Once upon a time, there was an NBA player named Chuck Person. He was a very good NBA player. He was the 1987 NBA Rookie of the Year and averaged over 14 points per game over a 13-year career. They called him the “Rifleman” because he could flat out shoot. He was one of the great 3-point shooters of his era. Many remember the classic duel between Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins in the 1988 playoffs. Person had his own, less celebrated, showdown with Bird during the 1991 playoffs, during which Person averaged over 26 points per game, clearing 30 in 3 of the 5 games.
Chuck Person had a very good career.
Chuck Person is going to jail!
The “crime” is that he received over $91 thousand to steer players with NBA potential to a Pittsburgh financial advisor without revealing his relationship with the business to the recruits. Part of his plea deal will require him to forfeit that amount. While he has not actually been sentenced…that comes in July…it will be a mere formality. The sentencing guideline recommendation is for 2-2.5 years in federal prison. One typically does at least 90% of his/her federal time. He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in a Manhattan federal court. Person is one of four former college basketball assistant coaches to plead guilty to similar charges. They all most certainly will go to jail!
More recently, yet another college sport scandal has been exposed, which alleges that some very wealthy parents have been paying bribes to coaches, admissions employees, and even to imposter test-takers to ensure that their kids get into such elite colleges as the University of
Southern California (USC), Stanford, Georgetown, and Yale. The parents apparently paid $200 thousand and up to $6.5 million to have, their children admitted. In the case of Yale, the allegation is that the soccer coach accepted a $400 thousand bribe to accept an applicant who did not even play soccer.
According to court documents, over 50 have been implicated, among those are the following:
- Current Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer
• Former Yale women’s soccer coach Rudy Meredith
• Former Georgetown tennis coach Gordie Ernst, now at Rhode Island
• Current UCLA men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo
• Current Texas men’s tennis coach Michael Center
• Current Wake Forest women’s volleyball coach William “Bill” Ferguson
• Former USC women’s soccer head coach Ali Khosroshahin
• Former USC women’s soccer assistant coach Laura Janke
• Current USC Senior Associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel
• Current USC water polo head coach Jovan Vavic
Other implicated individuals of note include:
- Mark Riddell, the Director of College Entrance Exam Preparation at IMG Academy, a private college preparatory school and sports academy in Bradenton, Fla.
• Igor Dvorskiy, the Director of West Hollywood College Prep School
• Actress Lori Loughlin, of Full House fame
• Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffman, and… - William “Rick” Singer, CEO of the Edge College and Career Network
The charges could add up to 20 years’ incarceration and a fine of up to $239 thousand, although federal prosecutors have said they will recommend punishment “at the low end of the scale!”
Other than Singer, the alleged mastermind, who has already pleaded guilty to a number of charges to include racketeering, conspiracy, and money laundering, very few of these folks will go to jail.
There are several distinctions to take away from comparing and contrasting these two scandals.
One is more evidence to debunk the myth that merit is the primary ingredient in upward mobility in America. There is a largely false narrative in America that says the haves achieved due to hard work and sacrifice. Subsequently, those who do not achieve have no one to blame but themselves and their own lack of initiative and work ethic. This scandal shows that even those who promote this narrative do not believe it themselves or are acknowledging through their wallet that their kid is a slacker. Or maybe they just feel that all in life should go their way by both birthright and bank account. Their children are born with all the advantages necessary for them to build an academic and life resume that would get them into the schools they want to attend. That was not good enough for their parents. They want it guaranteed or as the political right in America often call an ENTITLEMENT!
Simply put, to use a baseball analogy, even though they have been “born on third base”, they still want to cheat to get home.
Some of these same parents will rail against race-based affirmative action in college admissions, even though it has NEVER been a guarantee.
On the contrary, the student athletes from the first scandal are overwhelmingly from poor backgrounds and participate in the largest revenue generating college sports: football and men’s basketball. Football and basketball athletes, overwhelmingly Black, generate the revenue, which funds the tennis, golf, crew, and lacrosse athletic scholarships, which overwhelmingly go to white students. What that means is that this completely sorry episode is a form of income redistribution.
A silver lining to this all may be a class action suit filed by several students seeking over $5 million in damages and accusing the schools of negligence in guaranteeing the fairness in their admissions processes.
I hope that the Asian students who have joined white student grievances about race-based affirmative action in admissions now realize that Black and Brown folks are not getting the spot at Yale to which they feel entitled.
