On April 28, Bert Eugene Neff Jr. walked into the BetMGM Sportsbook at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati in possession of a large amount of cash, looking to make a huge score. His proposed wager quickly aroused concern and suspicion among the staff.
Three people familiar with the investigation told Sports Illustrated that Neff wanted to bet more than $100,000 on a college baseball game that night: Alabama at No. 1 LSU. The game had gotten virtually no gambling traffic, and Neff’s desired bets on the Tigers far exceeded the sportsbook’s established house limit on college baseball. It was a foolhardy act that created a surreal scene, and the ripple effects from that incident continue to be felt more than a month later.
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Fueled by hubris and, perhaps, desperation, Neff – an obscure youth-league coach from Mooresville, Ind., with a penchant for networking in recruiting circles—stood at the window and pleaded his case for making the huge wager to the book’s staff, the sources say. He indicated that he had inside information on the game—and he did, in the palm of his hand.
Neff was texting with Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon via the encrypted messaging app Signal while at the betting window, attempting to place the wager, the sources say. His texting was indiscreet, to the point that the book’s video surveillance cameras were able to zoom in on the details of Neff and Bohannon’s text exchange, making Bohannon’s name visible later in screenshots.
“[Video cameras] can see the [text] conversation back-and-forth,” a source familiar with the incident says. “It couldn’t have been any more reckless.”
The inside information that Neff had received: Alabama was scratching its ace starting pitcher for the game, Luke Holman, due to back tightness. He was being replaced by Hagan Banks, who hadn’t started a game since mid-March.
Bohannon was not an unwitting pawn, the sources say. The Crimson Tide coach was aware that Neff was placing the bets on LSU and against his team, they say. It’s unclear whether Bohannon was himself wagering on the game through Neff, but Bohannon knew what was transpiring. One of the people familiar with the investigation says Bohannon was part of an ongoing text chain with Neff and his gambling associates.
The suspicious bets were flagged quickly by a wagering integrity firm contracted by BetMGM called U.S. Integrity, which has many other clients throughout the gambling and sports industries. Per protocol, U.S. Integrity forwarded the information to the Ohio Casino Control Commission and the Southeastern Conference, which also is a client. Wagering on Alabama baseball was halted in multiple states, and an investigation was initiated. After a brief internal investigation, Alabama swiftly fired Bohannon on May 4.
In a letter to Bohannon initiating his termination process, obtained by the Tuscaloosa News, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne wrote that the coach had breached several university policies, including one that bars furnishing sports-related information to likely gamblers. Ominously, Byrne also wrote that Bohannon violated a policy that forbids “soliciting, placing, or accepting by Employee of a bet or wager on any intercollegiate or professional athletic contest.”
In addition to the surveillance evidence, written affidavits detailing Neff’s alleged actions were submitted by multiple BetMGM ticket writers at the Great American Ballpark book, sources say.
“This is an active, ongoing investigation,” says Jessica Franks, director of communications for the OCCC. “In this particular case, everyone [at the BetMGM book] did their job. Once the staff at the sportsbook reported what they thought may have been suspicious or unusual activity, it was passed along to the commission and to U.S. Integrity.”
Franks confirmed that the commission has been in communication with NCAA Enforcement, which is conducting its own investigation of violations of the association’s sports wagering rules. She did not say whether the OCCC’s investigation was tracking along regulatory or criminal lines but noted that it has “both at our disposal.” She did not put a time frame on when the OCCC’s inquiry would be concluded but said that it will make its findings public.
Neff could not be reached for comment by Sports Illustrated; a number listed as belonging to Neff was no longer in service. Messages left with Bohannon’s attorney were not returned.
No Alabama players are believed to be implicated in the wagering on that LSU game, according to Byrne, and the same could be said for the Tigers, according to someone close to that program. Those two people say both schools conducted immediate internal investigations that included interviews of staff and players. Byrne and Alabama declined further comment; representatives for LSU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But the fallout from Neff’s ill-conceived gambit did not stop there. He wasn’t acting alone, sources say, and his network of connections in college baseball extended beyond Alabama.
Neff’s wagers were not the only suspicious bets placed on that Alabama-LSU game. On the same day that Neff was attempting to bet six figures in Cincinnati, some of his gambling associates were trying to place large wagers at locations in his home state of Indiana. Those wagers were also flagged and are under investigation by the Indiana Gaming Commission, sources say. The commission did not respond to requests for comment.
Neff’s son, Andrew, is a pitcher at the University of Cincinnati. Two Bearcats staffers, assistant Kyle Sprague and operations director Andy Nagel, were terminated May 17. Their exact offense is not clear, but two people familiar with the situation say that they were aware of Neff’s gambling activity, which the men did not report to school administrators. The school launched an internal review May 8 and publicly acknowledged the dismissal of Sprague and Nagel on May 24. UC’s head coach, Scott Googins, resigned May 31.
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Neither Nagel nor Sprague has been accused of betting on Cincinnati games, and it is not clear whether Neff placed wagers on the Bearcats’ games. Andrew Neff is believed to have had no involvement in his father’s activities, according to multiple people familiar with the Cincinnati situation. Cincinnati spokesman Zach Stipe says the school had no comment. Messages left for Sprague and Nagel were not returned.
Still, the repercussions don’t stop there. Neff’s gambling practices have spilled over to a third school, two sources say. A source with knowledge of the ongoing Neff-related investigations says the NCAA has initiated an inquiry at Xavier, which also is located in Cincinnati. Xavier spokesman Tom Eiser tells Sports Illustrated, “It is not our role to confirm or deny any contact with the NCAA.”
Eiser says the Musketeer baseball coaches are familiar with Neff, but characterized the relationship as similar to that of many college staffs around the Midwest who deal with people involved in recruiting circles. The Musketeers are coming off one of their best seasons, winning the Big East tournament and two games in the NCAA tournament before being eliminated by Oregon.
NCAA spokeswoman Meghan Durham Wright declined comment regarding Neff and his connections to multiple schools, citing the association’s longstanding policy of not discussing current, pending or potential investigations.
Neff, a college pitcher at Louisville and Indiana in the 1990s, had in recent years been involved as a coach with youth baseball teams in central Indiana. Among those was Indiana Elite—a youth travel-team organization within the Perfect Game Baseball Association—where Neff coached and had ties to college recruiters. His proclivity for gambling made that a dangerous mix.
NCAA rules prohibit athletes, coaches and staff from gambling on any sport in which the association sponsors a championship. In May, NCAA vice president of enforcement Jon Duncan told SI that gambling-related infractions cases are “spiking” in college athletics. In addition to the Alabama and Cincinnati cases, Iowa and Iowa State announced in May that they suspect a combined 41 athletes of wagering on sports in violation of NCAA rules.
“You can throw a net and get any number of schools [committing sports wagering violations],” Duncan said. “They’re hot right now.”
Last month, the NCAA Division I Legislative Committee approved new penalties for sports wagering by athletes, including a sliding scale for suspensions based on monetary amounts that they bet on competitions not involving their teams. But coaches and administrators with knowledge of gambling are in a different realm.
Firing Bohannon was an easy call, and it seems plausible that the 48-year-old could face an NCAA Committee on Infractions show-cause penalty of such length that he’ll never coach college baseball again. (Potential criminal charges are another matter.) The more complicated task for the NCAA Enforcement staff might be deciding whether to make an allegation of wrongdoing against Alabama itself. If Bohannon was a rogue actor who was participating without the knowledge of anyone at the school, should Alabama be charged with a violation?
While multiple investigations play out, several of Bohannon’s acquaintances were shocked to hear of his alleged involvement in the scheme. They never expected someone with a Wake Forest MBA to be mixed up with something so ill-conceived. Since being hired in 2017, Bohannon had elevated Alabama’s program from near the bottom of the SEC to respectability, leading the Crimson Tide to their first NCAA tournament bid in seven years in ’21. This year’s team was 30–15 and on its way to another bid when he was fired; without him, the Crimson Tide advanced to the super regional round for the first time since ’10.
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Bohannon worked from 2004 to ’15 as an assistant at Kentucky under two head coaches, first John Cohen (now the athletic director at Auburn) and then Gary Henderson (now the head coach at Utah). Bohannon briefly overlapped at Kentucky with Byrne, then the assistant athletic director of the Wildcats and now the AD at Alabama. Byrne hired Bohannon to coach the Tide.
Several people who knew Bohannon from his time in Lexington expressed surprise that he would jeopardize a high-paying SEC job—he was set to make $500,000 this year—in such a reckless manner. “The guy I’m reading about now is not the guy I knew then,” says one source.
The same cannot be said of Neff. Multiple sources who knew him from his college days in the 1990s said they were not surprised to see him embroiled in controversy. He was a left-handed pitcher whose talent was apparent—he finished his career at Mooresville High School in 1993 with 606 strikeouts, at the time second-most in Indiana history—but that promise was undercut by off-field issues.
“He was a total clown,” says an associate of Neff’s from his one season at Louisville. “If Bert had his head on straight he could have pitched professionally, but he squandered that. Bert was a piece of work.”
The coach of that Louisville team, Gene Baker, concurred on Neff’s inherent talent, saying he was one of the most gifted pitchers he recruited. He says Neff left Louisville before the end of his freshman season. The only mention of him in the Cardinals’ media guide was that he wore uniform No. 17 in 1994. Neff transferred to Indiana, where his tenure was also short-lived. He’s not listed as a letter winner at either school.
According to baseball-reference.com, Neff appeared in two games and pitched 3.2 innings for the newly formed Richmond Roosters of the Frontier League in 1995. Those are his only known professional pitching appearances.
Turmoil trailed Neff as a coach decades later. Jeff Amodeo, president of Top Tier Indiana, a youth baseball organization, coached younger players in the Indiana Elite group when Neff was coaching high school players there. Amodeo says that after two years with Indiana Elite, Neff “was asked not to return” as a coach. Amodeo says he does not know the specific reasons why Neff’s coaching ties to the league were severed.
“Bert, he had kind of a forceful personality,” says Jim Grief, a Kentucky travel team coach and longtime scout with the Cincinnati Reds who interacted with Neff regularly on the summer travel circuit. “He was pretty much opinionated and didn’t mind telling you what he thought. But my relationship with him was strictly baseball and strictly professional.”
The Indiana Elite organization has produced several collegiate players, including Neff’s son. The most prominent player Neff coached for Indiana Elite was Daylen Lile of Louisville, a second-round pick of the Washington Nationals in the 2021 Major League Baseball draft. Lile signed with the University of Louisville but turned pro after high school and is playing in the Nationals’ farm system.
“[Neff] was into the recruiting circuit full time,” says a source who worked in baseball circles with him for years. “He would work everyone. He was a slick talker, used-car guy. Him being tied into this does not shock me.”
