If you were a Track coach, could you be bribed to let a celebrity's kid into college?

Money talks, bullshit walks.

My college coach got paid 23K a year and had a wife and kids. I wouldn't blame him.

thinking about it wrote:

My college coach got paid 23K a year and had a wife and kids. I wouldn't blame him.

Exactly, all you'd have to say is that you recruited him as a walk on that maybe had potential, but the kid decided college track wasn't for him after 1 or 2 practices.

How many of those involved are celebrities?

A handful were known, all were very rich.

The opposite of this often happens at schools without scholarship - coach goes to bat for some kid, even pretty good ones, they show up in the fall and after a week of practice they drop off the team to focus on academics, 4 years later out the door with degree. They would not have been admitted without support from the coach. With no money to bind the kids, there is no mechanism to keep them on the team.

willywanka wrote:

... T&F doesn't pay much so it would be tempting, but college track coaching jobs are few and far between. If I had one, I sure as heck wouldn't want to do anything to screw it up.

Wanting to avoid losing your job isn't the only reason not to do this. The other two reasons are:

1) its unethical

2) you could go to jail

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

willywanka wrote:

... T&F doesn't pay much so it would be tempting, but college track coaching jobs are few and far between. If I had one, I sure as heck wouldn't want to do anything to screw it up.

Wanting to avoid losing your job isn't the only reason not to do this. The other two reasons are:

1) its unethical

2) you could go to jail

Therein lies the question... how much if any amount of money would tempt you? $25k, $100k... think about it. You are track coach making maybe 50k and now you could get $100k cash... you can put a big down payment on a house to take care of your family, your wife could get a decent car... just basic things that make life easier. You just look the other way while Richie Rich gets into X school.

It'd be tempting for sure.

I wouldn't go into track coaching unless I had enough family money to allow me to basically take on a hobby as a career without regard to pay, so if I was a track coach, I don't think I'd feel compelled to accept bribes.

Everyone wants to coach; WHY ...? As far as the bribes ...NO; you should be busy dealing with your hard taxing responsibility of assigning 6x1000m @ CV or maybe posting the 12 mile easy recovery run; don’t become too exhausted... lol.

This is not applicable to the vast majority of track coaches.

At most school letting someone walk on is not a big deal, so there would not even be a need for a bribe. Most coaches may even welcome a celebrity to boost recruiting.

The issue in the news is coaches at prestigious DI Ivy/Cal private schools. Those schools are hard to get into and coaches were assigning "athletic preference" to help otherwise unqualified students get into school. The students in question were either not athletes or at least not talented enough to warrant athletic preference on admission and coaches were accepting large bribes to give these unqualified students one of their limited recruiting spots.

This is particularly despicable because the coaches at any institution where this would be applicable are already among the top 20% (at least) in terms of compensation in the industry.

Everyone can be bought. You just have to figure out the price. I think for some, it's not only the money but also the celebrity status that they fall for. It makes them feel important.

Sliding Scale wrote:

This is not applicable to the vast majority of track coaches.

At most school letting someone walk on is not a big deal, so there would not even be a need for a bribe. Most coaches may even welcome a celebrity to boost recruiting.

The issue in the news is coaches at prestigious DI Ivy/Cal private schools. Those schools are hard to get into and coaches were assigning "athletic preference" to help otherwise unqualified students get into school. The students in question were either not athletes or at least not talented enough to warrant athletic preference on admission and coaches were accepting large bribes to give these unqualified students one of their limited recruiting spots.

This is particularly despicable because the coaches at any institution where this would be applicable are already among the top 20% (at least) in terms of compensation in the industry.

Walkons are typically viewed as students who were already admitted to the university.

D1 football has "preferred walkons" who do not have a scholarship but are encouraged to try out for the team. Sometimes these are kids who will get a scholarship as soon as one opens up. (Players leave for a variety of reasons).

Rojo did at Cornell, multiple times. How else to explain such poor outcomes for the JK Factor?

willywanka wrote:

Would you, or if you admit that you would, how much would it cost to buy you and make you look the other way?

I know it would be hard. T&F doesn't pay much so it would be tempting, but college track coaching jobs are few and far between. If I had one, I sure as heck wouldn't want to do anything to screw it up.

100%. $50k tax free...that would double the salary for the year for the "average" mid tier D1 coach.

Sure. Just do it once or twice and you'd be fine.

You get burned when you can't stop. Greed kills.

This type of stuff would be so easy to pull off in this day of Bitcoin that I'm surprised we don't see more of it. I would guess that it doesn't happen in track and XC so much because:

1) These kids getting their way bought in probably aren't even close to the athletic level of actual team members, making the ruse blatantly obvious.

2) Track in general has a very upstanding culture regarding cheating (at least in the US), which I especially like when compared to other sports like cycling.

Sliding Scale wrote:

This is particularly despicable because the coaches at any institution where this would be applicable are already among the top 20% (at least) in terms of compensation in the industry.

Even rich people can be bought because no matter what, everyone thinks they need more money. So being in the top 20% is a stupid stat to site.

Also most people have a trigger, it could be money, it could be sex, it could be drugs, it could even be something noble, like help for someone in their family (jobs, medical treatment, etc.)

It's the whole premise of Breaking Bad... he was selling meth to pay for cancer treatment and to leave his family some money, but....

wouldn't coach for the money wrote:

I wouldn't go into track coaching unless I had enough family money to allow me to basically take on a hobby as a career without regard to pay, so if I was a track coach, I don't think I'd feel compelled to accept bribes.

A trust funder? They have a head start on the rest of us. ( without naming names, wink, wink).