During the short flight from East Lansing, Michigan, around three dozen of the team’s players had received a stunning email from a booster group that had committed to paying them. The group was called
Spartan Dawgs 4 Life. Backed by some of the university’s deepest-pocketed alumni, including the mortgage loan billionaire
Mat Ishbia and technology entrepreneur Steve St. Andre, the Spartan Dawgs had raised $6 million, according to a spokesperson for the group. At least one football player had been getting $10,000 a month. Now the group told some Spartans it was ending those payments—dawgs for life no more. As the players angrily processed the news, coaches tried to calm them, and a school athletic official made a frantic call to another fundraiser, from a second booster group, to try to secure their money. The clock was ticking toward kickoff.
