In this Oct. 10, 2017, file photo, former University of Arizona assistant men's basketball coach Emanuel Richardson leaves Manhattan federal court in New York. (AP)

NEW YORK — In 2017, Emanuel “Book” Richardson was having a conversation with his friend, Christian Dawkins, where Dawkins basically called Richardson an idiot.

Richardson was making nearly $250,000 a year as an assistant coach for the University of Arizona basketball team, yet he was still essentially broke. As Dawkins, a budding basketball middleman, noted, it wasn’t because Richardson partied or was having an affair or even bought expensive clothes. He was, per Dawkins, an “off-the-rack guy.”

“I was offended by that,” Richardson said jokingly of the fashion put down. The quote came from an FBI-recorded conversation that was played Monday during the federal basketball bribery trial of Dawkins and co-defendant Merl Code.

On the recording, Richardson, the married father of three, agreed the problem wasn’t what he was spending on himself, it was what he was spending on recruits, families and handlers so they would sign with Arizona. Now, that was expensive.

Then, Dawkins noted, Richardson didn’t even cash in when the player turned professional and signed with sports agents and financial planners, who are more than willing to either pay Richardson for his access to players, or cover his upfront recruiting costs.

“I wish I was a pimp and you were a prostitute, you’d make a million for me,” Dawkins said, per Richardson.

Richardson acknowledged he’d been stupid. He explained he thought using his own money was the best way to keep things tight and, if any allegations arose, “It’s their word against mine.”

Now, though, he was interested in sharing the burden. He said he'd even tapped into retirement accounts for recruiting costs. That’s how he arrived at a meeting with Dawkins' startup sports management company, which unbeknownst to Dawkins and Richardson was being partially funded by undercover FBI agents.

“He was using his personal money to fund his recruiting,” Munish Sood, a financial advisor who was one of Dawkins’ partners, testified on Monday. “Christian suggested using someone else’s rather than his own money.”

Richardson would agree to do that, at least partially. For example, Richardson said on a recording that the Sood/Dawkins group, called LOYD Management, gave him $15,000 to allegedly be paid in three installments to the family of recruit Jahvon Quinerly. But Richardson wanted LOYD to know that he still had his “own skin in the game” too because he felt it was better business.

“Just so you know, I put $10,000 in of my own money to give to the kid’s mom,” Richardson said at the meeting. He also noted he promised to get Quinerly’s mother a job “to put you in a situation to move to Tucson.”

Whether Richardson actually did that, or was just talking big in an effort to inflate his own value to the partnership, is undetermined. It is also unknown if any money actually was paid out to Quinerly or his family. Quinerly, a McDonald’s All-American from New Jersey in 2018, originally committed to Arizona but backed out after Richardson was arrested as the scandal broke (he pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit bribery and is awaiting sentencing).

Certainly there is hyperbole to the conversations. Richardson wasn’t bankrupt, for instance. However, as good as his salary was, it didn’t offer a bottomless well of money to sprinkle around. He was basically a small business. There were bills to be paid.

Even by the absurd standards of college athletics, the concept of a top-level assistant coach claiming financial woes because landing recruits is such an expensive proposition was a rather astounding moment. That it occurred in the middle of a federal trial made it even more surreal.

It’s why this case shouldn’t be about how the NCAA can use certain information to bust certain schools or players.

Rather, the broad picture painted here of an NCAA rulebook that is outdated, blatantly ignored and the cause of so many problems, should forever bust the NCAA’s concept of amateurism and usher in a new system.

View photos Emanuel "Book" Richardson exits the Federal Courthouse in Manhattan on October 10, 2017 in New York City. (Getty) More

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