Lori Loughlin

[aibohphobia]

Mar 16, 2019 16:58:34 GMT -4 Mugsy said:

So the rowing team thing... does the college have a shitty team if half the kids aren't real rowers? What's the point of that for the college? Or does the college recruit more kids than needed for the team, with some being good enough to actually have a workable team and some being these dumb filler kids who just paid to be there?

All I can find is that the USC women's rowing team was ranked #13 in the final coaches poll last year, and that a few sites say that they're one of the top 30 schools for rowing. (I don't know how reliable those sites are though.)

So I guess it was a situation of recruiting more kids than they needed with some being good enough to be on the team, and the others being benchwarmers.

I never understood the obsession with American colleges recruiting kids for random sports by giving them a free education? Sure, football and basketball make money for the college, but how does it benefit the college to have a bunch of top shelf pole vaulters?

A Canadian girl I know got a free college education in the US because she was a champion javelin thrower. But if she got to the Olympics, she would have been on the Canadian team anyway, so why would the college bother?

Some of it is probably related to Title IX.

Participation: Title IX requires that women and men be provided equitable opportunities to participate in sports. Title IX does not require institutions to offer identical sports but an equal opportunity to play;

There's also a few awards each year given to the best athletic Division I programs. One is the Capital One Cup which is split into a Men's Championship and a Women's Championship. While another is the NACDA Director's Cup which is just for one award overall. So bragging rights explain part of it. Plus, it helps with recruiting in that if you win either one of those awards, or in the running every year for those awards.

And recruiting can lead to getting more attention for your school if your athletes are at the Olympics regularly or regularly win championships shown on ESPN and what not. And that can lead to more money overall either from donations or other potential students wanting to go there.

[seat6]

My former coach has come back East and landed on his feet. He has a bright future in the sport.

Two things about rowing at the collegiate level that I have not seen mentioned:

1) Because of Title IX, rowing is a varsity sport for women and a club sport for men. The prestige is in the women’s teams and coaching.

[Brief explanation of Title IX: colleges that offer athletic scholarships need to offer the same number to women and men. Because women don’t play football, sports like rowing, tennis, and volleyball offer scholarships for women, making them varsity sports, while the men’s teams may remain club sports, since football takes up all the available male scholarships.]

2) Rowing is not a very common sport at the high school level. A boat for 8 rowers can cost $80K. It’s expensive, you have to have access to a body of water, and you have to have decent weather. In my state, there’s probably four high schools with teams (and two of those are boarding schools). Most collegiate rowing teams are built with complete novices. Rowing is not one of those sports like gymnastics that you start at age four. I know several college coaches and they just walk around campus and ask tall skinny people if they want to try out for the team. So Olivia and Isabella being flagged as rowers would have gotten then a second look from the admissions officer, if the head coach had said he was interested in them. Now, USC has a really good program. I looked at their current roster and it does look like most of the team had some experience, if not in rowing then in swimming. But the college team at our local SEC school probably only has 10% of the athletes with prior experience.

And in answer to your question, Mugsy, I don’t think Olivia or Isabella ever went to a practice. I didn’t see their names on past rosters. The coach just told the admissions office he was interested in them, and then never put them on the team, though he may have sacrificed one of his recruiting spots for that bribe.

[Martini Girl]

Two semi-related comments.

Birch Bayh, the author of Title IX died earlier this week at the age of 90.

I'm watching Legally Blonde on Netflix, and in light of this weeks' news, it's making me smile. Elle Woods, the air-head blonde, busts her butt to get a good enough score on the LSAT to get into Harvard Law School (she also had a 4.0 at what I'm assuming was either USC or UCLA), while the object of her affection, Warner, had to have his influential father call to get him off the wait-list. His family had five generations of Senators in it...

Elle goes on to be the valedictorian, and no law firm offers Warner a position...

I forgot how much I liked the movie.

Also, Netflix fired Aunt Becky from the last season of Fuller House.

[prisma]

I listened to the latest Tom and Lorenzo podcast this morning and they discussed the scandal. Tom brought up the notion that it is considered unfair that everyone is focusing on the two women, but he (like us) thought it was because they were the most recognizable names. And then he said that "Lori Loughlin's daughers were just so hateable." And that made me laugh. Because it's true. Felicity Huffman's daughter sounds like she was probably a more normal teenager who wanted to do well on her test.

[waytoocheerful]

Mar 16, 2019 16:58:34 GMT -4 Mugsy said:

So the rowing team thing... does the college have a shitty team if half the kids aren't real rowers? What's the point of that for the college? Or does the college recruit more kids than needed for the team, with some being good enough to actually have a workable team and some being these dumb filler kids who just paid to be there?

I never understood the obsession with American colleges recruiting kids for random sports by giving them a free education? Sure, football and basketball make money for the college, but how does it benefit the college to have a bunch of top shelf pole vaulters?

A Canadian girl I know got a free college education in the US because she was a champion javelin thrower. But if she got to the Olympics, she would have been on the Canadian team anyway, so why would the college bother?

Colleges get money for athletics - the better your team is the more money your team gets. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any athlete not being recruited because they might compete in the Olympics for another country one day. Why would that matter? Do universities in Canada get kickbacks if one of their athletes competes for Canada in the Olympics?

When the Olympics roll around, my alma mater will send out a, “Tar Heels in the Olympics,” and highlight every athlete that went to Carolina participating in any sport for any country. We’ve had several nationalities (including Canada) in various sports, especially Women’s Soccer. Coaches could have (and usually do have) bonuses written in their contracts for so many wins, titles, etc.

You recruit the best athletes to come to your program. A kid who might not get accepted into a college solely based on academic records might get a little more leeway if he or she is being recruited as an athlete, even in the most under the radar, “nobody cares,” sport. Coaches of those sports who don’t have the budgets of the football, basketball, or baseball programs could use an extra $250,000 (or whatever) “donation.”

My high school boyfriend was a highly recruited athlete, but he wasn’t accepted into NC State until the baseball coach at the time told them he was recruiting him.

[Auroranorth]

Mar 16, 2019 20:53:18 GMT -4 prisma said:

I listened to the latest Tom and Lorenzo podcast this morning and they discussed the scandal. Tom brought up the notion that it is considered unfair that everyone is focusing on the two women, but he (like us) thought it was because they were the most recognizable names. And then he said that "Lori Loughlin's daughers were just so hateable." And that made me laugh. Because it's true. Felicity Huffman's daughter sounds like she was probably a more normal teenager who wanted to do well on her test.

I tend to agree with Tom- the rest of them were lawyers or something and nobody ever heard of them before on a national level. Another part of the issue is that Loughlin's brand is heavily based on a wholesome mom look and Huffman set herself up as a parenting guru. Loughlin's just tanked her image, and nobody cares what someone who cheated to get her kid into college wants to say about education or parenting.

[waytoocheerful]

Interesting take from a courtroom sketch artist.

[prisma]

Wow. Not an ounce of contrition from Lori. It's not often we get to see the mask totally ripped off someone like this.

[divasahm]

There are a LOT of legitimate athletic recruits at top universities who never see a minute of playing time, and who withdraw from the athletic program, but remain at the school to complete their degree. Sometimes it's due to injury, sometimes it's academic difficulties, but sometimes it's just that the kid decides that they're tired of playing at that level, and want to focus on other pursuits. Burnout among top college recruits is very common. The loss of the athletic scholarship is sometimes mitigated by an academic or need-based stipend, depending on the school and the circumstances, but often the athlete has to transfer to a less expensive school or drop out completely. It would not be at all unusual or suspicious if an athletic recruit "didn't make the team" or "was released due to injury" or "chose not to pursue athletics at that level" after receiving an "athletic" scholarship. It happens all the time--we're just going to start seeing a lot more investigations into how many of those bench-warmers were actually athletes, and how many were part of this scam.

Mar 17, 2019 8:26:25 GMT -4 waytoocheerful said:

Interesting take from a courtroom sketch artist.

Wow. William H. Macy sounds like a real gentleman. I can't imagine the emotional fortitude it must have taken to sit in that courtroom as your wife was publicly indicted, and still make the effort to be kind to a stranger doing her job.

[Ginger]

Mar 17, 2019 10:00:19 GMT -4 prisma said:

Wow. Not an ounce of contrition from Lori. It's not often we get to see the mask totally ripped off someone like this.

Probably the difference in demeanor also had something to do with Felicity appearing in court shortly after being awakened at 6 am by 7 FBI agents with guns drawn, and Lori having 2 days to put her mental armor on.

Felicity and Macy did both look very distraught at their second court appearance. Felicity looks like she's lost weight and she didn't have any to spare.