In various articles dating back to 1990, Clippers interim CEO Dick Parsons has been described as a former Hawaii letterman — alternatively a “basketball star” or “basketball jock.”

Deadspin revealed Thursday that the oft-reported biographical detail is false. As lengthy as Parsons’ resume is — former chair of Citigroup and Time Warner, experience on multiple U.S. presidential staffs — he never played on a college varsity team.

It may simply be that reporters over the years never fact-checked accurately, and the story was embellished.

“Dick played on the freshman team at the University of Hawaii in 1964-65,” Ed Adler, a spokesperson for Parsons, said in a statement. “He has never said that he played varsity, that he lettered, or that he was a good player.”

But even if that’s true, Parsons at least never saw to correct the mistake after numerous profiles. (Yahoo! Sports reporter Dan Wetzel, who has known Parsons for years, tweeted that he did not recall the Clippers CEO ever claiming to play varsity basketball.)

Former Hawaii varsity basketball players from the mid-1960s told Deadspin they had no recollection of Parsons, but Los Angeles attorney Bill Robinson vouched for him as a fellow freshman benchwarmer who also never lettered.

Hawaii’s sports information department could not find records of Parsons playing basketball there at any level, but roster information from the 1960s is spotty. In 2004, the New York Times quoted former varsity coach Red Rocha as saying: “He was a big gangly kid who clearly enjoyed college. He didn’t start on the team, but he was clearly popular with all of the players.”

How much interaction the varsity coach might have had with freshmen is unclear; Rocha died in 2010.