# SCANDALOUS:  Bigtime College Athletics Bribery Scheme Nabs Hollywood Stars



## oh canada (Mar 12, 2019)

Can't wait to see some of the meme's from this one...Yale has a soccer program? Who knew?

https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-arrested-college-admissions-bribery-scam/


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## jpeter (Mar 12, 2019)

Another thread already going at:
http://www.socalsoccer.com/threads/college-entrance-scam-includes-former-yale-womens-soccer-coach.16823/unread

United States District Court of Massachusetts announced charges against former Yale women’s soccer head coach Rudy Meredith on Tuesday in one of the most prominent and comprehensive cases as part of the FBI investigation in college admission and bribery scheme. The charges allege that Meredith accepted financial gifts in exchange for helping with the admission of potential students as he designated them as recruits for his team, even though the applicants did not play competitive soccer.

Meredith resigned from his position as head coach of the Yale women’s soccer team in November of 2018. The charges allege that Meredith accept brides in November of 2017 and April of 2018.

The charge alleges that Meredith and William Rick Singer engaged in the practice of designating applicants to Yale as recruits to the women’s soccer team in exchange for personal financial gain beginning in 2015.

The first case that the charges lay out alleges that Singer was approached by a father in November of 2017 who was looking to get his daughter into a top college in exchange for a “donation.”

Singer sent the resume to Meredith with the note that he would change the applicants’ personal statement, which contained references to her art portfolio, to soccer.

Meredith designated the applicant as a recruit for the women’s soccer team, even though he was aware she did not play soccer at that level. Singer paid Meredith $400,000 after the applicant was admitted into Yale. The applicant’s family contributed to $1.2 million to Meredith during and after the admissions process.

The second case against Meredith alleges that Meredith met directly with the father of an applicant in April of 2018 in Boston. Meredith stated in the conversation, which the FBI recorded, that he would designate the applicant as a recruit for the Yale women’s soccer team in exchange for $450,000.

The charges against Meredith are conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud; and honest services wire fraud.

He is not the only college soccer coach listed in the investigation. Former USC women’s head coach Ali Khosroshahin, former USC assistant coach Laura Janke, and current UCLA men’s soccer head coach Jorge Salcedo are also listed as defendants.

The case against Khosroshahin, Janke, and Salcedo alleges that Bruce Isackson and Davina Isackson paid an intermediary, who is referred to as a cooperating witness in the charges, to secure their daughter’s admission to USC - her first choice school - as a recruited athlete.

The case states that the cooperating witness emailed the falsified information to Janke in September of 2015.

The USC assistant athletic director emailed the women’s soccer coach in February of 2016 stating the application had been sent to the regular admissions process due to a “clerical error.”

Khosroshahin, who was fired by USC in 2013, sent the falsified application to Salcedo in May of 2016. UCLA’s student-athlete admissions approved the daughter as a provisional applicant for the fall of 2018.

The case alleges that the cooperating witness directed a payment from a company called Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF) to a sports marketing company controlled by Salcedo in the amount of  $100,000 on July 7, 2016. The cooperating witness also states that KWF issued a check to Khosroshahin in the amount of $25,000.

There was a player on the UCLA women’s soccer roster briefly in 2017 with the name Lauren Isackson, who listed her parents as Bruce and Davina on her player profile. She is no longer on the UCLA roster

Longtime UCLA men's soccer coach Jorge Salcedo has been placed on leave in the wake of his indictment in the college admissions scandal that's breaking today.

Janke, Khosroshahin, and Salcedo are all charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Khosroshahin and Janke are also involved in another case in the investigation, which took place in 2012, which helped facilitate the admission of a student to USC as a recruit for the soccer team. There were two donations made to Khosroshahin and Janke’s private soccer club for $100,000 after the admission of the student to USC. She never played for the USC soccer team.

The case also alleges that Janke falsified the athletic records for another student to help him earn enrollment to USC on the football team.

https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer-articles/college-sports-scandal-hits-soccer_aid45953


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## CopaMundial (Mar 13, 2019)

oh canada said:


> Can't wait to see some of the meme's from this one...Yale has a soccer program? Who knew?
> 
> https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-arrested-college-admissions-bribery-scam/


Yes, Yale has a soccer program and was decent at one point and with new coach, may be again. Even reaching NCAA championship level in early 2000's. Looking at the history of Meredith, you have to question the administration and their decision to leave him at head coach for decades. Even listening to past players, of recent, talk about him and his professionalism, he lost his love for coaching and wasn't in it for the kids, school or anything. He was there for the money and that's sad. Hopefully Yale will turn it around. This scenario is a bad blow and puts a shining light on all incoming recruits for all elite schools. Thankfully, most of our hard working kiddos have nothing to worry about. 99 % of us don't have $400K to splash around. We can barely afford damn club soccer. LOL!


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## focomoso (Mar 14, 2019)

I've said this elsewhere, but I didn't realize that being a "recruited athlete" carried that much weight in the admissions process. A "star athlete" sure, I can see that, but for a regular player, who knew?


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## espola (Mar 14, 2019)

CopaMundial said:


> Yes, Yale has a soccer program and was decent at one point and with new coach, may be again. Even reaching NCAA championship level in early 2000's. Looking at the history of Meredith, you have to question the administration and their decision to leave him at head coach for decades. Even listening to past players, of recent, talk about him and his professionalism, he lost his love for coaching and wasn't in it for the kids, school or anything. He was there for the money and that's sad. Hopefully Yale will turn it around. This scenario is a bad blow and puts a shining light on all incoming recruits for all elite schools. Thankfully, most of our hard working kiddos have nothing to worry about. 99 % of us don't have $400K to splash around. We can barely afford damn club soccer. LOL!


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## messy (Mar 14, 2019)

focomoso said:


> I've said this elsewhere, but I didn't realize that being a "recruited athlete" carried that much weight in the admissions process. A "star athlete" sure, I can see that, but for a regular player, who knew?


Not a “regular player.” But if you don’t want a scholarship and you’re really good at soccer or fencing or rowing or other non-big-money sports, the coach has major sway to get the kid in.


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## espola (Mar 14, 2019)

messy said:


> Not a “regular player.” But if you don’t want a scholarship and you’re really good at soccer or fencing or rowing or other non-big-money sports, the coach has major sway to get the kid in.


I have said before that the ideal candidate for a college soccer coach is someone who can play the game (not necessarily at that college's roster-making level), is academically competitive with other applicants (or at least not need an exemption from the college's published minimum GPA and test scores), and whose parents are well enough off that the kid will not need any scholarship money.  I guess we now need to add parents willing and able to pay a bribe laundered through an "advisory" service.


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## focomoso (Mar 14, 2019)

espola said:


> I have said before that the ideal candidate for a college soccer coach is someone who can play the game (not necessarily at that college's roster-making level)...


Why would a coach want a recruit that can't make the roster?


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## espola (Mar 14, 2019)

focomoso said:


> Why would a coach want a recruit that can't make the roster?


I should have said starting roster, but in any case a good player might be able to be brought up to the team level of play by exposure to better players than he was playing with before.


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## PaytoplayinLancaster? (Mar 14, 2019)

focomoso said:


> Why would a coach want a recruit that can't make the roster?


If I had my roster set with people who didn’t need a scholarship, that kid would “make my team” for the price of the scholarship money and his parents extra $100,000.  My team isn’t affected, but my wallet is...   Pay to play at it’s finest.


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## focomoso (Mar 14, 2019)

PaytoplayinLancaster? said:


> If I had my roster set with people who didn’t need a scholarship, that kid would “make my team” for the price of the scholarship money and his parents extra $100,000.  My team isn’t affected, but my wallet is...   Pay to play at it’s finest.


I get why someone might take a bribe, but we were talking about legitimate players. @espola cleared up his point.


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## lastkid (Mar 14, 2019)

UCLA Men's Soccer currently has 28 players on their roster on their website right now.  The coach can only give out 9.9 scholarhips and only if the scholarship fund is fully funded.  That is 17 players on the bench and essentially 18 players not on scholarship (they will spread some scholarship allocation between multiple players).  College coaches have huge sway with admissions offices and can get kids into the schools who meet certain minimum thresholds, but those thresholds are usually significantly lower than the academic standards for a regular student to get admitted.  Let's presume the coach makes $150K per year and has what they believe to be a very solid core of starters with some solid sub and a few young players who will be starters in the future.  Now someone offers them an additional $100K to make their son the number 28 player on the team.  Number 28 is not likely to play anyway, so the coach is happy to get the extra $100k.  As long as they are not having to award some of their scholarship money to the player, the coach is happy.  Unethical, but happy.  The thing is, the coaches even have some pull to help get kids in with "preferred walk-on" status and that kid might not even make the roster of 28.  Not really any skin off the coaches back and they are financially rewarded.  It is essentially embezzling money from their employer, but they get rewarded for their fraud.  Even the sailing coach can get kids in this way and they are not usually scholarship kids and the coaches rarely make any meaningful money for the actual coaching job.  This is the system that allowed this current controversy.  I am okay with the system the way it is, but university administrators probably need to at least make these recruits pass a basic smell test.  Maybe an independent person in the admissions office that conducts audits of the athletics recruits to confirm there is more of an athletic resume out there then some doctored picture of some non-athlete on crew athlete's body.  I am not an expert, but I could look up just about any athlete worthy of a Division I sport and find legitimate stats and track record for them going back to the time they were 14 years old.


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## focomoso (Mar 14, 2019)

lastkid said:


> It is essentially embezzling money from their employer, but they get rewarded for their fraud.


This implies that the money is going to the universities. My understanding was that it was going straight to the coaches as bribes.


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## Zerodenero (Mar 14, 2019)

CopaMundial said:


> Yes, Yale has a soccer program and was decent at one point and with new coach, may be again. Even reaching NCAA championship level in early 2000's. Looking at the history of Meredith, you have to question the administration and their decision to leave him at head coach for decades. Even listening to past players, of recent, talk about him and his professionalism, he lost his love for coaching and wasn't in it for the kids, school or anything. He was there for the money and that's sad. Hopefully Yale will turn it around. This scenario is a bad blow and puts a shining light on all incoming recruits for all elite schools. Thankfully, most of our hard working kiddos have nothing to worry about.......


Your Meredith comments are precise, and its sad. I must share, it’s a darn good thing my kid A) is a real soccer player B) really loves the school C) has nothing to worry about bc she’s a hard working kiddo who as I’m typing this is busting her ass on campus working / training (right thru the spring break).

Regardless how it all shakes out......IMHO The above reference is a recipe for success (w/out daddy warbucks). 

That my friend, I’ll take to the bank


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## CopaMundial (Mar 14, 2019)

Zerodenero said:


> Your Meredith comments are precise, and its sad. I must share, it’s a darn good thing my kid A) is a real soccer player B) really loves the school C) has nothing to worry about bc she’s a hard working kiddo who as I’m typing this is busting her ass on campus working / training (right thru the spring break).
> 
> Regardless how it all shakes out......IMHO The above reference is a recipe for success (w/out daddy warbucks).
> 
> That my friend, I’ll take to the bank


ZD, is your kid there? Seems like new coach is pretty squeaky clean and has a pretty impressive winning background, along with a very positive coaching persona. Very well liked. Sucks to have to take over after a nightmare like this.


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## lastkid (Mar 14, 2019)

focomoso said:


> This implies that the money is going to the universities. My understanding was that it was going straight to the coaches as bribes.


I was saying that the money was going to the coaches instead of the University.  The University can sell access, but the employee (coach) cannot sell access to their employer.  That is why I compared it to embezzlement.


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## Zerodenero (Mar 15, 2019)

CopaMundial said:


> ZD, is your kid there? Seems like new coach is pretty squeaky clean and has a pretty impressive winning background, along with a very positive coaching persona. Very well liked. Sucks to have to take over after a nightmare like this.


Gratefully, she is. Other than her butting heads w/him a few times at practice (different coaching style), I don’t know much about the new guy or his staff. One thing is certain, with the increased level of athletic admissions scrutiny(as it should), the average academic index will likely bump up a few basis points, potentially limiting the talent that he’ll be able to land from this point forward.


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## SD_Soccer (Mar 15, 2019)

Zerodenero said:


> Your Meredith comments are precise, and its sad. I must share, it’s a darn good thing my kid A) is a real soccer player B) really loves the school C) has nothing to worry about bc she’s a hard working kiddo who as I’m typing this is busting her ass on campus working / training (right thru the spring break).
> 
> Regardless how it all shakes out......IMHO The above reference is a recipe for success (w/out daddy warbucks).
> 
> That my friend, I’ll take to the bank


She is a great player and a great young lady!


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## Messi>CR7 (Mar 15, 2019)

messy said:


> Not a “regular player.” But if you don’t want a scholarship and you’re really good at soccer or fencing or rowing or other non-big-money sports, the coach has major sway to get the kid in.


How does that work exactly?  The coach approaches you and asks whether you are willing to go to the school without any scholarship?  That somewhat gives away the fact that you are being recruited as a bench player and may not see much playing time.  On the other hand, if this helps get you into the dream school you wanted, then it's all good I guess.

A friend of ours got into a very prestige school with volleyball but without scholarship.  She left the team after just one year.  It never occurred to me to ask her if she ever intended to actually play college ball.


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## espola (Mar 15, 2019)

Messi>CR7 said:


> How does that work exactly?  The coach approaches you and asks whether you are willing to go to the school without any scholarship?  That somewhat gives away the fact that you are being recruited as a bench player and may not see much playing time.  On the other hand, if this helps get you into the dream school you wanted, then it's all good I guess.
> 
> A friend of ours got into a very prestige school with volleyball but without scholarship.  She left the team after just one year.  It never occurred to me to ask her if she ever intended to actually play college ball.


In instances I have seen, the parents contact the soccer coach, show him the kid's soccer biography so the coach knows how good a player he is, and add that they will not need any scholarship money.  If there are no obstacles in the way (like grades, test scores, or previous professional status) that is usually enough for the legendary "early commit".  However, that depends on two factors being true - the kid really is a good enough player, and the parents were serious about not needing the money.


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## Bdobyns (Mar 15, 2019)

Been off this forum for some time and this scandal brought me back to see the rhetoric.

IMO, this scandal isn't about the soccer programs, or any other programs, the schools still want to put on the field the best that they can, the thing is admission to the "elite" universities.  The minimum requirements are very low for the NCAA, something like a 2.3 gpa and about 950 on SAT's to be eligible.  Coaches will give a list of names to admissions of the athletes that they are recruiting and that is all that they need.  They don't use their scholarship money or give up roster spots to the individuals involved in the scandal, they pay their own tuition, which they can afford, they just can't make it through the admissions process because these elite schools want elite academic students, 4.4 gpa, 1500 on the SAT, so the individuals bribe the coaches to include their names, that is it, (or have someone take the SAT's for them, pay off teachers for grades in HS).  

You have all probably seen a similar issue with all club sports for youth; coaches will be spoiled by well off families such as an actual bribe, paying for gear, paying for other players, paying for meals, etc.. just so their kid can say that they are on the team, maybe get some playing time in meaningless games.  I have seen it in a variety of sports.  Parents feel that money is the cure-all and they can buy playing time, and now, they can buy admission for their sub-par kids to get into the elite schools.  If parents are willing to spend the money, there are sharks that are willing to provide the service.  

In the words of the old CSL days, we have bronze level players whose parents are convinced (because they have the money), that their little Susie is a premier level player and ready and willing to sign a blank check.

Shame on the College Board for allowing the testing to be tainted.
Shame on the Coaches for being willing to accept bribes to write in names for their sports.
But mostly, shame on the parents that are willing to write checks so that their entitled, below standard kids, can be counted among those that have the skills and work ethic to actually meet the admission requirements and taking spots away from the kids that should be there.


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## focomoso (Mar 15, 2019)

Messi>CR7 said:


> How does that work exactly?  The coach approaches you and asks whether you are willing to go to the school without any scholarship?  That somewhat gives away the fact that you are being recruited as a bench player and may not see much playing time.  On the other hand, if this helps get you into the dream school you wanted, then it's all good I guess.


A whole class of schools don't have scholarships at all - including all division 3 schools and the Ivys - so the players at those schools play because they love the sport. These kids are still recruited heavily, though, because these teams still want to win.

Even in division I, no school is allowed more than 9.5 soccer scholarships per team (for men, its more for women) so there are either starters not getting a scholarship or even fewer kids getting full rides. If you look at the stats here: http://www.scholarshipstats.com/soccer.html the average scholarship is often way lower than the tuition. Compare this to football where the top 130 schools can give out 85 scholarships and next 130 can give 65.

Soccer in the US is not an easy path to free college. The only kids getting full scholarships to prestigious programs are at the level where they have to make a serious decision about whether or not to turn pro.


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## Eagle33 (Mar 15, 2019)

focomoso said:


> A whole class of schools don't have scholarships at all - including all division 3 schools and the Ivys - so the players at those schools play because they love the sport. These kids are still recruited heavily, though, because these teams still want to win.
> 
> Even in division I, no school is allowed more than 9.5 soccer scholarships per team (for men, its more for women) so there are either starters not getting a scholarship or even fewer kids getting full rides. If you look at the stats here: http://www.scholarshipstats.com/soccer.html the average scholarship is often way lower than the tuition. Compare this to football where the top 130 schools can give out 85 scholarships and next 130 can give 65.
> 
> Soccer in the US is not an easy path to free college. The only kids getting full scholarships to prestigious programs are at the level where they have to make a serious decision about whether or not to turn pro.


There are ways for Div III schools to give scholarships to athletes. They just don't use "athletic scholarships" term as it's not allowed.


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## Speed (Mar 15, 2019)

Messi>CR7 said:


> How does that work exactly?  The coach approaches you and asks whether you are willing to go to the school without any scholarship?  That somewhat gives away the fact that you are being recruited as a bench player and may not see much playing time.  On the other hand, if this helps get you into the dream school you wanted, then it's all good I guess.
> 
> A friend of ours got into a very prestige school with volleyball but without scholarship.  She left the team after just one year.  It never occurred to me to ask her if she ever intended to actually play college ball.


we know someone who went to UCLA sat the bench for one year and quit. Her whole angle was to use soccer to get in because she wouldn't have otherwise


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## focomoso (Mar 18, 2019)

Speed said:


> we know someone who went to UCLA sat the bench for one year and quit. Her whole angle was to use soccer to get in because she wouldn't have otherwise


Do you know whether she had a scholarship?


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## espola (Mar 18, 2019)

Eagle33 said:


> There are ways for Div III schools to give scholarships to athletes. They just don't use "athletic scholarships" term as it's not allowed.


Even Ivy League schools figure out how to get scholarships for athletes, or some money disguised as something else.  Serious ocean racers used to hire football players as grinders, since the only requirements were strength, endurance, and body mass when shiftable ballast was needed, and would hire them from their alma maters for a few weeks in the summer.  Cornell took advantage of the fact that the New York State College of Agriculture shared the Cornell campus (and thus all social and athletic activities).  Hockey Coach Ned Harkness in the 60's found that he could get scholarships from NYSCA for big Canadian boys who would play hockey and lacrosse wearing Cornell jerseys.


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