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The recent finding of a major university athletics lawsuit has resulted in the conviction of former Adidas leader James Gatto, Adidas consultant to Merl Code, and commercial director Christian Dawkins, to imprisonment for playing a role in the "NCAA recruitment scandal". Their crime? Well, the trio would have played a role in the "corruption" of university athletics – men's basketball in particular – because it had helped to channel athletes to the billions of dollars generated by the sport.
A few days later, however, there is now a new scandal on university athletics – a scandal that would have revealed real corruption.
All of this came on Tuesday, after the FBI and the Boston federal prosecutors revealed that 50 people had been charged, including 13 under indictment, as part of a criminal justice program. college admission, cheating and recruitment.
This is a real case of "paid game", except that the beneficiaries of this system were not even supposed to play.
The case quickly made headlines because of its Hollywood connections: actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were both accused of having their children admitted to the university through from a series of bribes and deceptions. But the bottom of the scandal testifies to the way university athletics is used to offer confessions to wealthy, undeserving, talentless and peculiar children, all in exchange for their parents' acceptance of money laundering. in order to convince coaches and administrators of richer college sports programs.
Some of the alleged bribes can reach $ 6 million.
Gordie Ernst, former tennis coach in Georgetown, Jorge Salcedo, current men's football coach at UCLA, John Vandemoer, sailing coach at Stanford, Michael Center, Texas men's tennis coach, former USC women's football manager. Coach Ali Khosroshahin, Laura Janke, former USC women's assistant coach, and Jovan Vavic, current USC women's and women's water polo head coach, 16-time national champion and 15 times National Coach of the Year, and the current Assistant Director of Sports at USC, Donna. Heinel.
The case revolves around William "Rick" Singer (referred to in the indictment as CW-1) and The Key, his so-called academic consulting firm. Singer and his company were essentially the means by which wealthy parents allowed their children to access elite colleges, whether by will or by force. Some of the services that Singer would provide to parents who could afford the price included the production of standardized test results and the creation of false sports profiles – the latter being essential for their children to be able to go to school through the "side door". ". "
To this end, Singer would like to befriend coaches and college administrators by gaining their confidence and insinuating that such criminal activities were commonplace. Then he bribed them, with cash expenses sometimes going up to seven digits, in order to allow the prospective student to be admitted into a track and field team. – to avoid the standard admission process. It seems that most of the time, the students involved never went to the athletics team supposed to have been admitted to their arrival at the university.
It was completely wrong.
Singer's scheme was deep and detailed in its execution. First, Singer created a fake charitable organization called Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF) to channel bribe money to beneficiaries, allowing the parents concerned to claim the bribes as a tax deduction. (The Singer KWF also enjoys a tax-exempt status.)
Most of the time, parents would issue their checks – or, in one case, transfer their Facebook stock – to KWF, allowing Singer to pay these bribes seamlessly, either directly to the coaches and administrators involved, or to designated university accounts. these athletics officials had access. In some cases, the proceeds have been paid directly to university department accounts, such as, often, USC Women's Athletics.
It was enough for the parents to help Singer create a false sports profile for their children. In one case, the parent company in question – Devin Sloane, founder and CEO of a Los Angeles-based drinking water supplier – ordered water polo supplies on Amazon and consulted a graphic designer to try to correctly simulate a picture of his son. play water polo.
Sloane's first attempt against this imitation was a failure, as the designer used his son's basic image in the water, which gave the impression that he was jumping a lot higher out of the water than even the most prestigious water polo. the players could handle.
A credible photo, however, was essential because the false CV they had created for Sloane's son claimed he was a "perimeter player" competing in the "Italian Junior National Team" as well as in "L.A. Water Polo ".
Sloane was charged with sending $ 50,000 directly to the Women's Athletics Department of the University of Southern California, given to Donna Heinel, as well as an additional $ 200,000 to the Singer Foundation.
Singer laughed at this blunder in his conversations with others, including Bill McGlashan, a Silicon Valley investor. Singer had counseled McGlashan in a similar scam, in which McGlashan's son was supposed to be a football kicker. In their eyes, it seemed easy enough to bring out his son, who had no past sportsman, a punter or a credible placekick.
"Funny enough, the way the world works today is amazing," joked McGlashan.
John Wilson, owner of a private equity firm and a vineyard, allegedly bribed the USC's water polo coach for his son to also be part of this team. He went to the Harvard and Stanford officials for the same purpose so that his two daughters would be recruited as "athletes" in these schools.
Singer made an agreement with Stanford coach Vandemoer on one of Wilson's daughters. In doing so, he had to make sure Wilson knew it would take more than $ 160,000 to secure his daughter's place in Stanford's place. Marshall or something like that.
And these students were not just hiding as rookies among the major athletics teams. In one case, a fake profile was set up to help a student to be admitted to USC as a women's basketball player.
In another case, the daughter of one of Singer's clients was turned into a tennis recruit at Georgetown University. This particular plan nearly failed when the first test application of the future student made no mention of tennis. Singer did an early editing to read, "Being part of the Georgetown women's tennis team has always been a dream of mine. For years, I spent three or four hours a day training on the field.
The curriculum vitae of this particular perspective was also to be stolen, and Singer left nothing to chance. He awarded the student the "Top 50 Ranking" of junior women's tennis from the United States Tennis Association. A quick search on Google would have proved that this ranking was a complete manufacture.
Of course, the fact that KMF has, between September 11, 2015 and November 30, 2016, sent $ 950,000 to the coach in question – said Gordie Ernst – probably explains why this Google search has never occurred.
Then we have Mossimo Giannulli and his wife, Lori Loughlin, who wanted to make sure their two daughters entered USC – or, as Giannulli said, "a school other than the ASU!" that happen, Singer organized for them to get places on the crew team.
In a recorded conversation between Singer and one of his clients, Agustin Huneeus Jr., Singer explained how money was spent by schools. In the case of Jovan Vavic, one of the most decorated water polo coaches in history, he used this money to subsidize the salaries of his associates.
In other words, the whole of this program was only an additional way for the rich to enrich and for the privileged to get even more privileges , while exploiting a mediocre and infinitely corruptible university athletic system, essentially subsidized by the unpaid work of men's and women's basketball. football players – mostly black students who put their bodies and brains in danger without earning a cent for their talents or resemblance.
These athletes are often told that it is not really them who have gone to university campuses and that they do not deserve to consider themselves as true members of the student body. Their value is examined from every angle. All of this adds an insult to the injuries inflicted by men such as Singer and the accomplice parents who refuse to convince the system to gain an unfair and unmerited advantage for their children.
Finally, it may be time for this attention to be changed.
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