WIAA Rescinds Fines Levied Against Roosevelt Coaches and AD After Appeal

Adults responsible for the massive scandal acknowledged the findings and didn't contest penalties against school, students. They didn't want their wallets or reputations further harmed. WIAA agreed.

RENTON — Yesterday, news broke that the coaches and administrators responsible for the Roosevelt recruiting scandal successfully appealed the fines and personal penalties that stood to impact their pocketbooks and reputations.

This despite the fact that the findings of wrongdoing levied against the adults in question remain unchallenged.

WIAA Fact-Finding report.

According to a Varsity WA report (the appeal wasn’t public and no public notes or minutes have been released), the WIAA Executive Board voted in favor of rescinding the $2,500 fines levied against former Roosevelt coaches Sam Adams, Saul Patu and Dom Skene; as well as the fine levied against Danny Thompson.

Thompson is the Roosevelt AD who brushed off a complaint by the Bethel Athletic Director in early 2024, asking Thompson to stop Roosevelt staff from calling Bethel students during the school day and offering them scholarships and illegal benefits to transfer to Roosevelt. Included in the communication to Thompson was a list of specific complaints and evidence compiled and forwarded by multiple area coaches. From a KUOW report:

In spring 2024, Tyson Lowry, the athletic director at Bethel School District, sent Thompson, Roosevelt’s athletic director, a list of reports from coaches in his district citing evidence of recruiting. Roosevelt football staff were allegedly luring Bethel players and parents with the promise of college athletic scholarships, “telling players and parents they should have multiple offers right now and if they come to Roosevelt they will get those offers,” Lowry said.

Roosevelt football staff reportedly called students during school hours to entice them to transfer to the school, Lowry told Thompson, “telling kids to claim homeless and they will be fine.”

Thompson denied the accusations in his email response. “It is very disappointing to be accused of illegal recruiting when Roosevelt can only service students who are placed through the enrollment process of Seattle Public Schools,” Thompson wrote. “I would like this email to serve as Roosevelt High School’s first attempt to ask you to politely stop spreading false rumors about Roosevelt High School and our Sports Programs.”

All of the listed violations turned out to be…well, violations. Roosevelt was found to have improperly recruited four Bethel athletes. But Thompson ignored the attempts of his colleague to motivate self-correction.

Instead Thompson continued to deflect, deny and make counter-accusation to any and all who questioned the system of improperly recruiting athletes from outside schools, tempting them with promises of impermissible benefits that wouldn’t be delivered, and then promptly teaching the kids to lie on their registration forms, falsely claiming homelessness, in order to get around state eligibility requirements.

You don’t have to take my word for it. These are the findings of the WIAA investigation, and Seattle Schools acknowledges the findings. It’s just the fines against the adults they wanted removed.

WIAA Fact-Finder Report on Roosevelt recruiting.

The abdication of responsibility and the arrogance of the adults involved would be laughable if it wasn’t so sickening.

Consider the testimony of Seattle Schools Athletic Director Pat McCarthy, whose lawyer appealed McCarthy’s $3500 fine on the basis that McCarthy was “barely mentioned” in the report. Maybe if he’d been more visible, less violations would’ve occurred. Probably not.

McCarthy even admitted that he and Seattle Schools agreed with the findings of the WIAA investigation, stating that

“Seattle Public Schools accepts the fact-finder’s report, accepts the responsibility for the violations and is not contesting the‬ institutional penalties, forfeitures, probations or the suspension from postseason.”

And yet, according to published reports,

Hit the jump for a copy of the WIAA Fact Finder Report and a breakdown of the findings against Roosevelt and the related reactions of the district, school and individual leaders.