Rachel McCoy, wife of Cleveland Browns and former Texas Longhorn quarterback Colt McCoy, said on the dreadful Colin Cowherd show today that Longhorn football players were regularly given perks by wayward boosters of the Texas pigskin program.
Mrs. McCoy, in my view, nails the proverbial nail on the head by calling-out the boosters for providing benefits to the players for purely narcissistic reasons, something I've been preaching for a couple of decades. Although boosters are important to the financial viability of many university's athletic programs, some are also the scourge of those same programs simply because of their massive egos and child-like need to feel a part of the action, which many times results in violations.
Other than recruiting Jamal Mashburn and Tony Delk to Kentucky, the best thing Rick Pitino did during his time at UK was to post a "No Trespassing" sign directed at Wildcat boosters, effectively prohibiting the money-men from direct contact with his players. That type of action is of course much easier to monitor within a basketball program where only a handful of players are possible targets, as opposed to football where there are over six times as many athletes to keep track of.
Boosters, whatcha gonna do ... can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, can't shoot 'em.