In George Dorhrmann's "Confessions of an Agent" article in this week's Sports Illustrated, NFL agent Josh Luchs openly discusses his practice of paying college players when he was a young agent trying to gain a foothold in the industry.

Luchs also told an interesting story of how player agent Gary Wichard, who Luchs worked with for a number of years, arranged for ESPN's draft analyst Mel Kiper to call during a recruitment meeting:

"Gary also used his contacts in the media to help him recruit. In 2000, before a meeting with Stanford defensive lineman Willie Howard, Gary arranged for ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper to call. Gary and I were talking to Willie in Gary's office when Gary's phone rang, and he put it on speakerphone.

"Viper, how are you?" Gary said. That's what he called Mel, Viper or Vipe. "Viper, I'm sitting here with the best defensive lineman in college football. Do you know who that is?"

"You must be with Willie Howard," Mel said.

Gary used Mel like that all the time. In the agent business, people know Gary and Mel are close, and some people suspect that Mel ranks players more favorably if they are Gary's clients.

Howard, who played at Stanford, was drafted in the second round in 2001 and had an 8-game NFL career. Howard was the 7th interior defensive lineman taken in a draft class that included Gerard Warren, Richard Seymour, Damione Lewis, Marcus Stroud, Casey Hampton, and Kris Jenkins ahead of him, and Shaun Rogers four picks later.

Luchs' claims have caught the attention of ESPN, Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal reports.

"We just learned of the story today and are looking into it," ESPN announced in a statement.

As Gregg Rosenthal of ProFootballTalk.com notes, Kiper is a frequent target of providing favortism for players represented by certain agents, accusations Kiper has steadfastly denied.