By invitation only
The pool had 20 core members and maybe up to 40 participants at the end. Involvement was by invitation only. Pool organizers say they have examined all past brackets and found no evidence of a Peter Wright taking part. Participants wrote checks to cover their debts when bidding on teams, and Peter Wright's name was never on one.

Neuheisel supporters sought answers from Yahoo, which said it didn't maintain sufficient records to reveal the tipster's identity or whereabouts.

Pool members spent $150 on Internet search engines trying to find more information about Peter Wright, to no avail. They tried other means, as well.

"We have friends who are good with computers," said one pool participant, who asked to remain unidentified. "We traced the e-mail address and could only get back to Yahoo's main switches in Denver. It was somebody very sophisticated or really lucky. We don't know who did it."

Said Al Hodge, the pool auctioneer, "He walked. But it's a relief to know that no one in the pool had any involvement in this."

He wanted 'justice'
The tipster, who became comfortable enough with Saum to refer to himself as "Pete," shared almost nothing personal about himself with the NCAA.

He claimed to be a former college athlete, a graduate with a criminal justice degree. He told how he had worked in the private sector for 10 years and was pursuing a master's degree in counseling "from a very reputable university."

"Peter Wright" insisted he was a pool participant eight years earlier, then got out of the pool because the betting had become too rich. Still, the tipster was aware Neuheisel had become an active participant.

"I just hope that justice is served," the tipster wrote to Saum. "Believe me, I don't want to be responsible for helping a person potentially get fired from his job but I have a firm ethical stance that what he did was wrong."

Peter Wright made a few minor mistakes in passing along his information. He misidentified Hodge as an employee of Coldwell Banker and indicated the pools were conducted at that company's Eastside office building. Hodge works for the Broderick Corp. and the wagering was done mostly in Seattle.

Peter Wright told the NCAA he had contacted Seattle's "papers" about Neuheisel. The Seattle Times acted on the information and broke the story. The P-I never received an e-mail from this person. Peter Wright informed the NCAA he quit communicating with the "papers" because in-person interviews were requested.

Times reporter Bob Condotta confirmed his newspaper never learned the tipster's identity. Saum said the same in unsealed testimony, describing how he offered his phone number to the tipster but was limited to only e-mail exchanges.

Bob Williams, NCAA managing director of public and media affairs, reaffirmed that his organization has never determined the tipster's identity and probably never will. Neuheisel's admission was enough to corroborate things for the investigators.

"As long as the information can be validated, it doesn't make that much difference to us," Williams said.

"My guess is the NCAA is embarrassed that Peter Wright doesn't exist, or doesn't exist by that name," attorney Sulkin said.

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