Lauren Isackson is the latest person to be identified in the ongoing NCAA admissions scandal which saw more than 50 people indicted for scamming the system in order to get their children into elite colleges like Georgetown, USC, Stanford, Yale and UCLA.
Isackson was a member of the UCLA soccer team, despite having no competitive experience as a soccer player.
“Some team members are on the roster for the purposes of preparing the team for competition, and may not play in games,” UCLA spokesman Tod Tamberg said in a statement.
UCLA was the national runner-up in 2017.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Lauren Isackson’s athletic credentials were dwarfed by those of her teammates. She joined the vaunted UCLA women’s soccer program in 2017 alongside members of the U.S. and Canadian national teams — elite athletes accustomed to dominating the high school and club circuits, being the best in their leagues, their states, even their entire home countries. Isackson’s biography on the UCLA roster, meanwhile, lists her as an honorable mention all-league selection in 2014 for the West Bay Athletic League in Northern California. But even that was false, according to federal prosecutors who have implicated Isackson’s parents in a broad conspiracy to sneak the children of wealthy and powerful families into top-flight universities they may not have been qualified to attend.
Isackson falsely claimed to be the team captain for the Woodside Soccer Club for 2012-16, though the head coach said that no one has ever heard of her.
Isackson, who never logged a minute for UCLA, is no longer a member of the team.
According to the New York Post, Isackson’s parents paid William “Rick” Singer $251,249 in Facebook stock to get their daughter a spot on the UCLA roster. Isackson was on the roster for one year as required by the NCAA.
Isackson’s father Bruce is president of real estate development firm WP Investments. Her daughter, Davina, was also charged in the NCAA cheating scandal.