DSquared: ‘I’m in’
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When they came back from surfing, they found the FBI had held a press conference to announce Operation Varsity Blues.
The feds were making three allegations concerning student admissions:
1) Bribing exam administrators to facilitate cheating on college and university entrance exams.
2) Bribing coaches and administrators of elite universities to nominate unqualified applicants as elite recruited athletes, thus facilitating the applicants’ admission.
3) Using a charitable organization to conceal the source and nature of laundered bribery payments.
USC was one of many schools targeted in the probe. Other schools included Stanford, UCLA, Texas, and Yale.
Then Cassidy about threw up. Brook had never said what her grandmother had done to get her a rowing scholarship. If it had anything to do with this, Cassidy would be disgraced and kicked out of school.
“Call Brook,” was David’s advice.
“Can you talk to her for me?”
“We’ll do it together,” he offered with a hint of a smile.
He pulled out his phone.
“Now?” she asked, alarmed.
“For the toughest girl I know, you can be a real chicken at times,” he teased as he dialed.
“I bet you were just thinking of me,” David said as Brook answered.
“I was just thinking that I might have to reconsider dumping you. Did you see your movie sales this summer?”
“Frank sent me a link to the article. All three movies are doing better than expected,” he admitted.
“So, you’re rich. Well, even richer,” she teased.
“Not Brook Davis rich, but I’m catching up,” he shot back.
“My grandmother is rich, and she threatened to give it all away to charity yesterday when my cousins wanted her to buy them matching Lamborghinis.”
Cassidy knew that David could relate. His brother, Phil, had found a Jeep similar to the one David had when he was in high school. David had bought it for him. Not entirely on par with a Lambo, but it was a family member cashing in.
“Speaking of Grace, did you see that the FBI raided USC today?” he asked.
“I did, and I have a call into my grandmother to make sure she’s not affected,” Brook said.
“Thank you,” Cassidy said to reveal her presence on the call.
“Cassidy Hope,” Brook said with disappointment in her voice.
That was twice today that she’d been called that by her best friends.
“I wanted David on the call because we’re all best friends,” Cassidy said.
“It was either that, or she would have gotten around to calling next to never. You know how she is when it comes to stuff like this. What you and your grandmother did is a big deal for her,” David said to defend her.
“I’m sorry for joking around. You know that between David and me, we’ll make sure you’re okay,” Brook promised.
Cassidy felt her lips pinch and tears form at the corner of her eyes as her emotions took hold. He wrapped her in a hug.
“You know I would do anything for you,” he whispered in her ear.
“Even the scavenger hunt?” she asked.
He simply hugged her again.
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The next day was the taping of Trojan Inquirer. David had invited Cassidy on to give an update on the USC rowing team. He’d also asked Athletic Director Jaxson Pettis to be a guest.
She walked onto the set, and Duke came bounding up with his tennis ball in his mouth. He dropped it at her feet.
“Your master’s a soft touch, but I’m not risking you knocking over any of this equipment,” Cassidy explained to the perplexed hound.
She’d seen the devastation his tail could do when it wagged. She believed David when he claimed that Duke had no feeling in it as it knocked little ones to the ground or cleared off a coffee table.
She spotted David. He was blocking out shots and troubleshooting the lighting, issuing orders to Colleen regarding camera angles and lenses. Clearly, he was quickly learning his craft as he controlled the setup for today’s show. Cassidy had no doubt he would get an ‘A’ in his film class.
He saw her and pointed to makeup.
“Come on. Help me get ready,” she said to the dog.
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Cassidy was on first and updated David on how the team was working hard to get ready for the season.
“I hear you’re doing a team-building activity. Tell me about that,” he prompted.
“One of the high school football campers, Colt Macklin, told me that their volleyball team was doing a scavenger hunt. We took that idea but put a twist on it,” she said.
“I heard that besides finding items, there was more personal interaction involved.”
She wondered if he was talking about personal stuff involving him, but her mind left the gutter when she realized what he was talking about.
“Each item on the scavenger hunt is worth a certain number of points. This is intended to be a team-building exercise, so Andy, our team captain, thought it would be good to have the girls interview each other,” Cassidy explained.
“What sort of topics are they talking about?”
“We thought about what you might ask on a first date. My favorite one is to have them both work on a bucket list and do one item on it,” she said. “The list includes questions like, tell an interesting story that no one knows about you. Or name three foods you hate.”
“I happened to get the list from Andy. So, I thought I would play along with you,” David said with a smirk. “One of the items was to find a baby picture, so I had your dad send me one.”
Projected on the screen behind them was Cassidy, at age four, dressed up as a Marine. Then a picture of David and his older brother, Greg, flashed. They were covered from head to toe in mud. David barked out a laugh.
“After a rainstorm, my brother and I decided to use a giant mud hole as our personal water park. We would dive in headfirst and slide on our stomachs to see who could go the furthest. It was one of the best memories of my childhood.”
The next segment’s guest was Jaxson. David had reached out after the FBI raid to offer him a friendly ear to get his story out. He was surprised when their athletic director agreed. The AD had a scheduled press conference for later today but was giving David an exclusive.
“I want to welcome Jaxson Pettis, USC’s athletic director, to the show.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“The FBI was at both the admissions building and the athletic department conducting an investigation yesterday afternoon. Does this have anything to do with what they are calling Operation Varsity Blues?” David asked to set him up.
“Yes. Yes, it does …”
Jaxson gave a canned response on how the university, and specifically the athletic department, planned to be transparent and help the FBI in any way that they could.
“Were you ever privy to any information that might indicate that USC was involved in pay-for-access schemes to get into the university?” David asked.
Even Cassidy could see that the answer was ‘yes,’ and Jaxson was thinking about how to spin the truth or outright lie.
“You know what, don’t answer that. This is an ongoing investigation, and, in the end, it will come out,” David said to bail him out. But then he stuck the dagger in. “To pull something like this off, they would have needed someone high up in admissions and then head coaches willing to take money in the athletic department. If you find this to be true, what will the university’s response be?”
“That’s the crux of the whole matter, isn’t it? I would have never thought something like this was possible because my mind doesn’t work that way. I hate the thought that for a few dollars, a coach would put his career at risk. It also sickens me to think that we took opportunities away from potential athletes to come to our great school,” Jaxson said.
“And what will you do?”
“Ask for their resignation, or fire them outright. USC is better than that. We can’t be seen as the school where if you have enough money, you can buy your way in,” Jaxson said.