LawVHawk
Well-Known Member
Harmon had been Mr. Sure Hands during the season and his performance in the Rose Bowl was at best questionable. I thought I saw something years ago where a few teammates wondered what the heck was going on during the game. Wish I could find it or recall specifics. Meanwhile, here's a piece from 2010 that adds some detail.
Did Iowa's Ronnie Harmon Throw The '86 Rose Bowl? | LostLettermen.com
...It wasn’t until the summer of 1987 that the idea of Harmon possibly throwing the ’86 Rose Bowl was floated out. That was because in June of 1987, the NCAA publicly finished an investigation where it determined he had not thrown the ’86 Rose Bowl in which Iowa was favored by 2.5 points.
The reason the NCAA even started an investigation was because it was an offshoot of a Chicago federal grand jury probe into alleged dealings between sports agents Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom and college athletes. Harmon was among several Iowa players implicated for allegedly accepting improper benefits from the agents.
Harmon eventually admitted taking $50,000 from Walters and Michael Franzese, the man who helped bankroll Walters and Bloom. That association with the two further fueled the suspicion that Harmon threw the ’86 Rose Bowl.
Franzese added more fuel to the fire during a 2002 taping of HBO’s “Real Sports” when he came out and said he believed that Harmon threw the game. Franzese made the statement fully admitting he was in prison at the time and that he had no actual proof of this other than the game tapes...
Harmon, of course, denied it. And Fry is quoted in the story that after the investigation and a review with an NFL player, it was agreed the fumbles were caused by the play of UCLA.
