A university should have a policy and state what it is regarding the consideration given to athletic donations. This is oversight and transparency. If a practice is too embarrassing to make public, maybe it shouldn’t be allowed.
One issue is whether the university would notice these things. Another issue is whether the public would find out. Georgetown did notice that its tennis coach was recruiting students who never played on the team, and put the coach on leave. This oversight is laudable. On the other hand, Georgetown said nothing publicly and even gave the coach a positive review when he left. The case only came out because law enforcement brought it to the public’s attention.
If a parent has a spare $6 million available to use as a bribe, might putting it into a trust fund be a more financially astute idea? Then some more qualified student can be admitted into the college instead.
“Georgetown did notice that its tennis coach was recruiting students who never played on the team, and put the coach on leave. This oversight is laudable”.
Probably not so much. The Gtown tennis coach was doing WAY too much volume to avoid detection.
12 kids in six years. A college tennis team is about 12 kids total. So maybe 3 or 4 recruits a year. So the coach was selling half of his available spots to bogus players. Even an asleep at the switch athletic department will notice that after a few years.
Better to use the womens rowing team to sneak in 1 or 2 bogus kids a year. 50-75 kids on the roster. Tons of novices and walk-ons with a high drop out rate.
Is it possible that she knew that the higher ups were insisting upon it, didn’t like it, but due to power inequities felt (s)he had to accept it, and at the same time wasn’t aware that this had anything to do with a bribe?
I don’t know if you can legitimately give to athletic teams, separate from the usual management from the development folks. The situation I’m familiar with has “boosters” managed via a unit in development. They’d oversee communications, intake, and accounting/reporting.
Someone mentioned the ‘sports foundation’ at a college. Ime, that’s within development, not some admin over at the sports complex. (And certainly not a coach.)
Also, NCAA has some pretty crisp regulations about what a family can give or do for the team, but that seems to focus on existing student athletes. They’re clear oversight belongs to the U. Might like to be a fly on the wall to hear what their reactions are, to the scandal.
@Nrdsb4 “Is it possible that she knew that the higher ups were insisting upon it, didn’t like it, but due to power inequities felt (s)he had to accept it, and at the same time wasn’t aware that this had anything to do with a bribe?”
Yes, sorry, I was including that scenario. I was trying to make the point that in that scenario, the coach still knew that the team was carrying a player that wasn’t recruited, so she didn’t have to know about the bribe to know something was wrong. Presumably she would have inquired with someone higher up and not just done this because the men’s coach told her to. Or if she did do it just on the word on the men’s coach without consulting with an AD, that’s odd.
My point is that most people asked to do that - if they don’t know about a bribe - would ask why. That’s sort of common sense if you are asked to do something that is really far out of the norm “put this player who you have never met on your team”, at the very least you’d ask why. Unless those kind of “favors” are very common in athletic departments and it doesn’t seem odd at all. I could see that scenario, but that suggests that occasionally designating a rich kid as an athletic recruit may be much more common than has been revealed so far.
I was just wondering if it is the equivalent of an assistant admissions director not questioning it when told to admit a rich donor’s kid without particularly outstanding academics. That’s perfectly legal and apparently there are even lists of these students. And the person wouldn’t question admitting that kid if that was common practice. Maybe a legal version of this happens regularly (i.e. not because a parent made an illegal bribe that benefits the coach but because a parent donated a shell or to a sports foundation that benefits the institution). And that’s why the women’s soccer coach at UCLA is getting a pass, because she would not have know there was a “bribe” but just assumed it was just another player whose parents donated a lot of money legally or were otherwise appealing (perhaps because they were a celebrity) to the athletic department.
I think this is common practice in business. A severance package is offered where both the employee and the employer agree not to sue, compete or say disparaging comments about the other. This is part of the reason that the public statements by administrators are so well crafted.
Also, as a business owner, it is very difficult (legally) to say anything that is not positive about a former employee. I have to be very careful with my answers, usually just replying with yes or no statements. Most potential employers know this and ask “If you had an open position in your business, would you hire this employee again?” To which I can reply, “No.”
Georgetown carried out an internal investigation and found that Ernst was regularly giving spots to students with no tennis qualifications. What legal trouble would Georgetown have incurred by publicizing the investigation and its results? I find also it unlikely that the investigators did not suspect that the coach was taking bribes. What other motive could he have had? I think it is pretty clear that Georgetown cared more about covering for its reputation than about stopping this practice or taking steps to remove students who had been admitted via fraud.
@Plotinus In business, the potential liability is from being sued by the terminated employee. Even if in the right, a lawsuit will cost the business money and lost time as its staff has to deal with the litigation. This type of thing happens all the time. For example, a company will fire an employee caught stealing but won’t call the police (even though they committed a crime).
Well, they did stop the practice when the let the coach go. (And hopefully instituted a check and balance on recruits; for example requiring two athletic team/admin signatures to approve before sending to Admissions.)
But you are correct on the other items. Businesses/companies/universities sweep stuff under the rug all the time. And if the try to rescind an awarded diploma, they know with near certainty that they will end up being sued. And that means they’ll have to open many books and records regarding the incidents: just bad PR.
Maybe this was handled by the women’s coach as a “favor”, willingly or not so willingly, perhaps even under the pretense of the applicant being a kid of a wealthy parent who would be donating to the athletics department/university in some legal fashion. The kid was admitted as an athletic recruit, however, when she clearly had no business being on the team. It’s hard for me to believe that the coaching staff didn’t do any due diligence to see if she had any soccer background. In the end she was listed on the roster and got a profile on the website. At a minimum, that’s bad optics, and it certainly raises more questions. Fundamentally I think it’s different than an applicant getting an admissions pass because their uber wealthy parent is donating millions to the school- some might not agree with that practice but at least its up front, legal and established. Not sure the women’s coach or others involved have gotten a pass quite yet. Maybe she/they aren’t subject to federal indictment, especially if they weren’t involved in bribery, but I assume at least the institution is still dealing with this. And who knows, the NCAA may also feel the need to get involved, at least on ethical grounds. This is not playing out well in the court of public opinion. Despite the potential for legal blowback, I wouldn’t be surprised if other heads roll.
In the context of this thread, Georgetown is a different draw, Can you imagine a family spending $$$$ to be a fake URI recruit? I respect your thoughts, and URI is superior in oceanography, nursing, pharm, has a solid engineering program. But I wonder if they’re successfully selling admits with a 70% admit rate, avg SAT 1190. OJ wouldn’t need to bribe.
Nah, this was all about Georgetown covering thier own ‘butts’ and keeping things quiet to avoid public embarassment. I highly doubt they even thought about URI.
Cromwell either didn’t care one way or another that Isackson was on the roster or pressure was applied by her superior(s). I agree with @frenkiedejong more heads will probably roll.
It’s just if they actually thought that out loud and made that decision. I would hope they would not think about sending a person with those ethics to another fine, if not as prestigious school.
I work at a big bank. Someone cheats or gets fired for dishonesty. Not only wouldn’t recommend to another rival bank, would make sure they knew about this even if I thought they were a little less prestigious than my company. Outside of the realm of possibility.
Who is to say? The UCLA team got the highest ranked recruit in the world (Pugh), probably took a full COA scholarship, and she did NOTHING for the team, didn’t play at all. At least this kid showed up for practice and became a manager.
My daughter was on a team that went to the NCAA championships (so they were good), and there were some really bad players on the team. Really bad. Couldn’t even make a high school varsity team bad. The coach asked one to be a manager instead of a player because she was so bad. They were needed for practice numbers, they were needed to make the bench look full.and some just wanted to be part of a team… They knew they wouldn’t be on the field unless every single person in front of them on the lineup broke a leg or if the team was up by 20 with only a few minutes to go. Some were recruited, some were walk-ons, but about 5 were really, really bad players. They still were in the team pictures, still on the web page, and still had their scholarships if they didn’t quit (some did quit)
If the school sets it up so that the coach has ‘spots’ for admission and that player meets the requirements for academic stats that the coach has been given, why do they '‘have no business’ being on the team? Doesn’t Nick Saban have 30 kids on scholarship who don’t even make the game day roster? Did ‘Rudy’ not deserve to be on the Notre Dame roster? The issue here is the coaches or asst athletic director taking bribes (and the false SAT scores, but that’s a problem that needs to be fixed outside athletics). The coaches letting a ‘development’ player on the team is not illegal, not against NCAA rules, and not even morally wrong in my book.