mary to save his career. Shockingly, it did not work.
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The incompetence of this whole scheme was as staggering as it is hilarious. The chief bag man was making withdrawals that lined up perfectly with every date there was an illicit visit happening. I will thank Josh Heupel and Hendon Hooker profusely until the day I die, because this football program probably should have taken a permanent knockout punch following all this nonsense — not from the NCAA, it's just insane to be where Tennessee is right now after this clown show being the finale to nearly two decades of ineptitude.
I hope Niedermeyer gets that bank account situation sorted out soon, though.