All expressed even more concern over why the Prep didn’t cancel the game after long time IMG Academy college admissions director Mark Riddell pleaded guilty to criminal charges on April 12 for rigging SAT scores for dozens of students for over six years. He made a reported $240,000 during the scam. He is scheduled for sentencing on July 18.

Riddell had been working for IMG Academy since 2006.

According to federal prosecutors, Riddell played a key role in an arrangement hatched by William “Rick” Singer, an admissions consultant accused of orchestrating the scheme for years while catering to a rich clientele that included Hollywood stars and business executives.

Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo Sports wrote in March, a month before Riddell pleaded guilty:

“If Riddell has actually been taking standardized tests for Singer’s clients in return for thousands of dollars, it raises the question of whether he has also provided the same service for IMG athletes seeking to meet minimum NCAA academic requirements. Riddell’s now-deleted bio on IMG’s website said he began working for the school in 2006 and “assisted thousands of students in gaining admission to top American universities such as Stanford, Duke, Columbia, Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago and others.”

St. Joe’s Prep is led by first-year head coach Tim Roken, who served as an assistant coach for several years under Gabe Infante. He left last year for a coaching job at Temple.

One St. Joe Prep alumni, who did not want his name used and now is in his early 60s told Footballstories, “This is really bad for the Prep. There is no reason we should be playing this school.”

Since St. Joe’s Prep is a private school, Haug said he does not have the authority to cancel the game.

Many believe this is fertile ground for IMG Academy to recruit.

In a related matter, As of press time it is believed IMG Academy will host the 2019 “World’s Strongest Man” TV competition from June 13-16, 2019 on its campus. “World’s Strongest Man,” owned and operated by IMG, was rebuked by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2014 and again in 2016 for the competition’s lack of testing for steroids, rampant steroid use and high fatality rate. IMG’s top athlete and defending “World’s Strongest Man” champion Hafthor Bjornsson has had multiple allegations in his home country Iceland of domestic violence against women. In 2017 Bjornsson was criminally charged in one of the domestic violence acts.

In mid April, ESPN published a report that Bjornsson admitted he has uses steroids to compete on the “World’s Strongest Man.” He is scheduled to appear at IMG Academy in mid June to defend his title.

The registered non-profit POYS (Protect Our Youth from Steroids), owned by Footballstories editor Al Thompson, filed a complaint with Roken and Prep Athletic Director Denis Hart asking for the game to be canceled.

Haug said he talked to Hart twice. Haug sent this email to Footballstories at press time. “I don’t believe they plan to cancel the game at this time.” *

• Kevin Cattie

  First of all who cares what the AD from La Salle thinks about The Prep. If he had any class he wouldn’t give a quote. So if we agree with his opinion and that of the Philadelphia Archdiocese Director, then Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan State opponents should drop PSU, OSU and MSU from all of their schedules…Also the “Journalist” for this “Story” is also self promoting the “non-profit organization” that he owns…..HMMMMM??? I smell a conflict of interest here….lol

• N Lansendale

  Sheesh … that is so ridiculous. I get the purpose of POYS and I agree with it but you’re being way too obvious. Like, should LaSalle and Archdiocese schools run their schedule past St. Joseph’s to make sure they don’t have a problem with it? Per your suggestion they should – because maybe they have a policy that allows or disallows LGBTQ rights … right? By your standard, all those schools should ask everyone else in the USA if it’s ok to play them and if two people say “no”, then they shouldn’t play. Personally, I agree that IMG is more a “training ground” than it is a “high school” but, hey, that’s what they choose to do with their lives – and the state of Florida needs to make sure everything there is kosher when it comes to academics. The fact that they poach players to give them an opportunity to play at a high level – I’m fine with that. That’s a personal decision. I’m sure you can find a lot of people who made that gamble and won … and a lot who have lost … but who am I to be the one who makes the decision for all those students?

  Also (back to St. Joseph’s), I don’t think a high school football coach is playing IMG to make a political or social statement – I think they just want to play a challenging game.

  Again, I get your point about “steroids are bad” … and I suspect if you’re going to these lengths that it has touched you, personally, so as a fellow human-being, I’m sorry to hear that. But (back to facts) … your report and insinuation that St. Joseph’s should run their schedule past other schools or only play teams who pass some social litmus tests … is just sooo ridiculous. So a catholic school be allowed to play a non-catholic school because they don’t espouse the same beliefs???

  -Nick

  @KevinCattie – yeah, good pickup on the “conflict” but I suspect that’s a lot of what happens in media these days, isn’t it?

• Kevin Flanagan

  So let me get this straight St Joes Prep won’t play a team that plucks top notch players from other schools but they are quite proud of the fact that they consider themselves Pennsylvania State Champions with kids from New Jersey. It is laughable that the archdiocese schools are even allowed to play in the PIAA tournament when they are at an obvious advantage to any public school. It is not an equal playing field and I can’t find any argument for it.