Jovan Vavic

Vavic was born in Montenegro, which was then part of Yugoslavia.[9] He grew up in Herceg Novi and emigrated to the United States in 1984.[2][10] Vavic graduated from UCLA (bachelor's degree in history, 1992).[9] He and his wife, whom he married in 1990, have four children.[9][11] He is a resident of Rancho Palos Verdes, California.[12][11]

From 1987 to 1990, Vavic coached water polo at Palos Verdes High School.[12]

Vavic was the head coach of the U.S. water polo team at the 1995 World University Games in 2003.[9] In 2012, he was interim head coach of the United States men's national water polo team.[9]

He became a coach at University of Southern California (USC) in 1992, and was the head coach of the USC Trojans men's and women's water polo teams.[12][9] Vavic led both teams to national championships three times in the same school year.[9] He won the National Coach of the Year award 15 times, and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Coach of the Year award 13 times.[9] In 2015 he was named Pac-12 Coach of the Century.[13] His teams won 16 national titles, including 1998, 2003, 2005, and 2008 with the USC men's water polo teams.[9] Vavic coached 14 Peter J. Cutino Award winners.[9] Among the Olympians he coached were J. W. Krumpholz, Flora Bolonyai, Anni Espar, McQuin Baron, and Thomas Dunstan.[14][15][16]

Vavic was arrested and indicted in March 2019 in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.[17][18] He was accused of signing two "recruits" who had never actually played competitive water polo, to help the students gain admission to USC, in exchange for $250,000 in bribes from the students' parents.[19][20][17] In additions to these charges, Vavic was also accused of helping recruit other coaches into the student admissions bribery scheme as well.[21] He was charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering.[22][20] The charge carries penalties of a prison term of up to 20 years, and up to $250,000 in fines.[23][1]

Vavic was fired by USC in the immediate wake of his indictment.[2] On March 12, 2019, Vavic was arrested.[4][3][24] Vavic's supervisor, senior assistant USC athletic director Donna Heinel, would be fired and arrested the same day as well.[24][3] Following his arrest, Vavic put his Ranchos Palos Verdes home on the market and offered to sell it for $2.499 million.[4]

On March 10, 2022, Vavic's criminal trial officially began in a Boston federal court.[21][25] On April 8, 2022, a federal jury in Boston convicted Vavic of fraud and bribery.[26] On September 15, 2022, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani overturned Vavic's convicted and ordered for a new trial to take place.[7][8][6] Talwani cited the significance of USC accepting payment from the students’ families as a reason for overturning the conviction, and that evidence did not show that the payments “served the defendants’ interests and harmed the university’s.”[8][6][7]