Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
Here's how the admissions stuff worked with water polo at USC:
quote:
According to the affidavit, Singer would create an “athletic profile” for the student, complete with falsified stats, doctored pictures and even fake awards. Then Vavic or Heinel, accepting money from Singer, would present the profile, along with those of actual water polo recruits, to a USC admissions subcommittee that reviewed incoming athletes.
It appears USC took Vavic at his word. This is not that abnormal in the collegiate water polo world. One former D-I coach says that when he submitted his roster, his superiors just accepted it, apparently without vetting the names at all. Not every school has the time or resources to conduct background checks on small-sport recruits. There is no centralized database for water polo recruiting, no Rivals.com of pool sports. The top players in the country may know one another, but mid-tier players can come from anywhere. Vavic traveled the world trying to unearth new talent, so it was conceivable he would bring in some unknown recruits. According to court documents, Heinel once defended a fake recruit to the admissions office, claiming Vavic had discovered the boy at a tournament in Serbia.
Vavic could be convincing, too. In one case, he emailed a USC athletics administrator that one of these fake recruits “would be the fastest player on our team,” and that he could swim 50 yards in 20 seconds—two seconds quicker than his fastest players. “This kid can fly,” Vavic wrote. It was a total fabrication. USC admitted the boy just two days later.
It’s unclear whether his fake recruits ever saw the pool or where the money paid on their behalf—the going rate appeared to be between $220,000 and $250,000—ended up. Singer allegedly made private school tuition payments for Vavic’s children. But Singer also told a parent, in a wiretapped conversation, that he believed Vavic usually used the money to “subsidize” the salaries of his assistant coaches, who did so much to keep his dynasty going. (None of Vavic’s assistants have been charged.)
It seemed like the perfect crime. If one of those fake recruits happened to leave the team, no one would’ve noticed, because Vavic’s teams, especially the men’s team, had so much attrition. Players would leave all the time, unhappy with their playing time, fed up over Vavic’s coaching style, or simply more interested in focusing on school. “I’d say there were usually five to six guys that [dropped out] every year,” Burton says.
https://www.si.com/more-sports...ter-polo-jovan-vavic 
