High School Football Coaches Are Not Happy the Roosevelt Recruiting Violators Got Their Sanctions Dropped

State’s football coaches publish letter critiquing WIAA decision to rescind the punishments handed out to former coach Sam Adams & his Roosevelt staff for serious recruiting violations

SEATTLE, WA — “A dangerous precedent” that suggests major rules infractions can be mitigated through the threat of legal action.” That’s what the state’s leading high school football coaches are calling a state board’s recent decision to rescind penalties handed out to the coaches and administrators responsible for the Roosevelt recruiting scandal.

The Washington State Football Coaches Association (WSFCA) published a Formal Letter of Concern yesterday, critiquing the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) board’s decision to reduce penalties against coaches and administrators involved in illegal recruiting at Roosevelt High School.

Roosevelt Playbook: Recruit Players, Register ‘em as Homeless, “Kennel” ‘em, Deflect Blame

The decision is, the WSFCA argues, a retreat from accountability so profound that it risks damaging the integrity of high school football in Washington State.

The penalties in question were handed down in June, after a widespread recruiting scandal at former head coach Sam Adams’ Roosevelt’s football program, where a WIAA fact-finder determined there were multiple “willful and blatant violations” involving the illegal recruitment of at least 18 prominent football players ahead of the 2024 season.

The fact-finding report found that coaches Sam Adams and Saul Patu convinced players to transfer to Roosevelt by offering improper inducements - including the promise of college scholarships and access to a football players-only on-campus facility — as well as by disparaging their existing coaches and programs.

The incoming players used false addresses and employed “coached” language to fraudulently claim homeless status under the federal McKinney-Vento Act to gain immediate eligibility.

Obtaining fraudulent homeless status for the transfers was a strategy deployed by Adams and Patu in order to leverage the act’s federal regulations that, among other things, remove barriers of access between homeless students and extracurricular activities.

This circumvented rules like the WIAA’s one-year waiting period for elective athletic transfer students, which would’ve otherwise applied¹.

“Illegal recruiting fundamentally damages the integrity of high school athletics, harming student athletes in numerous ways, and creates an uneven playing field that undermines the efforts of coaches and programs that follow the rules,”

- WSFCA Executive Board.

Original sanctions included $2,500 fines and one-year suspensions for Adams and Patu, along with Assistant Coach Dom Skene, Roosevelt Athletic Director Danny Thompson, and others.

These penalties, the WSFCA stated, were “critical in sending a clear message” that illegal recruiting is “non-negotiable”.

Yet, after appeals in September 2025, the WIAA Board voted to rescind the personal fines and suspensions for the implicated coaches and the athletic director.

This reduction in these penalties, the letter claims,