John Vandemoer: Healing after a national scandal
With another college admissions cycle underway, tensions over who gets in are as high as ever
Few aspects of American life highlight the current precarious economic and class anxieties more than higher education, particularly who gets to benefit from it. It’s the exposed nerve at the center of our country’s income inequality crisis. Four years after the Operation Varsity Blues scandal ignited a firestorm (and months after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted affirmative action programs at both public and private institutions), the state of college entrance remains so volatile and raw virtually any public discussion risks sparking national outrage anew. That’s what Felicity Huffman found out a few weeks ago, and on the eve of early decision season, too, when the students who have entered the Hunger Games of college admissions find out if they’ve been granted entré into a small cadre of schools so exalted that a peptic ulcer seems like a perfectly reasonable price to pay.
Huffman was among the 33 wealthy parents, and some 50 in total, charged in 2019 as part of the cheating and bribery scheme orchestrated by William “Rick” Singer. She pled guilty to paying Singer $15,000 to juice her older daughter’s SAT score by 400 points and was sentenced to 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine, and 250 hours of community service.
Speaking out last month, Huffman described her participation in the widespread fraud as her “undying shame,” but that’s not what made headlines. Bloggers, TikTokkers, and commenters instead seized upon Huffman’s claim that breaking the law was her “only option” as a mother, that grade fixing was the only way the Oscar-nominated actress worth millions could “give my daughter (a graduate of a private school in West Hollywood) a future.” If Huffman was hoping her rationalization would earn the public’s empathy, she was sorely mistaken.
The misguided and candid comments put Huffman squarely in villain territory, where fellow defendants Lori Loughlin; her husband, Mossimo Giannulli; the Hot Pockets heiress, and a few others found themselves after Netfix released its documentary “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal” in 2021. The accused CEOs, hedge fund managers, vineyard owners, assistant athletic directors on the take, and that unbelievably brazen soccer coach from Yale didn’t come off any more sympathetic either, but there was one character in this Shakespearean tragedy of greed, privilege, entitlement, and hubris that stood apart and captured hearts – the guileless sailing coach from Stanford with the dad bod, 41-year-old John Vandemoer.
In a blue polo and khakis, the plain-spoken Vandemoer captivated viewers with his earnest story of how one meeting and a few phone calls with Rick Singer destroyed his professional career as one of the winningest college sailing coaches in the country while his employer, Stanford University, hung him out to dry when he was charged with racketeering.
Watching Vandemoer recount in the Netflix documentary how, after FBI and IRS agents came to his door one morning to tell him he was in trouble, he sat on his bed and cried, it’s clear this was a man still in shock, grappling with the events that ended with him pleading guilty and wearing an ankle monitor when he was, in the judge’s words, “the least culpable of all the defendants.” He turned over to Stanford – the victim of his crime – every one of the $610,000 in bribes given to him by Singer. He just didn’t know they were bribes.
But shouldn’t he have known? How could he not? Singer the “college consultant” said he wanted to help the sailing program. Except, none of his recruits had ever sailed before.
Vandemoer blamed the campus’ notoriously bad cell phone reception for the fateful wiretapped call, where he can be heard agreeing with Singer, who says he’ll keep bringing fake recruits and cutting checks. That was enough for Vandemoer’s lawyer to know they’d never win in court. But when athletic director Bernard Muir (“Oh, we know Rick”) congratulated his fundraising success, Vandemoer assumed he was accepting Singer’s money with Stanford’s blessing.
Vandemoer was the first of the Varsity Blues defendants to be sentenced – in his case, six months of home confinement and a $10,000 fine. None of the phony recruits ended up at Stanford as a result of his collaboration with Singer, but Vandemoer, the son of a doctor who grew up in amateur sailing on Cape Cod, was fired from his job of 10 years and lost the university housing where he lived with his wife and two young children, 1 and 3 years old at the time. Singer used him as a stooge to rake in a total of $25 million by preying on striving parents looking for yet another competitive advantage for their already privileged kids. Singer’s comparatively bargain-priced “side door” scheme was shut down, but the schools – unsanctioned and unscathed – continue to take massive back-door donations in exchange for admissions guarantees.
To whittle away his legal bills, Vandemoer wrote a book describing his Kafkaesque nightmare. In “Rigged Justice: How the College Admissions Scandal Ruined an Innocent Man’s Life” he writes suspensefully about how his family became collateral damage in a case that still raises America’s blood pressure.
We all make mistakes and most of us find ways to bounce back. But what do you do when your humiliation is so excruciatingly public? How do you move on and rebuild after the New York Times calls you a cog in a nationwide scandal and savage internet commenters call you a disgrace who should fucking die? John Vandemoer spoke with me from his home in Half Moon Bay, California, twice about the process of putting his life back together, both before and after Singer was sentenced to 42 months in prison earlier this year.
Do you feel like you’re on the other side of your ordeal yet, safely on the other side?
That’s a tough question to answer. I think, in many ways that I'm definitely on the other side. I'm really happy with where I am now. I think my family is really happy with where we are. We’re in a beautiful place, we have a beautiful community that cares about us. And I still get the coach on the weekends (for the Peninsula Youth Sailing Foundation, where his wife, Molly O’Bryan Vandemoer, is executive director), which is pretty fun.
Were you surprised by the reaction to your story?
It’s been incredible to me. It’s amazing to have friends that I grew up with, who I haven’t seen in 30 years, reach out to me. I never expected this reaction. I wrote the book because I want my story to be a cautionary tale for people to learn from, from my mistakes and my experiences. I want to be able to grow from that, because I am a coach, after all.
Why did you want to write the book?
The biggest purpose of the book was to put it out all there, for my friends and family to know the truth. And that has been successful. I believe that a story like mine takes someone who can see the gray in the world. And a lot of people can only see black and white. And I think I was probably one of those people who only saw things in black and white. For a long time, it was hard for me to be open-minded. And this experience certainly opened my mind to see the gray and see that things aren’t always as they appear. And I think some people struggle with that.
Has this experience made you more compassionate?
Absolutely, exactly. I was someone who assumed that if someone pled guilty, that’s it, they’re guilty. They get caught, and that’s the deal. And now, my eyes have been opened to this world where more than 90 percent of criminal cases end in a plea deal. It was astonishing to learn. Especially in this world of political division, it has helped me see the other side and multiple opinions and not just be locked into what I think is right.
Was writing the book instrumental to your healing?
I’ve been taken aback by how it helped me move forward. Actually, I was just writing a message to someone who will probably never get it – Brené Brown. She's amazing. While I was writing the book, I heard her on the “Flying Coach” podcast with (Golden State Warriors head coach) Steve Kerr and (Seattle Seahawks head coach) Pete Carroll, and she was talking about how vulnerable she allows herself to be. And that was kind of the turning point for me and writing the book, of just letting myself be vulnerable and honest with myself. And just putting it all out there. And I do not look very good. And I think that's just the way it has to be. I listened to this podcast, and then the next morning at 5 a.m., I'm walking the beach with my phone, recording my thoughts and I’m crying and losing it. I’ve got my headphones on and people are walking by me and I’m just a mess.
I feel now, the only way to connect is to allow yourself to be completely vulnerable. I'm still coaching on the weekends, to a group of 10- to 14-year-olds and high school students. And when I share a time when I was completely embarrassed or did something foolish, we can relate to each other better. That connection you get by sharing and allowing kids to see that you can be silly and maybe even stupid allows you to grow as a person.
The Stanford students I worked with, they’re intelligent, they’re extremely mature, and very driven. But they’re not willing to be vulnerable. And they’re not willing to look foolish. And I think that really holds our students back.
What is the biggest change you see in yourself now?
The biggest thing that happened is that I started listening to advice. I had incredible friends and colleagues who reached out and gave me great advice to help move forward, and I listened. Before, I thought, I'm a head coach, I got to this level, I don't need advice. Again, not taking my own coaching. But this time I did. So I started setting myself goals. I enrolled in classes – I did two online certifications through Cornell and another one through Harvard. I did some learning about data analytics, doing work towards an MBA. And that got me excited. I would kiss my wife and my kids as they went off to work and daycare and I would start working. And I found purpose through that, even though I wasn’t being paid. And there wasn’t a set future by any means, but it still got me moving forward.
After Stanford was able to kick me out legally, we moved over to Half Moon Bay, on the other side of the hill. I grew up on Cape Cod on the beach, in a coastal community, so it was great to be able to look at the ocean and hear the ocean and enjoy the outdoors. I spent a lot more time going on hikes, physically punishing myself a little bit. A former colleague told me it’s good if you hurt yourself a little bit every day, go hiking or push your body on a long bike ride, because it makes you feel alive. And he was totally right.
The more you can get into your body, the less you're in your head.
Yes, your brain can be very dangerous.
You wrote that you recruited students with a growth mindset. And I thought, a growth mindset is going to come in handy for him now. Do you feel like you can do that now?
Absolutely. And finally. I think if I had taken my own advice in my coaching career earlier, I would have been in a better place. I’ve started a new career (as a project manager for a potable water engineering firm) that I have some educational background with it – I have a degree in geology. I had to jump into this job and be willing to learn and fail constantly, and learn from that, and grow from it, and become good at it as quickly as possible. That growth mindset became critical for me and my new career.
Does seeing Rick Singer behind bars give you closure?
I thought a lot about that. I don’t think so. I talked about this in my book: When I pled guilty, and he was just sitting at the table, smiling and laughing. He had just pled guilty to four felony offenses, including obstruction of justice, which is a big deal. I don’t feel like he was remorseful or truly aware of how many lives he’s harmed. The 70 pages of iPhone notes (detailing how Singer set up his sophisticated fraud and allegations that investigators coached him to lie), it’s just mind-blowing. I think the only way I could fully close that chapter is if he said, “Hey, John, I’m really sorry.” But that’s never gonna happen.
Who was there for you and supported you through this?
The first person I would have to say would be my dad. He really helped me. Certainly, my wife plays an incredible role in my life. I don't know where I’d be without her. And my lawyer, (former assistant U.S. attorney) Robert Fisher, was able to lead me through it all and be like, look, this is how it’s gonna go. Nothing can prepare you for any of this, sitting in federal court with all eyes on you, the cameras. But to have a third party who was not related to me, to believe in me and believe in my story, was a huge turning point for me to be able to pick my head up and be able to move forward.
What was your low point? How did you pull yourself out of that?
One was when I got back from Boston. I was there on March 12, 2019 (to enter a plea in federal court), and then flew back, and we lived on campus. So I'm living in the house of my victim, supposedly. I just was there on the couch, I would read watch TV and do something to distract myself. My poor wife is taking the kids to daycare and going to work and everything else. And I’m sitting there and the only thing I have to do on my to-do list is figure out how to get health insurance, figure out how to get a job. It just was the darkest, like in a movie. And I did everything I could to not start drinking. To put my clothes on every day and take a shower and move forward. The time between March 12 and June 12 (the sentencing date) was definitely the hardest.
The other part of it was right before my sentencing when the prosecution broke our plea agreement. I felt like they were coming after me. I’m thinking that every helicopter that flies overhead is watching me walking down the street. There were death threats, some really nasty phone calls.
How did you prepare for your sentencing?
I went to therapy. And that’s when I was diagnosed with PTSD. My therapist was incredible in teaching me how to breathe and how to work through it. I still really work hard at it, and I’m teaching my kids about it as well. Even though they’re young, and my son is in kindergarten, he’s starting to do it in class now, which is cool. But having those breathing techniques, it’s so vital to relax your mind and calm things down. I’ve also started doing yoga. I was used to a career where I was outside all the time. Now I spend a lot of time in a chair in front of a computer. I was getting really grumpy and angry and tight and horrible. Yoga helped me feel like I can feel my blood flow, and it just makes you happier. And it also just gives you purpose every day. You know, it’s a little simple thing. It’s 15 minutes, right? It’s 15 minutes.
Sit in a chair and place your hands on your legs
Taking a breath in, count slowly 1, 2, 3, 4
Exhale, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
You led the sailing team at the Naval Academy before moving on to Stanford University, one of the most elite institutions in the world. Was it hard to let all that go, including your identity?
I follow the college sailing results every weekend. For every regatta. I’m still addicted to it, for sure. I would set Google Alerts about the case. I felt bad but also felt a little comfort in that pain. And that I just need to make sure that I continue to have learned the lessons from this horrible experience. Realizing, obviously, the cliche that if it’s too good to be true, it’s not. Questioning what's being asked of me, and does that fit with who I am? Making sure that I hold true to myself and I can stand up for myself. Because I didn't stand up for myself and I realize now that was a disastrous move.
What are the positives that have come out of this?
One is that I’m not away every weekend. And so I get to spend a lot more time with my kids. I can pick my pick my kids up from school every day. On a Friday, I would be on a plane going somewhere but now I can go to school events and be a dad. And that’s amazing.
I’ve felt more connected to my wife, Molly, than I ever have. I feel like I’m a happier person. When I was coaching at Stanford, our lives revolved around me and my travel schedule, and now we get to focus on her and her work. And I really like that. My wife was an Olympic athlete, she went to the 2012 Summer Games. And now she comes home super excited and is really into the growth of the sailing program she’s running. She started a new career as a commentator as well. When she did that for the first time she knocked it out of the park.
Now that Singer’s in prison, is the scandal over? Do we know everything there is to know?
There’s a lot. What was reported was barely the tip of the iceberg.
Stanford admissions is the only office that can admit people to Stanford. So as a coach, if I’m bringing someone I really want and they don’t have the grades and test scores, it's just not going to happen. We certainly learned a lot about the process at (the University of Southern California), which does not look good. But my experience at Stanford was different. And my experience at the Naval Academy was different. I still think it’s shocking why these parents didn’t do the back door, like, donate a building? It’s unethical but it’s legal. Looking for a discounted deal was absurd.
Why the prosecution didn’t go after the schools was never clear, but it’s clear that the schools have connections that make them untouchable.
I'll say that the day after my guilty plea, my lawyer told me that their office phone was off the hook with people calling him, saying, “I might be in trouble. Can you look into this? Can you help me out? No one’s approached me yet, but I could be in trouble.” As far as we know, none of those people actually got in trouble, so far. So there were other coaches.
Do you feel you’re emotionally stronger and more resilient after your ordeal?
I have a long way to go. But I know where my weaknesses are or at least I can recognize them. My first goal is just enjoying my life every day. I have a friend who works for startups and helps them go public. Every Friday he drives into his garage and leaves the cell phone in the car and gets it on Monday morning. Totally shuts down and has a weekend. He still gets hired; he’s wildly successful. I'm trying to find that balance. I’m a workaholic. Because I was never the most talented person, I was always the person that worked harder. And I feel that way in my new career as well. But at the same time, I need to make sure I know when to stop and let go and just be in the moment with my kids.
Do you miss sailing every day? Or does coaching on the weekends take care of that urge?
I do, I do. I miss coaching a college team and interacting with college students. It’s just a great – I sound like an old man, like my dad – I miss that age group. They’re so inspiring to me. I learned so much from student-athletes and now I don't have that. You know, I’m learning another way. But I miss going through the experience together. I miss the small community. It’s not like football or basketball; all the coaches are good friends. We saw each other every weekend so it’s a bummer that I don’t see them now.
But the saving grace for me is that all those coaches know now. They’ll protect themselves. And that’s what it’s about. •
P.S.
Real-time reaction
If you’ve forgotten just how nerve-wracking college decisions are, or if you want to know what awaits your family when it’s time, check out the raw adolescent emotion on display on TikTok (search #collegeapps, #collegeadmissions, #decisionday, #earlydecision, #classof2028, anything really, even – sadly – #rejected). Especially the videos that use the “7 years latch” music – ugh, right in the feels. For wholesome, hopeful drama, not even #rushtok can beat it. And if you’re a senior or a parent who can’t stand not knowing how long the wait might be, here’s a trusted decision day calendar.
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