NEWS

No Oversight Means Plenty Of Scandals

Donna Heinel probably had pretty good reason to think she would never got caught taking bribes to get students into USC.

Since around 2007, she pretty much was the only person in the athletic dept. who dealt with the admissions boards. It was her own fiefdom.

This often made her unpopular with USC coaches because she would often reject seemingly qualified candidates before even taking them to the admission board. One coach told me today how she rejected his athlete, only to have Oregon take the athlete later.

Little did these coaches know took around $1.3 million in bribes, according to the federal government.

And at the same time, Jovan Vavic was running his own operation with water polo worth more than $500,000.

I am very familiar with this admission process and saw coaches do it frequently. But they would take actual high school athletes as walk-ons who did not have the usual 4.0 GPA or amazing SAT score that seems to be required at USC these days.

One could argue all these scandals have one thing in common: No oversight.

Just like USC has an ineffective board of trustees, no full-time president and an absentee athletic director.

Here’s an example below of what Heinel did when USC admissions wanted to know why a women’s basketball recruit never played for the team.

 

 

26 thoughts on “No Oversight Means Plenty Of Scandals”

  1. Good post.

    I would add that this is the type of problem that occurs when those at the top are not qualified to be there: Haden, and now Swann.

    The chickens have come home to roost.

    Liked by 6 people

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      1. Now it is involving the football program!

        https://sports.yahoo.com/indictment-college-prep-business-faked-students-as-football-players-to-get-them-into-usc-165738633.html

        Heinel has been charged with racketeering conspiracy as part of the wide-ranging indictment that also names actresses Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman. In addition to helping students get into USC as football recruits, Heinel allegedly did the same for kids positioned as basketball and crew recruits. Laughlin’s daughters were posed as crew recruits.

        USC said Tuesday afternoon that Heinel, along with water polo coach Jovan Vavic, had been fired.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. gotroy22 —tell me how the swim coach gets students into USC as football recruits w/o the football coaching staff knowing about it?

        Like

      1. Ted, you should demand a refund from your Devry Institute Photoshop class, and while you are at it, let your probation officer know that you won’t be getting employed in graphic design anytime soon.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. No oversight means plenty of scandals —-and plenty of scandals means no sports coverage. But, hey, no one can really say this stuff isn’t more interesting than Helton. For those who are not following this story, our toy acting president released a statement saying that although this scandal involves some students brought in as football players there is no indication that anyone in the program had knowledge of what was going on. Let’s REALLY hope that’s true —for the sake of a bunch of players who want to prove something (positive) in 2019.

    Liked by 5 people

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    1. Thumbs up, Michael. This whole mess is awful.

      After a recent lack of institutional control penalty, how hard is it to implement a few simple checks and procedures?

      #TooHardForHadenTheRhodesScholar

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

      1. 67 — Yes, Haden& Swann. And —let’s face it— Wanda Austin. The gutsy thing for Austin to do (and the very thing I know she won’t do) is announce, “I’m not going to continue providing cover for this mess. A REAL president needs to be selected by the end of April. USC is an institution that is desperately in need of a proven leader —-someone who can salvage what is left of a once justifiably proud university.”

        Liked by 4 people

  3. Lots of scandals going on.! Doctors, athletics, now bribes. Sad time in Trojan land. Plus we are facing the worst year in last 112 years for basketball, football , and baseball performance

    Liked by 1 person

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  4. Thumbs up, Michael. They will need to bring in a person with strong administrative academic experience (who is almost certainly working at another university now), but this means that July or August is probably the earliest to have them on board.

    It is hard to start and finish this type of search in less than 45-60 days, so they better be doing something now if they want a new person in place by summer.

    Scottie hit the nail on the head re: ineffective BOT.

    Liked by 3 people

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    2. Just your typical Freshman, 1280 SAT, bozo scholar….LOL. This airhead video should/will go viral. SUCCX w/b the laughing stock joke on the University chicken dinner circuit.

      And, what an incredible blow to Clown U’s counterfeit scholastic reputation.

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      Reply

      1. Just Rent aka Night Train,

        What is worse is some dudette or dude, don’t know the gender, got in to ugly on a soccer scholi. Now, we all know soccer is not a sport. That is the funny part of it.

        Like

    1. I could easily see Swann being fooled by any of those application photos —except maybe the one of the mustached guy celebrating a soccer victory in a sports bra….

      Liked by 2 people

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  8. Swann needs to be held accountable. He needs to report to the alumni, boosters, BOT, and fans on what happened. he needs to have a plan on how he will remedy this problem. Then fire him.

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