The group was one of the greatest collections of recruits in NCAA history, includingOne of the nine women, however, stood apart. Maria Caire’s team biography had no record of a competitive career., but top gymnasts who trained at the club during the same period told The Times they had never seen her practice. There is no record of her participating in a meet for the club.Caire, however, had something other aspiring collegiate gymnasts didn’t.
Julia Savage, the daughter of UCLA baseball coach John Savage, was admitted through track and field in 2013. Nathan Howard, the track and field coach at Los Alamitos High, which Julia attended, didn’t recall her participating in the sport. There’s no record of her competing at UCLA. An internal track and field team directory for her freshman year listed her as a manager; athletic department rules prohibit using the athlete admissions process for managers.
Rick Eckstein, a sociology professor at Villanova who has studied and written about admissions in college athletics, said the use of the side door in athletic recruitment is a nationwide problem. Caire declined to comment, saying Kondos Field “addressed all of these questions” from The Times about her gymnastics experience and recruitment to UCLA.
UCLA’s decision to also recruit someone with no competition record stood out to some college gymnastics observers at the time. “She was very involved with school, church and a dance team through the church, and because of that she wasn’t able to take gymnastics lessons on a consistent basis,” Kondos Field said. “She had a lot of years to make up … I knew if she had the talent, we could develop it.”
This sounds like a case for Lockhart-Gardner.
Indeed. I am not surprised. If you are very good friends with someone in high places, you get treated differently. OldBoysClub The system of recruitment is and always will be flawed.
If she were a POC then she could get in under the usual quota system that the UC system loves to justify screwing Whites and Asians on a regular basis
And
It is really hard to care one way or another. There are many more pressing problems at the moment, and it is hard to care whether she deserves it or not. Look, let's get focused on impeachment. Perhaps that is a more pressing issue at the moment.
Public California college ffs
I thought this was only a USC problem
This young lady might have been excellent. But, where is the justification that she had been a better recruit than other hardworking kids at the gym?
YESSS! Unless their parents pay the admission. Gymnast kill their asses working out their whole lfe, even if they were not the top gymnast, they deserve it.
Why aren’t the records of the student athletes protected by Ferpa
Vindication UCLA is screwed up too
I thought this was just a USC issue
New angle, same disgust.
Is this story worth publishing to assassinate the character of a young woman?
Edited everyone goes crazy she could have met academic requirements and walked on to the program. This is a hack peice by a journalist looking for notariety. No academic info released. Also way to ruin a students life.
A gymnast getting recruited for UCLA gymnastics without having a strong competition record and/or coming from a nationally recognized gym, I don’t think so. Totally unfair for other gymnasts who have actually put in the hard work to earn a spot.
As the mother of a gymnast who trains at a nationally recognized gym, 25-30 hrs a week and whose dream is to be recruited, this is disappointing, but not surprising. Just as it is within businesses and social structures, who you know is very, very important.
Great photo lots of great gymnasts.
Nice pic and it includes lots of brown young ladies!