Rating:

3.0 (5 votes)

A first cousin to Eric Bledsoe's mother claims that his family paid most of the rent where Bledose and his mother, Maureen Reddick lived during his senior year at Parker High in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Birmingham News is reporting that Billy Fagnes, the first cousin, paid most of the rent and that Jerome McMullin, a close family friend also helped out during some difficult financial times.

McMullin states that Maurice Ford, Bledsoe's high school coach, did not pay any rent.

Ford has denied paying the rent for Bledsoe's family. If he did, it would be an obvious violation of the recruiting and amateur rules for the Alabama High school Athletic Association.

"They went through some hard times and I helped them pay their rent," McMullin told the Birmingham News. McMullin says he paid about three months rent.

"I took them to get food for them. There's a lot of things they didn't have and people stepped up to the plate and helped out. I never asked for anything or any kind of favor. I did it out of the goodness of my heart. Maurice (Ford) didn't do anything."

McMullin does say that Ford did help, in that Bledsoe's high school coach found a house that he thought the Bledsoe family could afford in Parker High School's attendance area.

McMullin and the Bledsoe family became close after his son became friends with the former UK star. McMullin said that the families became so close that he drove Bledsoe to school.

Fagnes does admit that he gave rent money for the Bledsoe family to Maurice Ford to pay.

"It was me and my family who paid it," Fagnes said. "One time, I gave the rent money to Maurice Ford because the landlady was running late and I'm a contractor and had to get to work. So I gave it to Maurice Ford to give to her."

And as far as some claims that Maurice Ford recruited Eric Bledsoe to play for Parker High, Fagnes says he was the one who brought Bledsoe to the school.

"The story that Maurice Ford recruited Bledsoe to Parker -- that's wrong. He didn't even know he was coming to Parker."