A reason for the UC whistleblower

The latest news in the UC football recruit sex tape scandal helps explain why an anonymous whistleblower felt compelled to send a letter to the university's top administrators.

The allegations are that members of the football team and some recruits made a sex tape involving a female former UC soccer player during a dormitory drinking party over a recruiting weekend. If true, this would constitute serious recruiting violations and violations of university policies.

Reporter Bill Koch's Tuesday morning story quotes Senior Associate Athletic Director Mike Waddell saying that top members of the athletic administration, including Football Coach Brian Kelly and Athletic Director Mike Thomas, first learned of the allegations on Feb. 8, after two athletes reported them to Maggie McKinley, director of compliance and student services. But Waddell noted the story had been swirling around the athletic department before then. The report to McKinley was just "the first time anybody was officially notified that people felt like this was anything more than a training-room rumor."

The story became public last week after Koch wrote a story about an anonymous letter outlining the allegations that had been sent to the University administration. The author of the letter identified himself/herself as "A Concerned Athletic Department Employee." In the letter, the author said he/she was afraid the athletic department wouldn't do anything about the situation.

In Tuesday's story, Waddell described what happened when the administration forwarded the anonymous letter to A.D. Thomas on Feb. 14:
"As soon as he got that, upon receipt of that letter, you realize it's more than just a training-room rumor," Waddell said. "It's something that's now in official channels."

The incident is now being investigated by Dan Cummins, director of the university's office of judicial affairs. "Any time they've called over and Dan has asked for anything, they've gotten it from us," Waddell said. "It's in the proper hands now."

So just to be clear, according to Waddell, this wasn't a problem as long as it was just a "training-room rumor." They didn't think it was in "official channels," when only the coach, the athletic director and their staffs were dealing with it. And it didn't get into "the proper hands," until the Office of Judicial Affairs took over.

I can certainly agree with that last statement. Apparently so did the whistleblower.