A Thousand Dollars for the Centre

College Park, Maryland, October 1952. Two days before Maryland's home game against Louisiana State on 25 October, a man named Glickfield offered Thomas E. Cosgrove, the Terrapins' offensive centre, $1,000. The deal, as the State put it, was for Cosgrove to 'control the score': Maryland could still win, but not by more than 20½ points, the line the gambling syndicates were betting. Cosgrove, who admitted he disliked Glickfield, reported the offer to his coach and others. On the coach's instructions he and a team-mate tried to set up a second meeting to trap the briber, but it never came off. Glickfield was indicted under a 1939 Maryland statute making it bribery to 'bribe or attempt to bribe any persons participating in or connected in any way' with an athletic contest. He chose trial by a judge sitting without a jury. His lawyers argued the statute was hopelessly vague, since a player, unlike a public official, owes no legal duty to anyone about how he plays; that one of his two lawyers had been wrongly shut out of the courtroom with the other witnesses; that the State's Attorney had improperly conferred with Cosgrove during a recess in cross-examination; and that Cosgrove was a biased, impeached witness (he admitted on cross-examination to having gone into a university building to look for examination papers) whose word should not carry a conviction.