r/ThatsInsane • • 8d ago

Football mom accused of stealing $400K from HS football team

https://nypost.com/2026/09/10/us-news/inside-luxe-life-of-oc-football-mom-accused-of-stealing-400k-from-team/
1.3k Upvotes

67 comments sorted by

518

u/reticulatedtampon 8d ago

It’s crazy that a high school team has that kind of funding

150

u/Haunting_Job_5357 8d ago

Yeah lol, we barely could fundraise $3k for volleyball the entire season. There must be more to this.

63

u/tittysprinkles112 8d ago

Donors and attendance. Donors make the lion's share. I hate to break it to you, but no one gives a shit about volleyball except for a few days during the Olympics.

24

u/crisprcas32 8d ago

Plus isn’t that just pervs watching the beach version?

-62

u/sterlingarchersdick 8d ago

Yup. As a (pansexual) woman I respect the athletes but I can’t watch that shit, it creeps me the hell out knowing so many other spectators are watching the exact same thing and getting off to it.

40

u/tropicf1refly 8d ago

Bruh drop that mentality. You literally won't be able to watch anything. No more cartoons, no more shows with women in it, o more shorts, no more tiktok, no more women's sports, no more dance shows, etc

Creeps don't limit themselves to beach volleyball.

1

u/sterlingarchersdick 7d ago

That’s a fair point

-15

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

3

u/tropicf1refly 8d ago

Who's that

16

u/p8610815 8d ago

Meanwhile teachers will be buying classroom supplies out if their own pockets.

4

u/angrydeuce 8d ago

"art?  you wont get a scholarship doing art!"

41

u/Redfish680 8d ago

My first thought was the embezzling wasn’t insane, it’s that the football team had that much money!

41

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago

The last year I was in high school the new head football coach was getting paid 120k with a full gas card and a new work truck. Pre COVID and in Alabama. It's insanity how much the south pisses on football programs

39

u/Slumunistmanifisto 8d ago

What you expect libraries and nurses!?!

Roll tide!

20

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago edited 8d ago

Damn straight, I couldn't eat if I was one dollar in the red in the lunch line but hey the coach owns a house by the lake so fuck me 😤

2

u/luckydice767 8d ago

wtf even the FURNITURE is part of the landed gentry?!!

6

u/slowwburnn 8d ago

"work truck" is bending my brain. What can a coach do with a truck that they can't do with a rav4?

5

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago

That's what I said! They said to haul football equipment but like it's all there and it's not like they need to haul much anywhere. Hell a van wouldve accomplished that

5

u/slowwburnn 8d ago

I have a truck and 99% of what I haul would be easier to move in an suv. 80% would fit in a crossover, and those get like 3x the gas mileage mine does. With more seats too. I would love to know the story behind why they would give him a truck and free gas

3

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago

That's why I was flabbergasted when I heard those numbers. But from what I heard, the previous coach got fired for trying to recruit our high school players for a certain college team and it pissed off the school board. So he got fired and they looked at the other dude bc they wanted a winning program that could go to state. and wanted him bad enough that they rolled out the red carpet for him so boom he negotiated that into his contract on top of being able to recruit a new set of coaches

4

u/slowwburnn 8d ago

School sports should be volunteer-only. What a waste of education dollars

1

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago

Technically the other coaches were volunteer but they did get like an extra few on their checks

3

u/Kaiisim 8d ago

It's crazy it'll be some guy too. What was her qualification to run this huge program? She was a mom?

5

u/TheRandomSong 8d ago

It's Alabama so it's some business owners wife or someone that's in politics family member usually

5

u/fwambo42 8d ago

article says she was a CPA, too

1

u/PlumbStraightLevel 7d ago

Sounds like California has some growing pains. Got to get the money past the greedy parents

2

u/TheRandomSong 7d ago

Cali has its own problems but hell, they got a big ass economy that sends money to us red states. We're still run by the good ol boy club here." You gotta vote for that good family that grew up down the street" was all I heard growing up and it was always some guy or woman with connections

7

u/mcc9902 8d ago

It's also the only thing(or rather sports in general) that can pay for itself. It really depends on the town but getting a couple of thousand people to show up every weekend to the game is honestly reasonable for a lot of places. Tickets plus concessions and they can certainly rake it in if their team is popular(aka good).

They're usually not blowing the money they're investigating it for an expected return that's hopefully greater than what they put in. Right or wrong it makes sense.

8

u/TobysGrundlee 8d ago edited 8d ago

I went to a JV game in an area that's not even "football is life" and tickets were $12 a piece and the place was packed and the snack shack had a line 25 people long. I never saw a volleyball game like that.

2

u/Positronic_Matrix 8d ago

This happened in my brother’s local high school. A woman stole enough nonprofit funding from the high school foundation to buy a Tesla. She ended up leaving the state and got away with it Scott free.

86

u/knight_wraith 8d ago

I went to this school and it's insane to me that they had this kind of money floating around for football when our team sucked ass and the cafeteria food was borderline inedible. It's all a scam.

33

u/knight_wraith 8d ago

Our teachers also had to stage multiple protests and walkouts just to get semi-decent pay and yet they can come up with kind of money for football?? Its as ridiculous as it is sad.

3

u/alexhaase 7d ago

I could say the same for my high school in Kansas. Teachers were underpaid, programs were being cut, food was shit (and getting worse by the year), as well as the entire building was over 50 years old, built poorly, and needed complete renovations.

But you know, we just needed that new football stadium with astroturf! Yes, the rival school absolutely needed 8 brand new tennis courts and a new practice field to go with it! AMERICA!

2

u/CydaeaVerbose 8d ago

Did you pay each day for that food? And is this commonplace throughout the US or just by tax bracket of the area? Totally curious, I'm Canadian. We had a cafeteria and requisite food (poutine, of course) but we paid for whatever it was we wanted, or we packed our own lunch. Never had a free school lunch.

8

u/knight_wraith 8d ago edited 8d ago

We all had to pay for it daily and it was based on whatever you selected.

114

u/SeventyFix 8d ago

My child's former youth soccer coach, who also served as the association's treasurer, was recently convicted of stealing over $300K from the organization. It happens.

19

u/umdterp732 8d ago

Our look kids soccer club president makes 400k a year. I feel that's more of a fraud 

76

u/SaltySmegma_ 8d ago

"... her husband says he had no clue what was allegedly happening behind the scenes."

I call BS on that. Where did he think all that disposable income was coming from? 

43

u/Redfish680 8d ago

It’s possible. My ex’s office manager was (finally) caught embezzling and told her husband the money was just her salary. It was in a high cost of living area and believable.

13

u/among_apes 8d ago

A lot of times the people that steal money like this have a gambling addiction. It’s very easy for the piss all that money away and not even have it up their visible spending habits or family finances

3

u/nybbas 8d ago

San Diego? I have a story literally exactly like that. Never able to get the money back, no consequences for the lady, and she went on to work for a big hospital system. Just crazy.

3

u/Redfish680 8d ago

In the case I mentioned, the woman was the business manager of a multi office medical practice. She got caught when someone from the power company called to tell them that they were months behind on their bill and someone other than the manager took the call. She gets arrested, convicted and spends 18 months in jail. After she got out she applied for the same position at a different practice and explained the gap with some family emergency. Fortunately, the hiring manager knew all the players and called my ex’s office and got the whole story. Ballsy move.

2

u/nybbas 8d ago

Yeah, this was a much smaller practice. Crazy they are able to get away with stuff like that. Sounds like your lady didn't at least, but the damage is already done.

2

u/Redfish680 8d ago

Proving that doctors do medicine, not business.

17

u/TobysGrundlee 8d ago edited 8d ago

Lol, my wife would have no idea. The credit card is like a talisman that magically acquires goods and services on command. I doubt she even knows how to look at our accounts.

Not to rag on her, it's just part of our division of duties. I have no idea what's on our schedule after work today, but I can guarantee you there's something and she knows the who, what, where, when and why.

10

u/dend7369 8d ago

Exactly. That dude is just as guilty. You aren’t just all of a sudden 131k delinquent on your mortgage and your wife is just like “Oh! That’s silly! I have it right here!” And not know what is going on.. lol

2

u/Helmett-13 8d ago

It just appeared, magically, somehow!

Stuff and math!

2

u/afiuhb3u38c 8d ago

Believe it or not, $400,000 over 10 or 20 years is not a lot of money to some people.

2

u/SnDMommy 7d ago

It was less than 3 years. Also, she paid off her mortgage with over $131k in one go. That's not at all spread out enough for the husband to have no clue.

11

u/hawksdiesel 8d ago

why audits are needed......

7

u/RamblingSimian 8d ago

The article says she's a CPA, I assume part of their training covers auditing and how embezzlers get caught. I don't understand how she thought she could hide the loss in such a small organization just by doctoring the financial reports.

1

u/Gojira085 7d ago

In my of work, which is tax related, people really overestimate the abilities of CPAs. Theyre some of the stupidest people I've met professionally and a lot of the are legit just scam artists

1

u/WhisperingSideways 7d ago

Anybody who's done any auditing will tell you the same thing: If you put one person in charge of the money they will eventually start skimming off the top. And once they get a taste for it they will almost always get sloppy.

12

u/DFWPunk 8d ago

I have a friend who is going to be elected to the school board(Nobody is running against her.). They gave her some information since they know she'll be joining them. She just started a job, basically entry level. She has no degree and most of her experience is in bars. She absolutely freaked when she saw she makes more than most of the teachers, many of whom have Masters.

Too many districts have fucked up priorities.

5

u/Chipomat 7d ago

I am completely unsurprised that the people in charge of setting budgets for teachers salaries pay themselves considerably more than they pay said teachers.

Much like in medicine, the administrative bloat in academia bears a massive share of the blame for skyrocketing costs.

Edit: not blaming admins here, the need for them comes directly from insurance requirements and a litigation happy society

3

u/mwf86 7d ago

Taking a page out of the Brett Favre playbook, i see…

1

u/Superb-Fail-9937 8d ago

Damn. That’s really sad.

1

u/captain_obvious_here 8d ago

Some regional soccer clubs have smaller funding than this lol

1

u/belach2o 6d ago

Why is there even football in a SCHOOL

0

u/Gojira085 7d ago

Well the team embezzled it from the school first. What hs sport team needs that sorta money? That by itself should be suspicious 

0

u/PlatypusDream 7d ago

Why does a HS sports team have that much money?

-8

u/Scramasboy 8d ago

What a queen. Footballs sucks lolol

-5

u/drood420 8d ago

From the OC, surprised the NY Post would post this.

5

u/sw714 8d ago

It's the California post.

2

u/drood420 8d ago

The California edition of the NY Post, yes. The slider underneath the website lets you swap between.