At Mater Dei, a unique link to USC's secret admission system

Palm trees flank a sign reading "Mater Dei High School" on a low brick wall outside a curved, mostly glass wing of a building

Nov. 8, 2024 3 AM PT

Mater Dei routinely sends athletes to fill the ranks of USC sports teams, but it also delivered at least half a dozen affluent students who were admitted through the athletic department but never appeared on team rosters.
Former Mater Dei President Patrick Murphy was deeply involved in pushing for students and others connected to the Catholic school to be admitted to the university as walk-on athletes.
In one case, records show Murphy promised USC that a family would donate $2 million if their son were admitted. Murphy denies making such a pledge.

Mater Dei High School was building a new campus parking structure, and asked its hometown, Santa Ana, for $1.8 million for related street improvements.

The response from City Hall was cool. Mater Dei was an elite private school with annual tuition and fees then north of $15,000 and a student body drawn mainly from Dana Point, Laguna Beach and other wealthy areas. Santa Ana was working-class, overwhelmingly Latino, and at the time, six years ago, in the midst of a budget crisis.

“Does it feel right to come up and ask us for this?” then-Councilmember Sal Tinajero chided Patrick Murphy, the school president at the time, at a May 2018 City Council meeting. “Fifty percent of our residents don’t own a car. Ninety-three percent of Santa Ana Unified students are living at the poverty line.”

A vote on the money was tabled. Two days later, Murphy reached out to USC for a favor: college admission for the son of Santa Ana’s mayor at the time, Miguel Pulido.

“Possibly as a Preferred Walk On (thru Tennis),” Murphy wrote to a contact in the university’s athletic department.

Though the mayor’s son ultimately attended college elsewhere, the episode attests to the unique connection between USC’s secret admission system for the wealthy and well-connected and Mater Dei, a Roman Catholic school long favored by affluent Orange County families.

As The Times reported last month, USC for years admitted children of university donors, potential donors and other prominent people through a route intended for top-tier sports recruits. The university has since discontinued the practice and acknowledged to the newspaper that it amounted to “fraud.”

Applicants of athletic caliber well below that of Trojan teams were classified as potential walk-on players and evaluated by an admissions subcommittee, and accepted at rates of 85% to 90%; most never appeared on a team roster, according to a review of thousands of pages of confidential university records spanning 2008 to 2018.

An aerial view of sports fields, with school buildings in the distance.

During this period, Mater Dei High — a nationally ranked sports powerhouse with three Heisman Trophy winners among its alumni — routinely delivered scholarship athletes to fill the ranks of USC teams, including star quarterbacks Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley.

The documents show Mater Dei also sent students through the athletic department who never took the field for USC: the children of donors and potential donors. Internal records related to more than a hundred applicants channeled through USC’s athletic department for special treatment show at least seven were from Mater Dei. Murphy was deeply involved in some cases, and was the only high school administrator in the records reviewed by The Times to have played such a role.

Murphy told The Times in an interview that he only put forward athletes he believed were qualified, and denied knowing of fraud in USC admissions.

“I had nothing to do with that,” he said, adding that he had advocated for thousands of students, rich and poor, during his three decades with the high school. “I took nothing from anybody. I received nothing from anybody.”

Asked about Mater Dei’s knowledge of USC’s walk-on system, a current spokesperson for the high school said it “is committed to upholding Catholic principles and social teaching,” and does “not condone or support any improper college admission practices.”

Murphy left the school in 2020 for a job with the Arizona Coyotes, an NHL franchise owned by prominent Mater Dei donor Alex Meruelo before it moved to Utah this year.
Internal USC records show that as the high school’s president, Murphy played a significant role in advancing the admission of two young Meruelo family members. The family had given at least $5 million to Mater Dei, and the school’s 68,000-square-foot athletic center bears the Meruelo name.

Bruce Rollinson holding a championship plaque, joined by Patrick Murphy, football players and others

One applicant Murphy aided was the daughter of Meruelo’s cousin Luis Armona, according to correspondence among USC administrators. Armona is an executive at the family business, the Meruelo Group, a Downey-based conglomerate with interests in gambling, construction, real estate and banking.

“I would sincerely appreciate any support you could provide in helping get [Armona’s teenage daughter] admitted to USC. This is the ONE Mater Dei High School student I will be pushing hard for [this] year,” Murphy wrote to Donna Heinel, a USC administrator who served as liaison to the admissions subcommittee.

The Mater Dei president rounded up admissions materials for Armona’s child including letters of recommendation — one from Monica Lozano, who was publisher and chief executive of La Opinion at the time. Murphy also sent Heinel multiple versions of a soccer resume for the subcommittee, which admitted the Mater Dei student as a walk-on player in February 2013. A few months later, her father made a $250,000 pledge to USC, according to a donor agreement circulated by a company lawyer and USC staff. She never appeared on a USC team roster.

Armona declined an interview request, but he contended through a Meruelo Group representative that he had given “substantially less” than the amount in the agreement.

Armona’s daughter hadn’t played for Mater Dei’s distinguished soccer team but was “an elite club player as far as I knew,” Murphy told The Times, adding: “She wanted to play soccer [at USC]. My assumption was that she was going to walk on.”

The following year, Murphy was back with another Meruelo applicant, this time the son of company founder Alex Meruelo. A USC fundraiser told then-Athletic Director Pat Haden that the Meruelos had given millions to Mater Dei and that Murphy had informed her that “if the kid got in Alex would support USC with $2M.”

Murphy denied in an interview that he had made such a promise.

The USC athletics department arranged a private tour of the campus for Meruelos and a one-on-one meeting with the head of admissions for the son. After seeing the teen’s standardized test scores, Heinel recommended that Haden press the case with then-USC President C.L. “Max” Nikias, according to an email exchange.

A closeup of Pat Haden, facing left, against a dark background

“I have been cultivating [the Meruelos] for a multi million gift,” Haden wrote in a February 2015 email to Nikias. “They have a son … who is applying for admission. From Mater Dei HS, a good but not great student.”

In addition to the walk-on route, USC had a number of other ways in which favored or well-connected applicants could get a boost in admissions, including a VIP program.

“He is [on] my VIP list with admissions but this may be difficult,” Haden wrote. “If you feel inclined, I would appreciate you putting him on your list as well. I always stress in these situations that gifts are not linked to admissions.”

Nikias replied less than an hour later, “Sure Pat! No problem.”

USC admitted Meruelo’s son two months later as a VIP. In an interview, Murphy denied telling USC to expect $2 million or any other amount of money. He acknowledged being aware that university fundraisers were hoping to get a donation, telling The Times, “They had seen Mr. Meruelo’s name on our building at Mater Dei. I gave them the [phone] number and said, ‘Feel free to call. … It’s up to you to set up.’”

Meruelo told The Times that no one from USC ever asked him for money. He said that Murphy had requested he make a donation to the university at one point, but that he never agreed to any sort of gift, let alone $2 million.

“I have no idea where they got that number,” Meruelo said, adding, “I’ve given millions to education, but never for any favors.”

An aerial view of a campus with long buildings forming a green courtyard

Whatever the origin of the $2-million figure, USC fundraisers were expecting the money and were upset when it didn’t arrive, according to emails among athletic department officials.

Such frustrations went beyond the campus. Newport Beach property developer Bob Best, a donor to both USC and Mater Dei, emailed Murphy and Bruce Rollinson, the high school’s then-football coach, about the money in 2014, writing: “I’m a bit embarrassed to ask about the [Meruelo ] donation to USC, as I vouched for him with USC.”

Murphy assured Best that the matter was under control, telling him: “I discussed this with Pat Haden and we came up with a game plan that Alex Meruelo is comfortable with, which is, I will re-approach Alex in the Spring and he will make a gift to USC in this calendar year.”

As the end of the year drew near, there was still no donation, to the consternation of USC fundraisers such as Alexandra Bitterlin Reisman, who told Haden in an email, “Looks like Patrick Murphy needs a phone call.”

Meruelo told The Times he was unaware USC had been awaiting a donation from him.

Even as they tried to pin Murphy down about the money, administrators kept admitting more students from Mater Dei as walk-ons.

When the daughter of Irvine real estate developer Jon Muller — a USC alum and donor who had also given to Mater Dei — was up for admission in 2016 as a beach volleyball walk-on, Murphy provided a letter of recommendation. Mater Dei’s junior varsity coach also wrote an effusive endorsement of the teen.

Inside USC’s athletic department, however, it was common knowledge that she wouldn’t actually play for the then-reigning national champions, emails among administrators show.

Head coach Anna Collier had instructed her deputy, Ali Lamberson, to put together a volleyball resume for Muller’s daughter, but as Lamberson told a colleague in January 2016, “She is not going to be on the beach team … she is going through development, I think.”

USC’s athletic development — or fundraising — apparatus was seeking a major contribution from her father at the time, according to internal emails.

“Jon has been very good to the department and we are planning a nice gift for the coliseum,” the head of athletic development, Ronald Orr, told colleagues in an email, referring to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, home of the Trojans football team.

USC admitted Muller’s daughter as a walk-on beach volleyball player that month. Her name never appeared on any rosters during her time at USC.

Muller did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Another Mater Dei senior was accepted by USC in 2018 as a volleyball walk-on, and announced she was quitting the sport even before she graduated from high school.

“All good,” a university compliance officer, Kyle Waterstone, replied when informed of the senior’s status by email. “Glad we could help facilitate her entrance into USC.” Waterstone told The Times that the comment was tongue-in-cheek.

As years passed without receiving $2 million from Meruelos, USC administrators were becoming increasingly exasperated with Murphy. Records show the Mater Dei president assured them the money would eventually come, at one point citing volatility in the stock market for the delay.

Murphy said that he did not recall blaming the stock market and that he never knew anyone at USC was upset with him.

“They never said a thing to me about it,” he said, adding that such anger would have been misplaced. “If there was an arrangement, that would have been between them and Mr. Meruelo. It had nothing to do with me.”

The donation had not come through by 2018, when Murphy was seeking the $1.8 million from the city of Santa Ana for the parking structure project and pushing USC to admit the son of Pulido, the mayor, as a tennis player.

Murphy acknowledged in an interview that he had done “a favor” for Pulido, and had gone as far as phoning USC’s admissions office to advance the mayor’s son’s prospects. But he denied there was a relationship between Mater Dei’s parking structure request and his efforts. Murphy said that the mayor had asked him for help, and that he had recommended the teen as a walk-on himself because Pulido’s son “was a very good tennis player.”

Miguel Pulido sitting with his elbows on a meeting table, looking ahead with fingers laced near his chin

Pulido disputed that account. He told The Times that his son had stopped playing tennis competitively years earlier and that he had no desire to play in college or to attend USC. The former mayor also maintained that he’d never sought assistance from Murphy and that he hadn’t known the school president reached out to USC on his son’s behalf.

“Maybe Murphy was trying to find an angle, but not with my knowledge or [my son’s] interest,” Pulido said.

Told of Pulido’s account, Murphy said, “Maybe he forgot that he asked me, but I know that he asked me.”

It didn’t matter in the end. Still waiting for the $2 million they felt Murphy had failed to deliver from the Meruelo family, USC’s athletic department ignored his request for help with Pulido’s child.

The mayor’s son ultimately enrolled at Santa Ana College. And Mater Dei finished its parking structure project without the $1.8 million from the city of Santa Ana.

At Mater Dei, a unique link to USC’s secret admission system for donors’ kids

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