For Merl Code, basketball was life. In college he played point guard for Clemson before turning pro. Later, with a keen eye for talent and vested interest in the basketball community, he pivoted to marketing, where he was eager to build relationships with young athletes who might one day become ambassadors for Nike and Adidas. But as his network expanded and his responsibilities as a shoe rep grew, he found himself thrust into the dark underbelly of profit-driven college basketball programs, and the storied coaches who led them. He realized that the NCAA s amateurism rules, which prohibit athletes from receiving compensation until they go pro, were exploiting young athletes, and athletes of color in particular. Colleges and universities, he observed, were using corporate sponsors to circumvent the NCAA s bylaws, and employees like Code were stuck in the middle.     Now, for the first time, Code will share his side of the explosive story of college basketball s dark