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Three NCAA soccer coaches charged in massive college admissions bribery scheme

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A pair of collegiate soccer coaches were indicted as co-conspirators in what authorities are calling the largest college admissions scam in history.

Former Yale former women’s soccer coach Rudolph Meredith, UCLA men’s soccer head coach Jorge Salcedo, and USC women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin were charged by the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Boston. Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, University of San Diego, USC, University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University were the schools named in the report.

The two coaches are among many other coaches from other sports accused to falsifying athletic success for college applicants in exchange for over $25 million in bribery money. Their scheme consisted of photoshopping applicants faces onto stock athletic photos and fabricating their participation in various athletic competitions.

Prospective student-athletes stand a better chance of admission into many of the nations top colleges regardless of academic performance and standardized test scores.

Meredith’s involvement as a co-conspirator dates back to 2015. The report indicates he began accepting bribes in exchange as designating applicants as Yale women’s soccer recruits in order to get them into the school. He worked with California businessman William Singer to bring in at least two prospective Yale students from California using this scheme.

Salcedo was indicted as part of a racketeering conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams in exchange for bribes, also with the help of Singer. Salcedo received $100,000 in bribes multiple times to help facilitate the admission of a UCLA applicant by designating them as a soccer recruit.

Khosroshahin assisted Salcedo and Meredith in their schemes by helping falsify youth soccer records for the prospective applicants as well as helping students get into USC as fake soccer recruits. He received over $350,000 in payments from Singer to a private youth soccer club he controlled.

The Justice Department report indicates that the prospective students themselves were unaware of the scheme.

The two soccer coaches are only a small part of the scheme as a whole. Overall, 50 people have been charged as a part of the investigation. The list of names includes coaches from other college sports, other athletics administrators, businesspeople, and the parents of the students involved, including Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.

The entire report can be read at the U.S. Department of Justice website.

Comments

  1. Might be that he just gave them a preferred walk on status or something like that which was enough to get them in the school without wasting a scholarship.

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  2. Sorry, no, the kids knew. Some started to play their sport, or feigned injury to drop off once they got in, or otherwise got in and then made themselves scarce from the team. Plus from my experience as a recruit projected to a team, you would have gone beyond generic college correspondence and started getting team or athletic department phone calls, emails, and stuff, offseason workout expectations, preseason schedules, do you want in the athletic dorms and meal plan, at which point the most oblivious person would be asking their parents or the coaches, why am I getting this if I can’t kick a ball?

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    • This is kind of interesting because anyone who wasn’t a full ride player knows that part of the value of the process is that them wanting you to come play helps you get in, and maybe a small scholarship, and maybe friendly financial aid. This sort of thing would likely happen more in the smaller sports with fewer scholarships. You wouldn’t burn a football scholarship this way. Plus the Ivies don’t even give athletic scholarships. So this is abusing the admissions office bonus you get for being a recruited athlete, which in most cases is legitimate and something we would seek out. Except apparently in the small sports with the right coaches a checkbook would do it.

      I have personally thought Salcedo was massively overrated. Had players like Feilhaber run through there, has historically been a soccer factory, and yet only had so much success. I mean Porter won NCAA with Akron and by my count lost 18 games in 7 years. How could you not manage that with NCAA. So hmmm.

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    • The UCLA soccer programs are major. Both men and women are often nationally ranked and go far in the NCAA playoffs. Astounding to me that they would waste a scholarship, but that’s pretty big money in bribes to a coach of a “minor” sport. After the recent college basketball scandal, college sports are really under a cloud now.

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