Reporters Platform Cheaters; Ignore Players

Several high school football teams in California have come under scrutiny for their involvement in scandals involving illegal transfers and illegitimate booster activity, but little attention has been paid to the damage these activities has done to skilled players, overshadowed by the attention given to cheaters.

Tarek Fattal Interviewed Brett Steigh and used that interview to promote his program.

News writers like Tarek Fattal, Eric Sondheimer and Steve Galluzzo hold a tremendous amount of power of the careers of high school football players. Their reports are the ones recruiters and colleges tend to turn to when evaluating performance and plays.

Often, their coverage focuses only on a handful of favorites and overlooks those who have not become media darlings. While overlooking talented players, Fattal has given a platform to cheaters like “Money Man” Brett Steigh, who admitted to paying rent and incentives of up to $50,000 to players’ families to get them to transfer to his favored schools.

Steigh makes money off of betting. He talked about using the money he won from betting to pay “the guys.” Steigh said he would sometimes win $300k on a bet and then pay out $50. Winning bets would have been very easy for Steigh if he were able to manipulate teams so that talent went to a particular school like Bishop Montgomery and then he could bet on a win. Rather than condemning Steigh, Fattal nodded his head as Steigh justified his actions. Then he used his interview with Steigh to promote his show. By doing this, Fattal benefitted of scandals, which hurt the kinds of players his coverage often overlooks—kids who work hard,  refuse to cheat, and are overshadowed by those with fewer scruples. Steigh should be ostracized, rather than platformed; while good players should be covered, rather than ignored.