[JJJ]

SI on Texas tennis coach. With a Stanford cameo.



*sorry, may be paywalled. I must've just exceeded my monthly free allocation.

The Real Scandal of Varsity Blues

Texas’s former men’s tennis coach says he has paid for his mistakes. What he wants to know is why nobody in charge has.

• Jon Wertheim
  
• 6 hours ago
  

For Michael Center, 2019 was shaping up as a hell of a year. After almost two decades as the coach of the Texas men’s tennis program, Center had assembled a team capable of winning the NCAA title. His two top singles players were blazingly talented, perhaps the strongest recruits he’d ever had. All season, the Longhorns thrashed opponents.

On the third Sunday in May the Longhorns would fulfill their promise, defeating Wake Forest in Orlando to win their first national championship in the program’s 73-year history. Center watched the matches with pride, wearing his trademark burnt-orange T-shirt and a considerable smile.

But as a dogpile ensued on the court, Center was home on the couch, suddenly in tears and unsure how to feel. “It was a dream day,” he recalls, “and it was also one of the most difficult moments of my life.” It didn’t help that ESPN’s broadcasters had referred to Center as “a distraction.” When the team FaceTimed him an hour later, he fumbled through a few words of praise and then cried again.

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But it remains an open question: What did admissions, and other administrators, know at each of the eight Varsity Blues schools? Consider Stanford. There, sailing coach John Vandemoer designated two applicants as athlete recruits, without vetting them. In exchange, he received $770,000 from Singer. Neither student matriculated to the school. And Vandemoer kept none of the funds personally, instead investing them in the Stanford sailing program.


Vandemoer recalls that when he mentioned Singer, other members of the athletic department spoke glowingly of him. “He’s a guy you can trust,” Vandemoer remembers Stanford assistant basketball coach Adam Cohen enthusing.

Vandemoer says he handed over a check for $500,000 from Singer’s charity—part of the $770,000—to a fundraising administrator in the athletic department. Pleased by this windfall, she summoned Bernard Muir, Stanford’s AD. According to Vandemoer, when he began to explain that the checks came from Singer, his boss cut him off. “Oh, we know Rick,” said Muir. “We know Rick well.” (A Stanford spokesman tells SI: “Coach Cohen does not recall ever endorsing Singer. . . . Stanford’s athletic director never met or spoke with Singer and had no relationship with him.”)

After being indicted, Vandemoer was fired. He would plead guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and be sentenced to one day in prison, six months of house arrest, two years of probation and a $10,000 fine. A subsequent external review commissioned by Stanford found no evidence that any other employee of the athletics department had “agreed to support a Singer client in exchange for financial consideration.” It did, however, note that Singer “directly or indirectly approached seven Stanford coaches about potential recruits between 2009 and 2019.”

Vandemoer was floored. “I didn’t buy for a minute that I was the only one who’d been taken in by him,” he says. “Why would Singer keep coming back, year after year, if his efforts weren’t bearing fruit?” He made those points in a book published last fall, Rigged Justice: How the College Admissions Scandal Ruined an Innocent Man’s Life.

“I get asked, ‘Will this be the difference? Will this change these schools?’ ” Vandemoer says, referring to the scandalous publicity around Varsity Blues. “My simple answer is ‘no,’ because the people in charge are the problem.”

Vandemoer has been diagnosed with PTSD and “I still have my moments,” he tells SI, “my nightmares, when the anger, the frustration comes back.” But he’s found catharsis talking about his ordeal. And he is back on the water, coaching kids, ages 10 to 13, in Redwood City, Calif.

https://www.si.com/college/2022/01/20/va...aily-cover

[JJJ]

SI on Texas tennis coach. With a Stanford cameo.



*sorry, may be paywalled. I must've just exceeded my monthly free allocation.

The Real Scandal of Varsity Blues

Texas’s former men’s tennis coach says he has paid for his mistakes. What he wants to know is why nobody in charge has.

• Jon Wertheim
  
• 6 hours ago
  

For Michael Center, 2019 was shaping up as a hell of a year. After almost two decades as the coach of the Texas men’s tennis program, Center had assembled a team capable of winning the NCAA title. His two top singles players were blazingly talented, perhaps the strongest recruits he’d ever had. All season, the Longhorns thrashed opponents.

On the third Sunday in May the Longhorns would fulfill their promise, defeating Wake Forest in Orlando to win their first national championship in the program’s 73-year history. Center watched the matches with pride, wearing his trademark burnt-orange T-shirt and a considerable smile.

But as a dogpile ensued on the court, Center was home on the couch, suddenly in tears and unsure how to feel. “It was a dream day,” he recalls, “and it was also one of the most difficult moments of my life.” It didn’t help that ESPN’s broadcasters had referred to Center as “a distraction.” When the team FaceTimed him an hour later, he fumbled through a few words of praise and then cried again.

null



****SNIPPED*****




But it remains an open question: What did admissions, and other administrators, know at each of the eight Varsity Blues schools? Consider Stanford. There, sailing coach John Vandemoer designated two applicants as athlete recruits, without vetting them. In exchange, he received $770,000 from Singer. Neither student matriculated to the school. And Vandemoer kept none of the funds personally, instead investing them in the Stanford sailing program.


Vandemoer recalls that when he mentioned Singer, other members of the athletic department spoke glowingly of him. “He’s a guy you can trust,” Vandemoer remembers Stanford assistant basketball coach Adam Cohen enthusing.

Vandemoer says he handed over a check for $500,000 from Singer’s charity—part of the $770,000—to a fundraising administrator in the athletic department. Pleased by this windfall, she summoned Bernard Muir, Stanford’s AD. According to Vandemoer, when he began to explain that the checks came from Singer, his boss cut him off. “Oh, we know Rick,” said Muir. “We know Rick well.” (A Stanford spokesman tells SI: “Coach Cohen does not recall ever endorsing Singer. . . . Stanford’s athletic director never met or spoke with Singer and had no relationship with him.”)

After being indicted, Vandemoer was fired. He would plead guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and be sentenced to one day in prison, six months of house arrest, two years of probation and a $10,000 fine. A subsequent external review commissioned by Stanford found no evidence that any other employee of the athletics department had “agreed to support a Singer client in exchange for financial consideration.” It did, however, note that Singer “directly or indirectly approached seven Stanford coaches about potential recruits between 2009 and 2019.”

Vandemoer was floored. “I didn’t buy for a minute that I was the only one who’d been taken in by him,” he says. “Why would Singer keep coming back, year after year, if his efforts weren’t bearing fruit?” He made those points in a book published last fall, Rigged Justice: How the College Admissions Scandal Ruined an Innocent Man’s Life.

“I get asked, ‘Will this be the difference? Will this change these schools?’ ” Vandemoer says, referring to the scandalous publicity around Varsity Blues. “My simple answer is ‘no,’ because the people in charge are the problem.”

Vandemoer has been diagnosed with PTSD and “I still have my moments,” he tells SI, “my nightmares, when the anger, the frustration comes back.” But he’s found catharsis talking about his ordeal. And he is back on the water, coaching kids, ages 10 to 13, in Redwood City, Calif.

https://www.si.com/college/2022/01/20/va...aily-cover