As former Kansas University athletics employees head into court, the damaging details of the ticket scandal will become increasingly clear to season-ticket holders who participated in what turned out to be a rigged process for selecting their seats.

Jason Jeffries, the former assistant director for ticket operations, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Wichita to charges that he was aware of but didn’t report fraudulent actions to authorities. Brandon Simmons, former assistant athletic director for sales and marketing, faces a hearing on the same charge today.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Lind said Jeffries had admitted knowing that seats were being taken off a dry erase board during the select-a-seat process and concealed in other accounts. Those seats were then unavailable to ticket buyers, including people who had given substantial amounts to the athletic department’s Williams Fund with the promise that they would receive preferred seating in Allen Fieldhouse and Memorial Stadium.

How does it make those donors feel to know that the athletic department that accepted their money ran a ticket system so loose that it could be exploited in that way? A new system that had been touted as the most fair way to reward top donors with premium seating at athletic events actually was being used by department employees to skim seats and divert them to ticket brokers or their own personal use.

Jeffries, who will be sentenced on Sept. 29, has agreed to provide information to federal investigators looking into the ticket scam. He is the first person connected with the scandal to appear in court, but he won’t be the last. Each detail that comes out in court eats away at the trust and support donors and fans have for Kansas Athletics.

Investigators say that employees skimmed at least $1 million worth of tickets from the KU athletic department. The department probably can weather that kind of monetary loss, but the damage to its reputation and credibility could be harder to overcome.