What's Next for Roosevelt: In 2015, Appointing a "Fact Finder" Meant Retaining a Team of Federal Prosecutors
WIAA appointed prosecutors investigating recruiting at Bellevue interviewed over 100 people, compiled over a thousand pages of docs & a familiar trainer was mentioned 25 times in their final report
“N—, I found you. I personally hand-picked you guys and sold you to the agent. And the agent paid me for you guys. This is modern-day slavery, man. This is a (expletive) business. I sold you like a slave owner. Like a slave owner.”
- Tracy Ford, to a group of high school recruits, as reported by the Seattle Times.
BELLEVUE — In the summer of 2015, the WIAA approved a request to appoint independent fact-finders to look into allegations of recruiting violations at Bellevue High School. On Monday in Renton the WIAA board approved an independent fact finder to look into “alleged recruiting violations at Roosevelt High School”.
For those at Roosevelt wondering what to expect next, back in 2015 at least, “fact-finder” …meant a team of federal prosecutors.
In response to the request for a fact-finder to investigate recruiting allegations at Bellevue High School, WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese retained two former federal prosecutors and tasked them with investigating allegations of recruiting violations — and anything else fishy they could uncover — at the Bellevue High School football program.
Colbrese told the prosecutors to look “under rocks, under rocks, under rocks” in order to dig up every possible violation that occurred at Bellevue.
What ensued next caused a ton of headaches for a school district that ultimately provided legal counsel to every single employee interviewed by the prosecutors while – according to the report – influencing the players and families to not cooperate with the investigation.
Over the next seven months, the two prosecutors and their investigators interviewed over 100 people and compiled over a thousand pages of investigatory documents. You can read the report in full, attached below.
And despite the fact that their investigation was stonewalled by a Bellevue administrator as well as a certain assistant coach/prominent external athletic trainer, the two prosecutors ultimately sustained ten major categories of violations including over 40 instances of transfer violations
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