Introduction
David Sidoo (born July 10, 1959) is a Canadian businessman, philanthropist, and former professional Canadian football player. In the 1980s, Sidoo played for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.He is an inductee in the UBC Sports Hall of Fame and the BC Football Hall of Fame. The David Sidoo Field at Thunderbird Stadium is also named after him.
In 2019 the FBI named Sidoo as one of several parent perpetrators in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.
Early life
Sidoo is of Indian-Canadian descent and grew up in New Westminster, B.C., the son of a sawmill-working immigrant father from Punjab in northern India and a stay-at-home mother. From 1978-1982, he attended the University of British Columbia on a football scholarship. At UBC, he played for the school's team, the Thunderbirds.
After graduating university, Sidoo was drafted into the Canadian Football League, becoming the first Indian-Canadian to have made the draft for professional Canadian football. He played professional football for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and BC Lions until 1988.
After retiring from football, Sidoo started working in the field of brokerage. Sidoo later was one of the founding members who sold an energy company, American Oil & Gas, to the Hess Corporation . At the start of 2019, Sidoo was the CEO of Advantage Lithium, a mining company.
Philanthropy
Sidoo is known for his philanthropic work in British Columbia, through his personal contributions and the charitable organisations founded by his family through there various business ventures. In recognition of his charitable work, Sidoo received the Order of British Columbia this past July and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Non-Resident Indian Award in 2012.
In 2015, Sidoo created the 13th Man Foundation supporting the UBC Football program. In 2006, he and Manjy launched Sidoo Family Giving, a charity whose causes include supportive housing for the homeless, school breakfast and arts programs, children’s football camps and research into childhood cancers. Their sons, Dylan and Jordan, are involved too. The Sidoo Family Athletics Endowment, which dispenses aid to student athletes, is the largest of its kind at UBC, where Sidoo served on the board of governors.
Legal issues
In March 2019, Sidoo was named as one of the alleged parent perpetrators of the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. Multiple sources reported on allegations Sidoo had paid money to illegally aid his two sons in getting accepted into American colleges.
As alleged in the FBI indictment, Sidoo paid $100,000 to have a test-taker impersonate his son Dylan Sidoo, so that the latter's SAT test scores were improved. The scores were sent to Chapman University, which Dylan later attended. According to the FBI, Sidoo later paid an additional $100,000 to have his younger son Jordan's test taken in the same, fraudulent way. CBC News later reported that Sidoo had also paid a test-taker to fake a high school exam on behalf of his son in 2012. Those scores were sent to Yale, Georgetown and the University of California, Berkeley, where Jordan eventually attended. The FBI indictment noted that Sidoo had been in contact with other perpetrators of the college admission scandal in 2018, and in October of that year recorded a phone call in which Sidoo discussed obtaining a GMAT score for his older son, who intended to apply to business school.
Sidoo pleaded not guilty before a federal court in Massachusetts on 15 March 2019. In light of the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, Sidoo stepped down as the CEO of both Advantage Lithium and East West Petroleum in mid-March 2019.