SOURCE: NY Times

Michael Franzese has never had much trouble spooking athletes about the perils of gambling and the insidiousness of organized crime. After all, he lived the story, as a former mobster who used players’ gambling debts to entrap them.

But Franzese, who makes a living on the lecture circuit, got an unexpected assist this summer: the arrest of Tim Donaghy, a veteran N.B.A. referee. Donaghy had a gambling habit, which led to involvement with professional gamblers, which led to him providing inside information that broke federal laws and severely scarred a league.

To Franzese, it was a familiar story line. To the young N.B.A. players that Franzese addressed yesterday afternoon, it was a spectacular, tangible example of everything that he warns them against.

“It definitely hits home, because it’s somebody that’s in our league,” Sean May, a Charlotte Bobcats forward, said in a telephone interview after attending the lecture. “I definitely think it made it easier for them to understand.”

May is among nearly 70 players, most of them drafted in June, who are attending the N.B.A.’s annual rookie transition program this week in Rye Brook, N.Y. Franzese has been lecturing athletes for 12 years, and has been part of the N.B.A.’s program since 1996.

The Donaghy scandal was not the focus of yesterday’s session, although Franzese discussed it, because “it would be irresponsible not to mention it.”

The session was closed to members of the news media. Franzese spoke by telephone afterward.

Franzese, 55, has long relied on his experiences in the mob to educate players at both the collegiate and professional levels. He is also a fixture in Major League Baseball’s rookie program and has worked with some N.F.L. teams.

His message to players is always the same — that professional gamblers are “always on the hunt and on the lookout to make targets out of these guys.”

“That’s what I did when I was on the streets,” he said. “And really make them understand that there’s no upside for them to get involved in gambling.”

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