By Matthew Stanmyre and Steve Politi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 08, 2017 at 7:33 AM, updated March 08, 2017 at 7:40 AM
Multiple basketball players at the center of a broadening scandal at Paterson Eastside High entered the school with transcripts that were incomplete, altered or fraudulent, NJ Advance Media has learned.
In two cases, transcripts for Nigerian student-athletes did not match their previous stop at a private school in northern Idaho, according to documents obtained by NJ Advance Media and interviews with school officials.
The most brazen example shows a player’s transcript from 2012-13 — when he would have been in the equivalent of the sixth grade — was crudely forged and presented as his work for the 2015-16 school year in Nigeria, even though he was enrolled in Idaho. While the class year on the barely readable transcript was changed, the player’s classes, grades and academic standing were all left the same.
Why does a high school basketball team need to recruit players from another country? High School Basketball!
Why would the coaches want to live with a random group of teens? My one high school son was all I could manage.