Impact of NCAA recruiting on water polo in the US

General
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The evidence is the Varsity Blues scandal. It was happening in gross and scandalous manners.

While the methods used in VB have been since eradicated, the fact remains that coaches are very aware of families financial situations during the recruiting process. It’s a factor and we shouldn’t be naive enough to think it has no impact.

Private high schools like HW have huge advantages when it comes to test preparation and these wealthy parents will also pay for SAT tutoring to ensure a good score (also part of the Varsity Blues scandal by the way was that they would pay to have an SAT test expert take the test for them).

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That is not legitimate evidence against players that have come after the Varsity Blues scandal. In fact, all schools have been increasingly stringent on the admissions process following the VB scandal.

My statement remains the same - site your evidence that the players admitted to these schools are not academically qualified. Site your evidence that these students are not strong water polo players. Site your evidence that the students are gaining admission because their parents are paying the schools or that their bank accounts are influencing admissions. Absent any evidence, these statements are pretty outrageous IMO.

Neither you nor @SkipShot are citing any evidence for your assertions. You are simply making accusations that disparage both schools and the hard-working kids who attended those schools.

You are also state that these students may have a competitive advantage re test prep. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t (where is your evidence either way? Do you have information on the tutoring and financial advantages of these students?). This issue is irrelevant. Whether kids have tutors or not, they take the exams and score what they score. The Ivys and Stanford have a threshold for SAT/ACT scores. If a kid cannot meet that threshold, they don’t get in. If they do, they still have a shot, but it’s not guaranteed. It’s that simple.

@SkipShot noted that there is “no other way to explain why wealthy kids (who are not considered top recruits) from Harvard Westlake, Sacred Heart Prep and schools in Connecticut are making it onto the rosters of certain private schools”.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to explain why these types of private school players “who are not top recruits” may get on to the rosters of the Ivy league schools. First, the water polo programs mentioned (Sacred Heart Prep and Harvard Westlake) are great water polo programs. Even if a player on one of those teams is not on the USA national team, chances are, they are very good - skilled and ranking in the upper echelon nationally – and likely excelling academically. So, they are far from chopped liver. In fact, they are the type of “scholar-athlete” that the Ivys/Stanford tout as the type of athlete that embodies their core values. It’s not all about water polo with these schools, right?

Second, while the Ivys have excellent teams, they are not water polo powerhouses that equal the Big 4. So, they won’t attract every single tippy “top player”. Given this, they are recruiting from an expanded candidate pool which includes “good” players (maybe not “great”) with excellent academics.

I take issue with these assertions that are not backed up by evidence – or at least not acknowledged that it’s just an opinion based on outside cited information. If anyone is going to disparage these kids and their parents, you better back it up with some facts.

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Sheesh. I actually never said in either of my posts that these players aren’t academically qualified or athletic fits for those schools.

All I said was that the coaches are very aware of their financial situations and they have significant advantages over other players who may be similar players from public schools.

So again, not disparaging anyone here and not going to single out specific examples of players who have used their relationships or finances for their own gain either.

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“Do you have information on the tutoring and financial advantages of these students?”

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Hi - I formerly coached at a selective school here giving my two cents that I hope can offer perspective.

The other thing that doesn’t always come up (but should IMO), is selective schools such as the Ivies and Claremont colleges operate under need based financial aid. So another reason why we were told to be mindful recruiting wise (besides talent and transcripts) is because not everyone can afford the full price of tuition. There are some who are on the opposite end of this line who will be awarded aid by the university. The reality is those kids are far and few in between in a sport like water polo.

On top of this coaches are now being further pressed to fundraise further incentivizing identifying top talent who have the grades and can afford to enroll. It’s a hard reality for coaches to make that happen.

The uni I work at now is a little bit different, but fundraising is still a big emphasis and sometimes recruiting from areas that have kids of good academic standing and can offer fundraising goes a long way. One of my former players who competed for Michigan said Marcelo (for all intents and purposes of this discussion), tried to identify players based on academic readiness and water polo readiness and I personally am a fan of the terminology.

At the end of the day, higher education is a business and we live in a capitalist system. Some coaches will utilize strategies for different success points and a big part of that happens in the recruitment process

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Retiredguy, I appreciate your insight and what you are saying sounds correct; however, wouldn’t paying/donating money to an organization to sweeten the pot, regardless if it’s before or after admission to the university, to get your kid a spot on a water polo roster considered “Pay for Play” or using a more layman term, bribery? I understand that it is legal to donate to a specific college program and even a coach through a booster fund if the donations are based on metrics e.g. Win a national title, deliver a Cutino Award nominee, etc. But if kids can get rostered if their parents donate to a program and/or a coach, that sounds illegal.

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Maybe this economic differentiation will lead to better parity across the schools.

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Its not illegal. In fact most development offices at private schools identify potential prospective students (regardless of whether they play a sport) and analyze their ability to donate above and beyond tuition. If those families offer to donate, there is no doubt that helps their kid gain acceptance. The same is true for sports programs all over the country. These are mostly private schools, and they are literally “pay to play”, i.e., you have to pay to go here, and if you can pay more than someone else, you get a leg up. During the Varsity Blues investigation, it was revealed that USC has an admissions department with admissions officers assigned to various regions of the country, and in particular, different regions of Southern California: West LA, San Gabriel Valley, San Fernando Valley, North Orange County, Long Beach Area, etc. Guess what area had at least two admissions officers dedicated solely to it: Harvard-Westlake. That’s correct, Harvard-Westlake was considered its own “area” within USC admissions, and they assigned more admissions officers than much larger geographical areas. Why do you think that is? It’s certainly not because there are more academically eligible students coming out of one small private high school than all of the San Fernando Valley. Its because those parents can pay full boat.

The only reason the sports aspect of Varsity Blues was considered illegal, although the only two criminal convictions after trial in that investigation have been reversed on appeal or dismissed while on appeal, was that a middleman was paid who then allegedly defrauded the universities by either submitting fake documentation, or having an insider on the payroll faking documentation or changing documentation. It was based on a defrauding of the university theory. But if those same parents had just skipped the middleman and paid the university directly, they wouldn’t have gotten in trouble, and it would have been perfectly legal. Why do you think USC/UCLA/Stanford/Cal ran JV programs for so many years before roster limits? Those JV teams were filled with kids from wealthy areas who couldn’t make the varsity team.

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Paying full tuition is one thing but donations directly to coaches, are you saying that is legal too?

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I was referring to donations to the school or program. Benefits directly to the coaches would be considered illegal if the school was unaware of it and didn’t approve it. Again, that would be fraud on the school.

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So after a kid is accepted at a college, and the parents want to donate to his/her sport program only, that is perfectly legal, as long as you do it through proper channels and it is made to benefit the whole team, correct?

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yes, every athletic department has a “day of giving” they collect donations for each specific sport. Players parents are “expected” to contribute…

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I’m still under the belief that being rostered and playing time is given in exchange for those “donations.”

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They had 3 players from other countries on the roster in 2021 and 2022, 2 in 2023, 1 in 2024. I don’t think one foreign recruit for the 2025 team is a major departure. More than 20% of Harvard’s student body is from other countries.

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Well, I think if a parent of a kid that has applied tells the school they intend to make a gift, regardless of whether they play a sport or not, that can oftentimes be taken into account in getting into a school. Legacy programs were a proxy for this practice at many prestigious private schools. Whether the ability and intent to make a gift should help or not, its not illegal, at least at private schools.

As it relates to non-revenue Olympic sports teams, coaches have for years recruited not only the best players, but also kids whose families can help the programs financially. The interview of the Stanford sailing coach during the Varsity Blues scandal revealed what had been a well known practice: recruit kids who are good enough at their sport to arguably make the team, but whose families can financially benefit the program, taking stress off athletic department budgets. This was encouraged by all athletic administrations prior to Varsity Blues.

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I cant speak of other schools but as a parent of ct woman water polo player graduating princeton, i can assure you that you are dead wrong about the tigers.. not a little but completely and utterly wrong. Writing a diatribe like you did without any substantiation or proof about the programs, parents & players on those teams isnt going to help ur kid get recruited.

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For the record, I wasn’t writing a diatribe. And I’m not trying to pick a fight. I apologize for potentially impugning the merits of your daughter or any other specific student-athlete. Going to, and playing for, Princeton is an unbelievable accomplishment, and one that should be celebrated. I purposefully didn’t mention Princeton or any school in particular (other than the Stanford sailing coach who was interviewed in the Varsity Blues documentary) and what I said is very dependent on coaches/programs/schools that were revealed in the Varsity Blues investigation.

In responding to the posts earlier, I was simply trying to shed some light on what the system looked like pre-Varsity Blues, relying on the record of the two trials that went forward, and personal experience from development departments at multiple small private colleges. To that end, there is substantiation in the massive record produced in the Varsity Blues investigation, especially the two trials, of the role development departments played in admissions decisions.

At the end of the day, I’m sure the overwhelming vast majority of students and student-athletes are admitted based on their own unbelievably impressive merit with no promise of donations. And that was also proved by the record in the Varsity Blues trials.

Lastly, my kids couldn’t get into Princeton even if my last name was Rockefeller, so the point of this is not to help my kids get recruited by an elite Ivy league school. We’ll make do with some lowly California public school.

And that’s it for my “diatribe.”

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Signings seem to be starting to pick up a bit with Long Beach signing two International Players, one from Hungary/Brazil and the other from Spain via LBCC. I assume they are additional to any 2025 signed players and the portal.

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Davis is bringing a Croatian center from Mladost, a player from Barcelona and a Canadian afaik.

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Don’t know if this has been brought up or if this belongs in the House Settlement thread, but would it possible, or even legal, to restrict the NIL and/or scholarship limit to US athletes only? Or cap the amount of NIL/scholarships going to non-US athletes? Again, not even sure if this is legal but is that a possibility for NCAA or whatever entity emerges from this going forward?