I didn't see it posted (using the search feature), but yesterday, Sports Illustrated posted an in-depth story on several of the coaches convicted as part of Operation Varsity Blues (including former UT Men's Tennis Coach, Michael Center), with the focus of the article on who else knew about the schemes within the universities & why the FBI chose not to go after higher ups at any university. As part of that article, text messages were provided to SI that showed the UT Compliance Dept knew the "player" being admitted by Center didn't play tennis, and this was essentially a fund-raising opportunity get the son of a wealthy Bay Area family his dream job as a manager for the UT basketball team, which would then result in donations to the University by that family.
For those who can't holster their opinions long enough to actually read a lengthy article before opining, I've copy/pasted the highlights below (with the fully article in the tweet at the bottom), so maybe your opinions will be a little less uneducated & a little more on point with the subject matter in the article.
For those who can't holster their opinions long enough to actually read a lengthy article before opining, I've copy/pasted the highlights below (with the fully article in the tweet at the bottom), so maybe your opinions will be a little less uneducated & a little more on point with the subject matter in the article.
ABRIGED ARTICLE
Around that time, in late 2014, Center received a call from Martin Fox, a longtime tennis coach from Houston who had entered into the murky world of AAU basketball. A classic connector, Fox ran a team and steered recruits to colleges and universities.
Fox asked Center for a favor on behalf of a friend, Rick Singer. Based in Newport Beach, Calif., Singer ran a college consultancy business and one client, a wealthy Silicon Valley private equity titan, Chris Schaepe, had a son who wanted not only to attend Texas but also to become a manager on the men’s basketball team. Could Center help get him admitted under the guise that he was a tennis recruit?
Center recalls being confused. The basketball program had, as he puts it, “infinitely more juice” than tennis. What’s more, Schaepe supposedly had Bay Area connections to Kevin Durant. Why wouldn’t the family lean on Durant, the most prominent player in Longhorns history, for help? But Center agreed to entertain the offer. “Special favors,” he says, “happen all the time in college sports.”
The plan was simple. Center would recommend Schaepe’s son for admission as a tennis player, though, for all he knew, the kid didn’t know how to grip a racquet. Center’s recommendation then would have to be approved by a long chain of administrators—all of whom could have been expected to note that the applicant did not play tennis (and in fact hadn’t since he was a high school freshman). That chain would include the academic support staff, the compliance office, the sports supervisor and, ultimately, the athletic director. The applicant would sign a national letter of intent as a tennis player and receive a book scholarship. Then, upon arriving in Austin, he would renounce his interest in the sport and instead work as a basketball manager.
Coding the kid as a “recruited athlete” would reduce the academic requirements, improving his chances of admission. The basketball team would be getting a student manager with high-octane connections. Center would not lose a scholarship or roster spot, and, he notes, within the athletic department, “I would be considered a team player.”
And, crucially, there was the sloshing of money. Fox, by all accounts, the hub of communication for everyone involved, told Center that Schaepe and his wife were prepared to contribute $100,000 to Texas athletics, earmarked for tennis. And that might be just the beginning.
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In October 2014, the student—then a high school senior—met with Longhorns basketball coach Rick Barnes to discuss becoming a manager, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. In March ’15, Barnes took the head job at Tennessee and was replaced by Shaka Smart. Center wondered whether this might squelch the plans. It did not. Fox, says Center, quickly assured him that the basketball program “[still] really wanted this to happen.”
And it did. According to Center, he met with UT’s academic support staff and assured them that the kid would never play tennis, that this was really a fundraising mission. Academic support prepared the national letter of intent and sent it to the compliance department. Center provided SI with a screenshot of his text exchange with a compliance official confirming that the prospect would never play tennis for Texas and that he would relinquish his book scholarship in the fall. Dated June 11, 2015, the official’s text read: “Is Chiu-Schaepe even going to be a participant or will that cease after the fall? Was just thinking the voluntary relinquishment rule is typically for those who are no longer a part of the team so wanted to be sure.”
Center replied: “Will not participate.”
“There are forms and signatures and paperwork and on-boarding and housing,” says Center. “Everyone in the [athletic] department knows who [the recruits] are.”
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And as planned, Schaepe became a big donor. In July 2015, he contributed $100,000 to UT tennis. Shortly afterward, Schaepe and Chiu gave additional six-figure gifts to the communications school.
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After Schaepe’s son was admitted, Singer’s blog included a picture of the student with Kevin Durant. The caption: “Hey Rick, I wanted to thank you personally for all the help getting me into the University of Texas in Austin, and helping me secure a manager’s position with the UT basketball team.”
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Why would the U.S. attorneys settle for the indictments of parents and coaches of nonrevenue sports when they could take down bigger fish? The answer might lie in the nature of the charges filed. In a federal fraud case, the government must show a “deprivation of money or property”—for there to be fraud, by definition, someone or some entity must have been defrauded.
Who, specifically, was defrauded by the Varsity Blues scandal? “The [prosecutors] made noise,” says former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, now a professor at George Washington University Law School, that “this is an affront to all the good, hardworking students who couldn’t get into college because of shenanigans like this. But that wasn’t how they [made] their case.”
He’s right. As in the 2018 NCAA basketball corruption probe, the Varsity Blues prosecutors asserted that the schools themselves were the aggrieved, defrauded party. The government’s theory in ’18: When shoe companies and middlemen pay recruits, the schools are deprived of eligible athletes. Likewise, when coaches took bribes from Singer, they deprived schools of their honest services.
This theory holds if renegade coaches enrich themselves at the expense of the school. It unravels, however, if the schools are part of the scheme. “If [prosecutors] go after the head of the athletic department, at some point they’re undermining their own case,” says Eliason. “If the senior people are in on it, the schools aren’t being defrauded. They’re just playing the game like everyone else.”
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Center says that rock bottom had come months earlier, in September 2019, when he received an email of a Texas news release signed by the university’s president. It stated that an internal Varsity Blues investigation had found that the coach was solely responsible for any stain on the school: “Because Center’s conduct was unthinkable in athletics, the controls in place did not catch his subterfuge.”
Center says he was never contacted for the investigation, which was performed by the university’s vice president of legal affairs, not an outside firm.
