The recent college admissions scandal dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues” has resulted in outrage across the nation for its unfairness and corruption.
In all, 33 wealthy parents used their capital to bribe two SAT/ACT administrators, a college administrator, an exam proctor, and nine NCAA coaches so their children could attend reputable colleges. In the latter case, the parents essentially bribed the coaches to give their children, whether or not they had any athletic ability, spots on their team’s rosters in order to help them get into the respective colleges.
According to CBS Sports, documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed many of the coaches involved with the scandal, including Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer, Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst, UCLA men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo, Texas men’s tennis coach Michael Center, Yale women’s soccer coach Rudy Meredith, and USC senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel, among others.
In Heinel’s case, she received more than $1.3 million in bribes to put more than two dozen students onto USC athletic rosters from 2014 to 2018, as the Orange County Register points out. The list included two members of women’s crew team, who had no crew experience, as well as one who used their fake long snapping credentials to secure a place at the school, plus a $100,000 bribe from his parents to Heinel.
This is certainly a demerit on the NCAA’s reputation, but it is not the least bit surprising. Once again, it exemplifies the corrupt pursuit of money and power in college sports.
Although this may be the first major recruiting scandal to feature fake recruits, it is not the first NCAA recruiting scandal, nor will it be the last. It is a league where bribes are commonplace, but usually it is the recruits and their families who are on the receiving end of such gifts.
Most notably, in 2017, then-Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, was fired by his school for his involvement in a scheme where Adidas funneled money to recruits, in the $13,000 to $100,000 range, to play for schools which the company sponsored, as NPR reported at the time.
That same year, he had also been suspended for five games due to a scandal where underaged Louisville recruits had been enticed with drugs and prostitutes during their official visits to campus. Virtually the same thing happened with the Colorado University football team in a scandal, which broke in 2004.
Grade inflation has been an NCAA issue for years as well. At UNC from 1993 to 2011, the school offered “paper classes.” There were around 200 classes where attendance was not required and there was only one paper for the entire semester. Every student received either an A or a B, regardless of their work quality. Around 3,100 students took the classes, and of them 1,500 were “student-athletes.” One student received an A- on a one-paragraph essay about Rosa Parks, as Business Insider points out.
Similarly, it was also revealed in 2011 that the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns football program falsified ACT scores of five prospective student-athletes to admit them to the football team. Plus, 61 athletes from nine Florida State University teams were caught receiving answers to exams prior to taking them, as the New York Times reported in 2009.
Not to mention, the University of Miami defrauded the federal government. In 1991, it was revealed that former athletic adviser Tony Russell assisted at least 70 scholarship athletes, including 57 from the football team, in falsifying Pell Grant applications. In all, the players received more than $220,000 from 1989 to 1991, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
With NCAA coaches and programs having the “win at all costs” mentality and a desire to earn money, corruption is bound to occur. When amateur talent rules constrain that competition, it becomes a competition to who can best break those rules. That said, it is unrealistic to expect much decency from top schools and their athletic programs with millions of dollars in revenue on the line.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
