Ivy Hoops Online reported early Tuesday morning on Jerome Allen’s sentencing in federal court for accepting bribes from a Florida businessman to place his son on the Quakers’ recruited athletes list. At the conclusion of the article, we noted that Allen’s name was no longer on the online list of Penn Athletics Hall of Fame honorees.
While Allen’s individual Hall of Fame page was still accessible, his name could not be found on the site’s “Listing of Hall of Fame inductees by sport”.
Penn Athletics released the following statement late Tuesday afternoon in response to an inquiry from IHO about Allen’s Hall of Fame status:
The University of Pennsylvania considers induction into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame as the highest individual honor for a student-athlete or coach, and criteria for induction encompasses both athletic achievements and character. As a result of his federal conviction, Jerome Allen has been removed from the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame.
No information was provided as to the timing of this decision or its enforcement.
There has been no word from Philadelphia’s Big 5 concerning its Hall of Fame association with Allen.
Allen was sentenced to four years probation, six months of house arrest, 600 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $202,000 fine and an $18,000 forfeiture judgment to the U.S. government by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, on Monday afternoon.
According to a source close to the situation, Allen will remain an assistant coach for the NBA’s Boston Celtics and travel for work during the period of his house arrest.
Allen may no longer be a member of Penn’s Hall of Fame, but he still remains a tangible part of the program’s lore. The Jerome Allen – Matt Maloney display case at the Palestra is still up, recounting the storied Penn careers of the two Ivy League Players of the Year and their dominant 1992-1995 seasons when their Fran Dunphy-coached teams enjoyed three straight undefeated Ivy League championships and a first-round victory over Nebraska in the 1994 NCAA Tournament. Allen and Maloney would both go on to play in the NBA.
Penn has not yet released the results of its internal investigation of the bribery scandal that resulted in the admission of Morris Esformes to the Wharton School as a recruited athlete for the fall of 2015.
Little information about the investigation, which was announced in July, has been made public. The department released a statement in October to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News that it was in the “final stages of the independent review.”
Pretty sad. Allen was a legendary player at Penn. I don’t think that Penn should have turned its back on him in his worst hour. Loyalty does not necessarily endorse wrongdoing. I hope that a Princeton would not treat an alumnus and former star so shabbily.