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Post by sleepyjackson21 on Mar 12, 2019 13:48:57 GMT -5
I interviewed one of the Georgetown tennis recruits. But she was an honest to goodness tennis player ranked #1 in Las Vegas, I believe. She graduated last year or the year before. She was Georgetown's top women's player for several seasons.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 13:49:36 GMT -5
Thanks for clearing that up. Certainly makes Reed far less culpable than I initially thought. Still, given that this was happening over the course of several years, as an AD if I was keeping a list of kids that were being recommended due to tennis and those kids ended up not playing for the school repeatedly, I'd want to know why. But, by all means recommend that he be relieved of his job without having all the facts... Either he knew about it or he was so grossly negligent at his job that he should have known about it but didn't. Take your pick. The position has a certain level of oversight for which he's responsible for, and that responsibility wasn't met. I think we can at least agree on that.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 12, 2019 14:14:02 GMT -5
But, by all means recommend that he be relieved of his job without having all the facts... Either he knew about it or he was so grossly negligent at his job that he should have known about it but didn't. Take your pick. The position has a certain level of oversight for which he's responsible for, and that responsibility wasn't met. I think we can at least agree on that. I prefer to see what the facts are here. In the non-scholarship sports there are students every year who gain preferential admission because of athletics and then do not play for their team. Literally every year. It would be unusual for the same team to have a ton of them. The indictment is a bit fuzzy, though, into the exact number of kids that never played for the team. Some, for sure. But it's possible that a good number of them did play in some capacity (just not at a level one would expect). That would be tougher for someone to figure out. In any event, even under the first scenario, it would take a few years for someone to get suspicious enough to look into it very seriously. The initial conversation would probably go something like: "What happened to Dan?" "He got here and decided not to play, which really stinks because we used a slot on him." I don't think the administrative oversight would extend much further than that even if this happened a number of times. I'm not saying this is evidence of overwhelmingly wonderful oversight....only that there's absolutely a lot of room between "grossly negligent" and "doing a swell job."
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Post by RockawayHoya on Mar 12, 2019 14:23:53 GMT -5
Either he knew about it or he was so grossly negligent at his job that he should have known about it but didn't. Take your pick. The position has a certain level of oversight for which he's responsible for, and that responsibility wasn't met. I think we can at least agree on that. I prefer to see what the facts are here. In the non-scholarship sports there are students every year who gain preferential admission because of athletics and then do not play for their team. Literally every year. It would be unusual for the same team to have a ton of them. The indictment is a bit fuzzy, though, into the exact number of kids that never played for the team. Some, for sure. But it's possible that a good number of them did play in some capacity (just not at a level one would expect). That would be tougher for someone to figure out. In any event, even under the first scenario, it would take a few years for someone to get suspicious enough to look into it very seriously. The initial conversation would probably go something like: "What happened to Dan?" "He got here and decided not to play, which really stinks because we used a slot on him." I don't think the administrative oversight would extend much further than that even if this happened a number of times. I'm not saying this is evidence of overwhelmingly wonderful oversight....only that there's absolutely a lot of room between "grossly negligent" and "doing a swell job." Completely fair on all accounts. Would definitely be interesting to compare the success ratio of recommendations for tennis vs. other sports over the same time period. I think there's also a significant difference between kids that played seriously in HS that end up never playing for Georgetown vs. kids who could provide no evidence that they were ever serious enough about tennis to be considering continuing at the D1 level. If a good number of the kids being recommended during this period fell into the latter group, that's a problem.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Mar 12, 2019 14:58:26 GMT -5
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iowa80
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Post by iowa80 on Mar 12, 2019 15:28:37 GMT -5
Does Georgetown have a "massive" compliance department? And, if it did, the comparison is inapt. Wetzel is axe-grinding here IMO.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 12, 2019 15:31:32 GMT -5
Does Georgetown have a "massive" compliance department? Is that the one headed by Ronny T.? (ducks!)
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on Mar 12, 2019 15:44:17 GMT -5
Does any compliance office worry a great deal about what is happening with non-revenue-generating sports?
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 12, 2019 16:01:58 GMT -5
Does Georgetown have a "massive" compliance department? And, if it did, the comparison is inapt. Wetzel is axe-grinding here IMO. GU Athletic Department staff directory lists four people.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on Mar 12, 2019 16:04:51 GMT -5
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Post by reformation on Mar 12, 2019 16:14:54 GMT -5
Not a great look. Its very easy to look up tennis recruits online including their competitive history--even non high elite ones. It would be very easy to check. Admissions typically has specific officers assigned to each sport. I would expect that person to at least look up a recruit and have questions the following year if none of the recruits play. As far as lee reed, I would not expect him or necessarily someone under him to catch a fraud like this before the person is admitted, though I would probably expect the sport administrator to notice if none of coaches recruits actually played or a high percentage did not. Its not that big a team or ath dept--I would think they would have questioned the coaches competence at least, if not actually surfacing a fraud. I would also think that admissions/athletics would have some tracking system once the recruits are here to see how they do athletically/academically as I know that the recruits are ranked coming in based on both sport specific and academic criteria.
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Mar 12, 2019 16:18:17 GMT -5
I interviewed one of the Georgetown tennis recruits. But she was an honest to goodness tennis player ranked #1 in Las Vegas, I believe. She graduated last year or the year before. She was Georgetown's top women's player for several seasons. Yes, this is correct.
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Post by TrueHoyaBlue on Mar 12, 2019 16:25:44 GMT -5
This clears up several questions. (Though certainly not all).
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Jack
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Post by Jack on Mar 12, 2019 16:48:15 GMT -5
Not a great look. Its very easy to look up tennis recruits online including their competitive history--even non high elite ones. It would be very easy to check. Admissions typically has specific officers assigned to each sport. I would expect that person to at least look up a recruit and have questions the following year if none of the recruits play. This is easy to say with hindsight, and appears to be the policy going forward, but why would the admissions officer think the tennis coach was not recruiting tennis players for their tennis teams? And what would they possibly be able to learn that would provide better insight into the recruit's ability to contribute to the tennis team than what the coach has told them? Their job was to make sure the coach was bringing in academically qualified players. If the coach is burning their recruiting slots on kids who don't help their team and the coach is held accountable for their team's success in a Division I program, then the coach should not last very long. If coaches are not being held accountable for their team's success, then why are we giving admissions slots to the program in the first place? All that said, when I worked in admissions (my bias is clearly showing), I certainly followed the teams I worked with from year to year to see how the team was doing and whether the recruits were playing, but that was because I like sports, not because anyone told me to do it. I also did a google search on them before they were admitted, not to double check the coach, but out of genuine interest. Not everyone in the office shared my level of interest, and almost everyone worked with at least one sport among dozens of other assignments.
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hoya95
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Post by hoya95 on Mar 12, 2019 16:55:32 GMT -5
There are a few unanswered questions in the Georgetown statement, but I guess the biggest one is what did school think Ernst was doing when they discovered he was recruiting tennis players who didn't actually play? If I'm going to take a guess, maybe they thought he was doing favors for children of his friends. I assume no one thought he was actually taking bribes.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 12, 2019 16:56:55 GMT -5
Good and proactive. Silver lining: we’ll have better, or should I say real, tennis players and better results.
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 12, 2019 16:57:50 GMT -5
Not a great look. Its very easy to look up tennis recruits online including their competitive history--even non high elite ones. It would be very easy to check. Admissions typically has specific officers assigned to each sport. I would expect that person to at least look up a recruit and have questions the following year if none of the recruits play. As far as lee reed, I would not expect him or necessarily someone under him to catch a fraud like this before the person is admitted, though I would probably expect the sport administrator to notice if none of coaches recruits actually played or a high percentage did not. Its not that big a team or ath dept--I would think they would have questioned the coaches competence at least, if not actually surfacing a fraud. I would also think that admissions/athletics would have some tracking system once the recruits are here to see how they do athletically/academically as I know that the recruits are ranked coming in based on both sport specific and academic criteria. I quickly went thru the indictment. Apparently, the racketeers set up a fake evaluation service and provided fictitious athletic backgrounds. The profiles included fake honors that the students purportedly received and elite teams that they purportedly played on. In some instances, parents supplied Singer with staged photos of their children engaged in athletic activity – such as using a rowing machine or purportedly playing water polo. www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/arrests-made-nationwide-college-admissions-scam-alleged-exam-cheating-athletic
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C86
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Post by C86 on Mar 12, 2019 17:04:16 GMT -5
Perhaps it’s time to separate the head coaching jobs for men’s and women’s tennis. As this case shows, there is a ton of moral hazard in letting one person control that many admission slots.
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SSHoya
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Post by SSHoya on Mar 12, 2019 17:05:30 GMT -5
There are a few unanswered questions in the Georgetown statement, but I guess the biggest one is what did school think Ernst was doing when they discovered he was recruiting tennis players who didn't actually play? If I'm going to take a guess, maybe they thought he was doing favors for children of his friends. I assume no one thought he was actually taking bribes. Google reveals he and his wife bought a house in Chevy Chase, MD in 2012 for almost $1.6 million. I assume his wife is a high income professional or GU is paying its coaches way too much!
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Mar 12, 2019 18:56:29 GMT -5
This is easy to say with hindsight, and appears to be the policy going forward, but why would the admissions officer think the tennis coach was not recruiting tennis players for their tennis teams? And what would they possibly be able to learn that would provide better insight into the recruit's ability to contribute to the tennis team than what the coach has told them? Their job was to make sure the coach was bringing in academically qualified players. If the coach is burning their recruiting slots on kids who don't help their team and the coach is held accountable for their team's success in a Division I program, then the coach should not last very long. Excellent post. A few thoughts: Hindsight is always a case of realizing what one should have known all along. How many news reports on the first plane into the WTC said it must have been an accident? And then they understood. The gentry class has long been paranoid about the right school - from pre-K right up to Harvard Law, so the concept that someone of means would try to game the system seems obvious, at least now it does. And why wouldn't it be in the so-called country club sports, where coverage is limited and there is no four star Rivals.com index for lightweight eight rowers or women's tennis players? I never met Gordie Ernst in my Georgetown travels but this too speaks to hindsight. He wasn't some quick-talking guy from an SEC school that would raise concerns in the close-knit Georgetown athletic family. He'a a Brown grad, USTA New England Tennis Hall of Fame, here for the long haul. His father was a well known teacher and high school coach in Rhode Island. When he returned to URI, he received a warm column in the Providence Journal about the good kid coming home. Georgetown wasn't a stepping stone for his career and he didn't ask for his way or the highway when it came to funding. No one is getting fired over how the tennis team does on a year to year basis, so no one was going to call in compliance if there's an extra walk-on because one of the girls decided to focus on her studies. It happens for a lot of reasons, almost all of them honorable. But give credit to Georgetown for connecting the dots when it's clear the other schools had zero idea this was happening (and other schools still don't know it's going on). I'm pretty sure Lynn Swann had more important things to worry about at USC than who didn't show up for the women's crew team, which was the kind of cover that made this so insidious. But when the stakes are raised, so is the peril. The job market is replete with stories about people who had someone else take their phone interview, or who had someone just off the camera of a Skype feeding them answers. Would we expect the SAT test, the numbers that can propel or pile drive an academic career, to be any less upright? Or for CEO's who already know that a well-placed phone call can seal multi-million dollar deals, why wouldn't they do the same for their son or daughter? Why would Lori Laughlin pay $500K so her daughters could get into USC, posing them in photos on ergometers to seal the deal? And the larger story--with acceptance rates at 10 percent or less in the Ivies, to what extent would men and women of means go to get their kid in Princeton instead of Penn State, or Columbia instead of UConn? What's it worth to a hedge fund manager with a condo at Central Park West to make absolutely sure his son or daughter gets into Yale? The lesson of this story is the zero-trust model: establish controls that not only protect the school, but protect the applicant, that does not assume that the good word of a coach or a teacher is ever enough. I've held that, much like a gambler, the best criminal is one who doesn't stay too long at the tables. If Ernst had collected just one or two checks and announced he would retire in 2013, would Georgetown have ever launched an investigation to begin with, and would a wholly separate DOJ inquiry ever tie back to him? The paper trail, the evidence chain just grew too much. Maybe there's a smarter coach out there somewhere that says to himself "There but for the grace of God go I", but Ernst wasn't very smart. Federal charges of bribery and racketeering are, for someone in their 50's, the promise of a life sentence. And in hindsight it was entirely preventable.
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