The entirety of the Santa Barbara City College's athletic department has been placed on probation through 2026 after it was discovered that 16 out-of-state football players' applications were fraudulently manipulated by former assistant football coach Robert Adan.
According to The Channels, citing athletic director LaDeane Hansten, Adan was initially placed on administrative leave but has since resigned. Adan had filled out the players’ applications with false addresses and graduation dates, leading students and their families to believe that they would only need to pay in-state tuition to play football at City College, despite being out-of-state residents.
“A lot of them didn’t know that [Adan] had done that because he would just take the laptop and say, ‘This is how we do it here,’ unbeknownst to our head coach and me,” Hansten said.
One football player who asked to remain anonymous confirmed to The Channels that Adan was to blame.
“[Adan] lied to the players’ parents and said, ‘Hey, don’t worry about the money, I have it,” the source said. “Which then later came out not to be true.”
SBCC's admissions department noticed the inconsistencies with the applications after they were flagged by the California Community College application system. The matter was then brought to the attention of the affected player, as well as to Hansten.
“Admissions and records saw the discrepancies before we ever had any idea,” Hansten said.
On Sept. 10, Hansten self-reported the alleged fraud to 3C2A, which deemed this a violation of its bylaws 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 relating to recruitment of student-athletes and officially declared the 16 players ineligible, according to Southern California Football Association (SCFA) Commissioner Jim Sartoris.
Through an appeals process, 14 of the 16 players were able to remain on the team, but the Vaqueros have been suspended from playoffs for two years.
