There is nothing shady in the quid pro quo in athletic recruiting (i.e., coach support with admissions if you apply ED). In the NESCAC, the basic rules are 2 slots (lower academic standards than the usual cohort of admitted students), with American football getting 14. The rest of the recruits are “tips,” whose academic creds are good enough to be admitted without coach support but, as we know, many many well qualified applicants are rejected from NESCAC schools. The “tip” will tip the admission decision in their favor.
What is shady about this? Did you want no slots, which would at least in theory mean that the teams would be worse? Did you want no athletic recruiting at all? That would leave little room for schools who are trying to compose well rounded classes that include athletics.
If you think it unfair that athletes usually need to apply ED, I disagree. Many athletes have been working on recruiting for years. In contrast, some high school students are utterly without direction. Perhaps they need until April to decide, but athletes have been attending showcases, visiting colleges, meeting with coaches for quite some time. As a group, they have a much better idea about what they want than many other high school students.
Look at it from the perspective of the school. If you let all the recruits apply RD for a team that needs 5 players, the AO might need to admit, say, 25 athletes to reach the target of 5, knowing that many will choose to go to other schools. Imagine some of the results that could happen: 1) all or most of the 25 admitted recruits decide to go to the school, meaning that fewer other types of applicants (e.g., drama or music stars) would be admitted and some of those recruits would have to be cut from the team; 2) none or few of the 25 recruited athletes choose to attend, threatening the viability of the team. What happens to the coach who desperately needs a goalkeeper? Does the college need to admit 4 keepers to ensure one additional keeper? To my mind, there is nothing wrong with coming very close to hitting admission targets for athletes and using ED to get it done, particularly when some NESCACs have over 20 sports offered.
BTW, many D3 schools other than NESCACs want recruits to apply ED.