New Recruiting Allegations Stir Old Concerns

Nothing produces more paranoia among high school coaches than rumors of private schools offering athletic scholarships.

It’s a concern as old as the oldest Catholic sports team, a perception that fuels innuendo, suspicion and conspiracy theories.

Private schools are allowed to offer financial aid based on need. They’re not allowed to offer financial assistance to lure or retain talented athletes.

It’s rare that any coach or private school is caught promising financial inducements to athletes, because proving the allegation is difficult without compelling evidence.

The Southern Section believes it found its version of a smoking gun in a videotape that implicates Hal Pfeiffer, football coach and athletic director at Riverside Notre Dame High. In a press release, Jim Staunton, section commissioner, said, “The CIF Southern Section is deeply troubled by recruiting efforts by a small group of individuals associated with the Notre Dame football program.”

The audio portion of the videotape--there was no picture--reveals Pfeiffer meeting with a group of parents of athletes from neighboring schools and discussing how they can obtain discounts in tuition costs for their sons. Southern Section officials, who conducted an investigation, say sanctions against Notre Dame for recruiting violations are possible. Pfeiffer, who completed his sixth season as football coach, has been placed on paid administrative leave. He declined to comment.

Father Howard Lincoln, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino that operates Notre Dame, said the tape “appears to indicate” rules were violated. He said he accepts the tape as authentic.

“Offering financial incentives to lure high school athletes is legally and morally wrong,” he said. “The diocese feels when athletes are lured by financial incentives, we’re implicitly saying we value fullbacks more than algebra students. We preach morality and people have a right to hold the Catholic Church to a higher standard.”

The tape was made by Rob Gilbert, the father of former Notre Dame running back Ryan Gilbert, during a meeting at a parent’s home in Moreno Valley last February.

Gilbert said Pfeiffer had made promises of financial assistance to him that weren’t fulfilled, so he secretly taped the meeting “for evidence.” He said he received permission to tape the meeting from the parent who was host of it.

“I did it because I wanted to be able to say, ‘You’re lying,’” Gilbert said. Gilbert said he never played the tape for anyone until January, after his son had been denied athletic eligibility following his transfer to Moreno Valley Valley View. Copies of the tape were sent to the Southern Section, the diocese and Valley View High.

On the tape, Pfeiffer tells the parents about a conversation he allegedly had with a school administrator about how Pfeiffer wanted to bring in 14 students. He said he suggested to the administrator that if a 50% tuition discount were granted, athletes could be brought in to make the football program successful.

If the allegations against Pfeiffer are true, as the tape would suggest, it validates concerns of many coaches that private schools try to use tuition-aid packages to attract elite athletes, but the question remains whether this incident is an aberration or widespread practice.

At a minimum, it’s going to increase skepticism about the integrity of the financial aid process.

“It is an honesty system,” said Principal William Thomason of L.A. Loyola High. “We don’t know what anybody else is doing. If it happens to one private Catholic school, it fuels the flames, ‘See, they’re all doing it.’ I don’t think that’s true, but it’s hard to dispel. I’m sure it can occur anywhere, but I hope it doesn’t.”

Lincoln said Notre Dame will implement safeguards in response to the violation, starting with making the athletic director job a separate noncoaching position.

Staunton said he believes what happened at Notre Dame was an isolated incident. “I think that a number of forces lined up to allow it to happen,” he said.

One major force is a liberal transfer policy throughout the section that allows athletes to switch schools without moving.

On the tape, Pfeiffer says he is relaying information from an earlier meeting he had with school supporters about raising funds for a new campus.

“Athletics is what’s bringing kids to this school” is the message Pfeiffer tells the parents he took from the earlier meeting. “The more people we bring in, the more games we win, the more competitive we become, the more money this school is going to have.”

Education, not athletics, is the main mission of high schools.

This incident may have occurred at Notre Dame, but it’s a blemish shared by many.

“It’s going to splash on all our doorsteps,” said Tim Browne, athletic director at Mission Hills Alemany.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.