Plan to “Kennel” Football Recruits During Academic Day Earned One Roosevelt Football Coach $160k in Direct Sole Source Payments

J425 was first to report details of a private on-campus club, offered as a benefit to football recruits. Now, Federal prosecutors may be interested in both the club and the insider payments.

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SEATTLE – At Roosevelt High School, an academic intervention program known as "The Kennel" has emerged as a central point of contention in a sprawling football scandal, raising serious questions about its exclusivity, the financial arrangements that surround it, and its actual impact on student-athletes. 

What was originally presented as a broad academic support initiative designed to “help Black and Brown males” appears, in practice, to have functioned as a private club where improperly registered football recruits could chill the school day away in, funded by the public school system, with a school foundation diverting tens of thousands to football coaches, with potentially detrimental consequences for the very students it claimed to help.

And that’s only part of the problem. 

J425 can exclusively report that the Kennel Club was the brainchild of former Roosevelt assistant football coach Saul Patu, and after pitching the idea (termed at that time as support for “BIPOC students”) to boosters in 2023, Patu received two annual lump-sum $80,000 disbursals, directed to his Kennel corporation, through which he billed the school for the service of running the on campus Kennel Club. The payments required only the approval of Principal Tami Brewer. 

But after the funding was disbursed…the Kennel morphed into a segregated facility for storing improperly recruited football stars (almost none of whom attended class on a regular basis) until football practice started. 

The fact that Brewer twice approved this concept …and twice approved $80,000 payments to an assistant coach… for basically appropriating public space, turning it private, and charging for it…raises so many more questions for the good people at Seattle Schools and potentially even at the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Rumors of a Private Club Surface in J425’s October Reporting

J425 first reported the existence of what staff sources referred to as an exclusive, private club inside Roosevelt High in October of 2024. Staff source told J425 football players basically hung out all day–as none of the transfer players were subject to eligibility, attendance or grade check verification – and the Kennel basically served as their private “food court” or a place to chill and watch the many TVs lining the walls. 

J425’s reporting on the existence and practical usage of the club was proven out by the WIAA Fact-Finder Report, obtained by J425 Friday. 

Subscribe to continue reading, as the Roosevelt scandal deepens. J425 details the potential list of federal crimes prosecutors could be considering, according to law enforcement sources.