How coaches of sports like sailing and soccer use bribes to help wealthy kids get into elite colleges
AUSTIN, Texas — The latest scandal to taint college athletics hit sports far from the spotlight and exposed a seamy side door into some of the nation’s elite universities: coaches taking bribes to recruit non-athletes and help them ease past tough admissions policies.
“By design it went to Olympics sports where there is generally less scrutiny, but simply having a policy that anyone associated with athletics must be tracked including managers, etc., would certainly at least raise a red flag,” Ridpath said in an email to The Associated Press. Private and public schools with even the most rigorous academic entry standards allow leeway for student-athletes to keep their teams competitive. Coaches provide school admissions officers, often through the athletic compliance department, with lists of “designated recruits,” even in cases where they might only receive a partial scholarship or limited financial aid. In most of the sports involved in this case, few athletes receive full scholarships.
In one case in the indictment, the bribe came in cash paid to a coach in a hotel parking lot. In others, bribes were paid as donations to charities or businesses the coaches controlled, or in trading stock shares. In at least two cases, it’s unclear whether the coaches kept the money or spent it to help fund their sports programs.
Texas law requires the Austin campus to accept in-state students who have graduated within the top 6 percent of their high school class. That leaves everyone else, especially students from out of state, competing for the final spots.
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