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Splat Shot Sal
Joined: 7/02/11 Posts: 1,130
SC accepted walk on football players
Posted Tue, Mar 12 11:37 am
even though the high school that they went to did not have a football team. Reading that one sentence alone just made my day.
Splat Shot Sal.
comestay
Joined: 1/12/14 Posts: 1,213
Our hands arent clean. It took the feds
Posted Tue, Mar 12 11:57 am
In response to SC accepted walk on football players (Splat Shot Sal)
To finally get the worst coach in UCLA's history out. Bye Jorge Salcedo.
Splat Shot Sal
Joined: 7/02/11 Posts: 1,130
@comestay
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:04 pm
In response to Our hands arent clean. It took the feds (comestay)
But there is a huge difference in the types of transgressions. They are definitely going to get hammered for this as to where our coach will be terminated and be hung out to dry for his actions.
Westlake Bruin
Joined: 7/25/12 Posts: 4,284
did I read where a $UC admin official
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:06 pm
In response to @comestay (Splat Shot Sal)
is involved as well...yikes..
Splat Shot Sal
Joined: 7/02/11 Posts: 1,130
Yup!!!
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:20 pm
In response to did I read where a $UC admin official (Westlake Bruin)
And she is the major player & mastermind of a lot of the dirty shenanigans.
Woochifer
Joined: 12/15/11 Posts: 9,123
$1.3 million in bribes covering "two dozen" students
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:23 pm
In response to did I read where a $UC admin official (Westlake Bruin)
Yeah, from the story so far it's a totally different order of magnitude. I only briefly scanned the court filing, but it's eye-popping how many applicants were reclassified as student-athletes to slip them in through admissions.

Among the coaches implicated, Southern Cal water polo coach Jovan Vavic is by far the biggest name on the list. He coaches both the men's and women's teams, and has won 16 national titles and his women's team is currently ranked #1.

The case with Jorge Salcedo involves two students, one of which was a female applicant whose information (presumably fabricated) he passed onto the women's soccer coaching staff.

If anything, this scandal demonstrates how easily the athletic walk-on process can be manipulated to slip less academically-accomplished applicants through admissions. Athletic departments seem to have all sorts of controls and oversight in place for scholarship athletes, but walk-ons are a weak link that can be exploited.
JosephineBruin
Joined: 1/04/08 Posts: 12,902

Avatars available for donors only
MUST READ- here's the transcrpits
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:28 pm (Edited Tue, Mar 12 12:30 pm)
In response to $1.3 million in bribes covering "two dozen" students (Woochifer)
heinel is the senior assoc ad
janke is asst women's soccer coach (head women's soccer coach was arrested too and he's the one that helped get salcedo in trouble by referring one of the students to him)
vavic is water polo coach
and singer is the main guy who started the charitable foundation
(click on it twice to get bigger, more readable)
https://twitter.com/MattHjourno/status/1105494759227850753

https://twitter.com/MattHjourno/status/1105494751237697538
comestay
Joined: 1/12/14 Posts: 1,213
Bummer for UCLA but so glad Salcedo will be
Posted Tue, Mar 12 12:47 pm (Edited Tue, Mar 12 12:48 pm)
In response to @comestay (Splat Shot Sal)
Gone.
BRUINS 1
Joined: 1/28/05 Posts: 19,758
His case sounds a little weak
Posted Tue, Mar 12 1:15 pm
In response to Bummer for UCLA but so glad Salcedo will be (comestay)
He forwarded a contact to the women’s coach, is there any allegations that he took a bribe?
Woochifer
Joined: 12/15/11 Posts: 9,123
Yes, in two cases he allegedly took bribes
Posted Tue, Mar 12 1:27 pm (Edited Tue, Mar 12 1:29 pm)
In response to His case sounds a little weak (BRUINS 1)
The information about the female applicant is the murkiest, because we don't know how far up the chain things went with the women's soccer staff. The applicant had falsified credentials prepared by a former Southern Cal women's soccer assistant (also arrested today) who then passed it onto Salcedo, who then passed it to the UCLA women's soccer staff.

Salcedo allegedly received a first payment to forward the phony profile up the chain, and if the student gained admission as a student-athlete, then Salcedo would receive $250k. Apparently, the student was provisionally admitted as a student-athlete.

Salcedo also allegedly received $100k to classify a male applicant as a soccer recruit. That's the case that more directly connects Salcedo. However, the case with the female student might be more concerning, since it potentially ropes the women's soccer coaches into the scam. We don't know if they had any knowledge, but if anything, it illustrates the lax oversight with walk-ons and the preferential treatment they get with admissions. We know that scholarship athletes are scrutinized very heavily with full-time compliance staffers regularly checking up on them, but walk-ons not so much.
BRUINS 1
Joined: 1/28/05 Posts: 19,758
Thanks
Posted Tue, Mar 12 1:35 pm
In response to Yes, in two cases he allegedly took bribes (Woochifer)
I’m curious as to why walk-ones don’t receive the same oversight, it would seem that many of the same compliance issues would govern all athletes.
Woochifer
Joined: 12/15/11 Posts: 9,123
Fewer rules = less oversight
Posted Tue, Mar 12 2:01 pm
In response to Thanks (BRUINS 1)
That would be my best guess. Since they're paying their own way, walk-ons aren't subject to the same restrictions on things like off-campus employment as scholarship athletes. The only real preferential treatment they get is through admissions, and so long as they are in compliance with NCAA eligibility requirements, there aren't really any hard and fast rules.

UCLA and the other schools named in the complaint are all very selective, and athletics is one of the few avenues where someone can readily get to the front of the line.

If you look at compliance issues, the oversight in collegiate athletics normally looks at coaches and boosters trying to pay the athletes. This situation turns everything on its head, where the "athletes" are paying consultants and coaches just to gain admission.
GOBRUINS
Joined: 1/27/05 Posts: 9,225
I just wonder what if anything will Larry Scott do about
Posted Tue, Mar 12 8:18 pm
In response to Fewer rules = less oversight (Woochifer)
all of this.
comestay
Joined: 1/12/14 Posts: 1,213
Not weak enough to be able to stay...
Posted Tue, Mar 12 2:00 pm
In response to His case sounds a little weak (BRUINS 1)
Odios Jorge!
ShowtimeUCLA
Joined: 11/19/17 Posts: 1,974
We are the victims here
Posted Tue, Mar 12 9:20 pm
In response to Our hands arent clean. It took the feds (comestay)
The FBI notified UCLA that it has been the victim of a fraudulent scheme by the soccer coach.
Woochifer
Joined: 12/15/11 Posts: 9,123
Annotated court filing, crazy stuff about $C
Posted Tue, Mar 12 1:48 pm (Edited Tue, Mar 12 1:50 pm)
In response to SC accepted walk on football players (Splat Shot Sal)
Deadspin posted annotated sections of the court filing. Most of this covers the actions of the Southern Cal athletic administrator as well as water polo coach Vivic. The administrator went to great lengths to covers the applicants' tracks. Even wrote up fake athletic profiles and misdirected the counselors and admissions staff when they started asking questions.

https://deadspin.com/here-are-all-the-incredible-details-from-the-college-ad-1833236579

In one case, you had a track athlete with his face photoshopped onto a stock photo of a pole vaulter. In this case, the student apparently wasn't in on the scam and was as shocked as anyone when a counselor asked him about how he likes being on the track team. He told the counselor that he wasn't on the track team, and that info apparently got passed up to the admissions office.

With Vivic, he made up a story about how one applicant won all sorts of (fake) swimming awards and would be the fastest swimmer on the water polo team. Another applicant bought a water polo uniform and posed for (fake) action pictures, and even got pointers on how far out of the water he needed to be in the pictures. When questions came up about how he played water polo when his high school didn't play the sport, the Southern Cal administrator made up a cover story about how the applicant played water polo with a (fake) club team in Europe.

The amazing thing to me is actually that the counselors and admissions staffers, even at Southern Cal, kept asking questions . But, the case of Lori Laughlin's daughter is just an absolute joke. She made it clear that she hated school, but only wanted to attend Southern Cal so she could party and share her college escapades with her 2 million social media followers. She was clearly in on everything, posing for fake photos on a rowing machine. Yet, she couldn't even fill out the admissions application on her own. Wonder how many other applicants were turned down so that she could enroll.
bidabruin
Joined: 11/18/12 Posts: 1,056
How is this any different from legacy admits
Posted Tue, Mar 12 2:20 pm
In response to Annotated court filing, crazy stuff about $C (Woochifer)
In the Spring semester? SUC is notorious for admitting freshmen legacies in the Spring, instead of Fall with much lower qualifications because then it won’t affect their stats that they report to the ranking agencies.
Woochifer
Joined: 12/15/11 Posts: 9,123
Southern Cal games the rankings in a lot of ways
Posted Tue, Mar 12 2:39 pm
In response to How is this any different from legacy admits (bidabruin)
My understanding is that they don't report the legacy admits, and they also exclude athletes from their reported stats. Because they're a private school, they can manipulate the reported stats all they want.

Southern Cal has been trying to bump up their selectivity ranking since at least the late-90s when their supposed "meteoric rise" in the rankings began. For example, they offer full rides to National Merit Scholars (which happens to be one of the scoring criteria that US News uses), and they do this outside of the regular admissions process. If a scholar accepts the offer, then that frees Southern Cal up to reject an additional 4 applicants. And it also bumps up the take rate (i.e., percent of admits offered who enroll).

The preferred walk-on admit is yet another backdoor to the front of the admissions line. The difference is that a walk-on should actually be an athlete, and the whole scandal involves falsifying athletic credentials. A legacy admit basically comes down to family connections to the school, which doesn't provide quite as much opportunity for manipulation, since Southern Cal can always check up on the family relation.
BRUINS 1
Joined: 1/28/05 Posts: 19,758
USNWR national methodology
Posted Tue, Mar 12 3:40 pm
In response to Southern Cal games the rankings in a lot of ways (Woochifer)
Was a real eye opener for me. A few years back I was bewildered by the fact that UCLA’s international ranking by them was higher than our national ranking, and many more spots separated us on the international rankings. The answer I found was in the methodologies used, they were different, the most heavily weighted factor in the national rankings were the opinions of HS counselors, and I found that Sc had hosted a big conference for the same that year. Shocking.
mrp4ucla
Joined: 1/13/14 Posts: 5,279
The word is...
Posted Tue, Mar 12 3:50 pm
In response to How is this any different from legacy admits (bidabruin)

Apparently It’s also easier to get into SC as a transfer student.
adolfin
Joined: 8/13/14 Posts: 359
The blurbs in there about JANAVS are my favorite
Posted Tue, Mar 12 8:54 pm
In response to Annotated court filing, crazy stuff about $C (Woochifer)
First, asking for advice to discourage their daughter from taking the ACT again after the test session she cheated on only got her a 33 score when she was striving for a 34. That's some good ol' bootstrapy GRIT and DETERMINATION right there!

Second, the parents asking for guidance about their younger daughter over their concern that she wasn't as dumb as her older sister and would figure out that taking the ACT at a proctor's house over multiple days is not typical.