IMG Academy Suspends Mark Riddell In University Bribery Scandal

The Bradenton Herald ^ | March 13, 2019 | Ryan Callihan

[jjotto]

You are correct.

These rich people were cheap, trying to get by with less than conventional donations would require, and they broke numerous laws doing it. Pointless greed.

[KevinB]

The real joke of all this is, the fact that people cheated to get in that couldn’t get in with their own grades and other things, should have flushed out by not being able to do the work even once in

It is much harder to get into these schools than to stay in them.

[KevinB]

Damn, one would think he made enough money playing bass for Pink Floyd. :-)

[KevinB]

Actually, I thought wealthy parents could get their kids into any college they want, and in the open legally by just offering the school a big pile of money.

My brother got his two kids into University of Pennsylvania that way.

[ETCM]

Seems to be spreading. This just in:

Former Penn coach, current Celtics assistant testifies to taking $300,000 in bribes

Apparently, this case was from last year, but just revealed. I imagine there are many, many more shoes to drop.

[Tallguy]

I’m hearing nothing but silence from the NCAA. If these schools acknowledge receiving unqualified athletes under false pretenses, their entire collegiate program system should be in suspension, immediately

The universities are going to claim "they knew nothing". But how do you hide ghost athletes on that school's varsity programs? Wouldn't there be a noticeable "hole" on the court? Oh, sure the coach was "in on it". But wouldn't he/she need to be covered by the athletic director's office? And if said student-athlete was receiving scholarship money and never showed then the admin in charge of finances might stumble upon it. What if they were a fan of Varsity Crew?

Nah! Nobody putting together a conspiracy like this is leaving that to chance. Payoffs up & down the line. The money would have to be spread far & wide and sufficiently thick to prevent people from talking.

[ConservaTeen]

I saw on the UConn athletics fansite page a few weeks ago, that someone created a perfect athlete for football and Auburn and Alabama both offered him a scholarship, so did LSU, FSU (not unusual, since scholar-athletes are fiction anyway) and Georgia.

The scandal is going to come down hard on universities, especially the Power 5 schools.

[9YearLurker]

I know someone who did that at a, say, top 20 school, about 15 years ago. And it cost a cool million. This route I expect was trying to do it on the cheap. Likely meant a higher profit for the intermediary, too. And scooped up those who wouldn’t or couldn’t pay that more “legit” market rate.

[Cecily]

They are all majoring in basket weaving, journalism, gender studies, or some other BS, slide major.

[HamiltonJay]

It doesn’t matter what their “major” is, there is still the core courses required even for a Liberal Arts degree... Someone who has to cheat to get in, should be flushing out of the core courses, because those should be challenging... Given the fact these kids couldn’t get in on merit, but didn’t flush out shows you just what a JOKE these “ELITE” universities are....

I have no doubt that specialized degrees there probably have some damn tough courses, but its OBVIOUS that the core, which everyone has to take, is not ELITE in the least.