Behind Adam Weitsman’s breakup with Syracuse University: Money, image and a need for control

Despite his absence from Syracuse University, Adam Weitsman remains close with many associated with the Syracuse mens basketball team. He said he paid $126,000 to help attract players to play for Boeheims Army in The Basketball Tournament this year.

Syracuse, N.Y. — Syracuse University broke up with one of its most prominent sports boosters, Adam Weitsman, two years ago in a split marked by acrimony and mystery.

Since then, the Orange men’s basketball team has struggled. Social media carried a running debate about the impact of losing Weitsman, a booster who claimed he would spend $1 million on recruits and brought celebrities including Jimmy Fallon and Tom Brady to sit courtside.

In one of his last high-profile moments at Syracuse University, Adam Weitsman sat courtside with recruit Elijah Moore and rapper Fabulous in January of 2023. N. Scott Trimble | [email protected]

The talk of their falling out flared this year amid a search for answers during the worst SU basketball season in more than 50 years.

Prominent former players complained about how Weitsman was treated, a slick social media video questioned his absence and animosity turned public between Weitsman and one of the school’s biggest financial supporters.

Privately, university officials grumbled that Weitsman’s contributions were overblown. They claimed his presence around the program boosted his own reputation far more than it helped the school. They complained that he wasn’t worth the headaches.

Syracuse University needs fans and boosters to pay its athletes. Adam Weitsman was willing, at least until a high-profile break-up with the school in 2023.

What has been missing from the public conversation are details: how much Weitsman contributed to the university; how much he paid players; and what caused the split.

Here are some of those answers, with new perspectives on the breakup from both sides.

The details provide a better look at the impact Weitsman made at Syracuse and the list of grievances he said made him feel unwelcome and convinced him to walk away.

Syracuse.com found a relationship destined to fail: a social media influencer writing his own rules to make a big splash paired with a risk-averse institution that insists on total control.

We talked to Weitsman about the breakup and examined his donation records. University officials provided their most extensive comments and shared internal documents for the first time.

Weitsman said he was made to feel unwelcome at the school and chose to leave.

School officials made it clear they don’t view his departure as a major loss.

“Mr. Weitsman,” vice president for communications Sarah Scalese wrote in rare public comments about a booster, “is not a major donor at Syracuse University.”

Weitsman is the owner of Upstate Shredding-Weitsman Recycling, billed as the East Coast’s largest privately held scrap metal processor.

He owns one of the biggest houses in Skaneateles. Weitsman developed a reputation for business success and philanthropy, as well as social media chops that earned him 17 million Instagram followers. Carmelo Anthony has 8 million.

In late 2022, Weitsman grabbed headlines by claiming he wanted to pay Syracuse athletes $1 million and that he wanted to help Syracuse land an All-American recruit like Ian Jackson, Elliot Cadeau or Boogie Fland.

That was good news to Syracuse basketball fans, irritated that other schools could pay more for the best players.

But the top recruits never came to Syracuse to collect on Weitsman’s offer. And at the time of the breakup, Weitsman had reported contracts worth less than $160,000 with SU athletes.

Scalese said this month Syracuse has records of deals that Weitsman made with eight of its athletes worth $123,000. Weitsman said he had deals with nine Syracuse players worth $153,000.

Syracuse said it did not have a record of a $30,000 deal that Weitsman claimed with football player Alijah Clark that accounted for the difference.

Weitsman shared a bank statement with Syracuse.com that showed a $30,000 transfer was made from him to Clark in December 2022, at the end of his first season after transferring in from Rutgers.

For all the attention that accompanied his seats next to men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim’s bench, Weitsman said his biggest payments went to football and women’s basketball players.

He said he paid $30,000 to Clark, now a safety with the Dallas Cowboys, and women’s basketball player Dyaisha Fair.

A star from Rochester, Fair delivered a memorable fifth season that saw her reach No. 3 on the Division I women’s basketball scoring list and carry the Orange to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where it took down to the wire powerhouse UConn and star Paige Bueckers.

Weitsman said he also had deals with seven basketball players. Joe Girard III and Judah Mintz were at the top of the list making $24,000 each, Weitsman said, while Peter Carey and Jon Bol Ajak sat at the low end of the range at $5,000 each.

“It was spread across the team,” Weitsman said. “It wasn’t a lot.”

It helps to remember the climate here when Weitsman was making his promises. In 2023, Syracuse athletics was behind its peers, struggling to build a modern, effective fund for paying players.

As boosters at schools across the country were pushing boundaries in paying athletes, Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack was stressing that SU wanted to pay athletes “the right way.”

The school did not have a dedicated fund, known as a collective. It had two small booster-backed efforts paying players, one focused on football and the other on basketball.

Both were registered as non-profits, limiting the amount of money they could push into the hands of athletes without risking the attention of the IRS.

Boeheim bemoaned his program’s financial situation during an interview with ESPN after a loss at Boston College, saying conference peers were buying teams while his guys made about $20,000.

Fans embraced anyone who could help.

Syracuse appears to have improved its ability to pay players, helping to turn around the football team and landing some strong basketball recruits. The school is now paying millions for its rosters.

But in those early days, Weitsman seemed to some like a godsend.

Why didn’t it work out?

Around the time of Weitsman’s departure, the rules of a booster paying a recruit to sign at the booster’s school were a gray area nationwide.

The NCAA, college sports’ ruling body, was promising a crackdown on the involvement of boosters in recruiting. The NCAA was clinging to the old rules that said boosters couldn’t pay recruits.

Nationwide, boosters at some schools began to ignore those rules. Weitsman also pushed the boundaries, flying one recruit and a nationally known rapper into Syracuse on his private jet for a game.

At the time, Syracuse.com published an investigation that was headlined “NCAA wants to rein in boosters abusing recruiting rules. Should Syracuse, Adam Weitsman be worried?”

Weitsman said he was told that rival schools had complained about his efforts.

It wasn’t hard to get Syracuse to worry. Syracuse’s basketball program had already been the subject of two NCAA investigations, leading to tournament bans in 1993 and 2015.

Syracuse wanted its boosters to follow the rules. Or at least fly under the radar given the lack of clarity of the guidelines.

That plan was safer but a buzzkill for generating attention.

Weitsman courted attention. Generating it, he said, helped his recruiting. He also said that being public was part of an effort to be transparent and show that he was following rules.

Weitsman said all of his offers to recruits were cleared by nationally known experts on NCAA rules.

He said he initially believed that Syracuse’s cold attitude toward him came from concern over whether he was following NCAA rules.

But the NCAA has since abandoned many of those rules and been unable to enforce most of the others.

The relationship remains frigid.

Weitsman said he was not banished by Syracuse. He said he was never contacted by the NCAA.

The university declined comment on whether it was contacted by the NCAA about Weitsman.

This March, Wildhack said Weitsman was not prohibited from helping the school and he was welcome to donate to the school’s collectives.

Weitsman said he believes the SU administration feels differently about him than members of its athletic department.

“John was always respectful,” Weitsman said of Wildhack. “This was way over John’s head.”

Weitsman said if the relationship was repaired he’d consider donating to a group effort with either the athletic department or a collective. But he said he prefers the excitement of personally attracting and building a relationship with a program-changing recruit.

The tension and polar-opposite approaches were evident in early 2023 when Weitsman said a string of slights played out over a three-month span, making him feel unwelcome around Syracuse.

Weitsman said he was shouted at near the JMA Wireless Dome’s stadium control entrance and wrongly blamed for the presence of a crowd on the night of a visit by Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

He said he and Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin were denied access to his suite and placed in a sparsely decorated room before another game. He said his request to have a Make-A-Wish guest shown on the dome’s Jumbotron late in the season was rejected, even after he offered to step out of the screen.

He said he reached out to Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud but received no response. The two have never spoken.

“I felt like I wasn’t really wanted,” Weitsman said. “The Make-A-Wish thing was the thing that bothered me the most.”

Syracuse declined to make anyone available for an interview to discuss its relationship with Weitsman. It did provide written responses to some questions.

Scalese, the Syracuse spokesperson, said the room used during the Hamlin visit was routinely used as a holding space for high-profile guests and had been previously used by Weitsman, which he disputed.

She said the school could not corroborate the other two complaints but pointed out the importance of keeping certain areas in the dome free from foot traffic. She said the school has a strong relationship with the Make-A-Wish organization.

“He was treated the same as any other suite holder and in a manner consistent with the university’s policies and procedures for all suite holders,” Scalese wrote.

University officials also informed Weitsman that his seats next to the SU bench were going to be taken out of circulation the following year.

Those seats were briefly unoccupied but now belong to JMA, the local company that bought the dome’s naming rights.

Scalese said the school offered Weitsman other courtside seats when it took his out of circulation. He disputes that claim.

He canceled his basketball tickets and football suite following the breakup.

Customer or donor?

Weitsman paid handsomely for those courtside seats and the dome’s most luxurious suite, where he invited a parade of celebrities to take in games. Those guests added some excitement to the dome during a down period.

He explored bidding for the rights to rename the Carrier Dome, which were eventually won by JMA in 2022.

Weitsman showed Syracuse.com a philanthropy report that indicated $1.1 million in payments to the school over six years, most of which were required if he wanted to buy premium seating.

The university said Weitsman has paid $952,838 into its athletic funds in order to buy basketball and football tickets in premium areas.

“The vast majority of his payments are transactional in nature, meaning he received a service in return for payment,” Scalese wrote in a statement.

Each side’s records show Weitsman also gave a $1,000 gift to the school’s dance team in 2022 and donated the use of his private jet to SU basketball coaches for recruiting, with an estimated value of $58,400.

The website had been acquired by Weitsman and designed to promote his fandom, with images of him sitting next to former quarterback Eric Dungey, NFL star Rob Gronkowski and actor Jeremy Piven.

The school said Weitsman’s lawyers initially asked Syracuse to endorse a $250,000 valuation for his donation. He said that valuation was determined by outside experts he hired.

The school valued the website at much less, labeling it a $1 charitable contribution instead.

It was a pattern that played out over and over, with the two powerful entities at odds over the value that Weitsman provided.

Outside interest

Interest in the Weitsman/SU breakup was renewed in recent months, following a Syracuse.com story in February about the basketball program’s struggle to compete financially to pay players.

Two days after the story published, former SU star Lawrence Moten appeared on the “Orange Zone” podcast and said he believed Weitsman’s absence was hurting the Orange.

Local videographer Aiden McGuire produced a video about the breakup that received more than 64,000 likes on Instagram.

A long-time fan, Gerald Kalish, reached out to both sides hoping to play mediator.

Former Syracuse basketball players Etan Thomas and Eric Devendorf devoted long stretches of their local podcast to the subject, and Thomas interviewed Weitsman.

Under an online clip from the show, former SU basketball star Carmelo Anthony commented that he was trying to fix the relationship.

Despite the fallout with SU administrators, Weitsman remains close with many associated with SU basketball.

He said he spent $126,000 on the players and coaches competing for Boeheim’s Army in this year’s The Basketball Tournament. Boeheim’s Army general manager Shaun Belbey confirmed the financial arrangement.

Current SU assistant Allen Griffin served as head coach, and Devendorf was an assistant. The group composed largely of Syracuse alumni competed for a $1 million prize but lost in the second round.

Weitsman is also contributing to smaller in-state basketball programs at Le Moyne and Siena.

Weitsman said he has committed $250,000 over a two-year period to pay Le Moyne players. He said he is paying $75,000 to help former SU assistant coach Gerry McNamara retain star freshman Gavin Doty.

Le Moyne coach Nate Champion confirmed Weitsman is helping his program but declined to confirm or deny the amount.

McNamara confirmed Weitsman helped him retain a key player.

Weitsman said he did not encourage local influencers to vouch for him publicly.

McGuire and Thomas told Syracuse.com they raised the question independently from Weitsman because they found the mystery interesting and because it resonated with their audience.

Feuding boosters

The fallout has shed light on a simmering feud between Weitsman and two of SU’s biggest donors.

Former Syracuse football player John Lally and his wife, Laura, spearheaded the effort to renovate the school’s athletic facilities, including a new football wing, with a pledge of $25 million.

John Lally, who is from just outside Buffalo, inherited a small family business, increased its value and sold it for $580 million in 2014. He is a member of the school’s Board of Trustees.

The couple has been openly critical of Weitsman on social media and dismissive of his impact.

The rift stretches back to March 2022, when Laura Lally commented on Facebook about Syracuse.com’s regular coverage of Weitsman’s celebrity guests.

For three years, the two kept their distance. Until this past February.

The Lallys, commenting through their foundation’s social media account, again minimized Weitsman’s impact on Syracuse.

Weitsman supporters, meanwhile, have blamed the Lallys for the broken relationship.

In an Instagram comment directed toward Laura Lally, Weitsman wrote: “You told the university if they dealt with me what the ramification would be for them.”

When asked by Syracuse.com, Weitsman said he’d heard a rumor that the couple played a role in souring his relationship with the school, but that he had no way to know for sure.

The Lallys denied they had any involvement in influencing how the school treated Weitsman.

The university said in a statement that it did not receive complaints or demands about Weitsman from any boosters, including the Lallys.

Thomas, a former Syracuse basketball star who had Weitsman as a guest on his podcast “The Rematch,” indicated in a recent Facebook post that the Lallys had warned potential sponsors from backing his show with Devendorf.

Ed Levine, president of Galaxy Media which hosts Thomas and Devendorf’s show on its Twitch platform, declined to comment.

Thomas recently posted on Facebook that his show with Devendorf would not be returning next season.

Even long-time fans have been drawn into the fallout and surprised in the lack of interest in a reconciliation.

Kalish, a Syracuse alum and avid Orange fan, reached out to Weitsman to attempt to broker a truce between the university and its estranged booster.

They talked on the phone for 45 minutes.

After talking to Weitsman, Kalish said, he approached three members of SU’s Board of Trustees. He was rebuffed by two; the third forwarded his email to the chancellor’s office, he said.

After receiving no response, Kalish sent an email directly to the chancellor’s office, introducing himself as an alumnus and stating that he wanted to help the school’s basketball program.

He received no response.

“The message,” Kalish said, “was clear to me.”

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