NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions Penalizes University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

INDIANAPOLIS---The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has penalized University of Arkansas, Fayetteville for major violations in its men’s track and field program. This case involved several violations of NCAA recruiting rules committed by one former assistant coach and one prospective student-athlete, including unethical conduct by the former coach and an admitted failure to monitor by the university.

Penalties for the violations involve vacating the men’s track and field records including two national championships; placing the university on probation for three years; accepting the reduction of the number of men’s track and field scholarships; and placing the former coach on a two-year show-cause order. Under this show-cause penalty, if the former coach seeks athletically related employment with another NCAA member school during the next two years, he and the hiring institution must appear before the Committee on Infractions to determine whether his duties should be limited.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

In reviewing this case, the committee was particularly concerned that the university has had three appearances before the committee in the past 10 years, making the university a rare ‘double repeat-violator.’”

Of further concern to the committee was that this case is another in a long string of major infractions cases involving, at least in part, violations associated with prospective student-athletes arriving on campus prior to full-time enrollment. Over the past decade, the committee has warned institutions repeatedly of their responsibility to be vigilant in monitoring prospective student-athletes on-campus prior to full-time enrollment.

The committee stated in its report that while each of the recruiting violations alone were not egregious, they together formed an interrelated series of violations involving a highly recruited world-class track student-athlete and in the aggregate constituted major violations.

The recruiting violations took place during various points during July through September 2003 and included impermissible transportation, housing, assistance with the receipt of academic course material, tutoring and academic assistance, and academic testing assistance.

Specifically, the committee found that the former coach and his wife provided unallowable transportation, and that the former coach arranged for the prospective student-athlete to live cost-free with another student-athlete for approximately three weeks.

The former coach also facilitated the registration and receipt of course materials for a college algebra correspondence course for the prospective student-athlete, who needed the course to meet eligibility standards upon enrollment.

On 10 to 15 occasions, the former coach made arrangements through his wife for his sister-in-law to tutor the prospective student-athlete. For each tutoring session, the prospective student-athlete was provided transportation between his apartment and the sister-in-law’s home. Further, the correspondence course required online submission of the answers to 17 unit lessons.

Either the former assistant coach’s wife or his sister-in-law obtained the answer sheets from the prospect for the unit lessons and entered them online.

Finally, the former coach arranged for two individuals to serve as proctors for mid-term

and final examinations in the algebra correspondence course taken by the prospective student-athlete. The former coach arranged transportation to the exam sites and the prospective student-athlete received lodging for one night and at least one meal at the home of the parents of the former coach’s wife in conjunction with one of these exams.

The committee found that the former coach’s actions were deliberate and in violation of fundamental recruiting rules and that his knowing involvement in arranging or providing recruiting inducements to the prospective student-athlete collectively rose to the level of unethical conduct.

The committee also found that the scope and nature of the violations demonstrated an institutional failure to monitor. The committee stated that the university’s major violation case in 1997 involved issues very similar to those in the current case and should have heightened the university’s attention to monitoring. Prior to his full-time enrollment, the prospective student-athlete’s presence in the community was known to university officials. The committee found that insufficient steps were taken to ensure that he was not involved in impermissible activities related to his source of transportation, lodging, enrollment and completion of correspondence course.

In determining the appropriate penalties, the committee considered the institution’s self-imposed penalties and corrective actions, including the institution’s full cooperation and thorough investigation after the possibility of violations came to light. The penalties in the case are as follows, with the university’s self-imposed penalties so noted:

• Public reprimand and censure.
• Three years probation from October 25, 2007, through October 24, 2010. 
• For the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years, the institution imposed a reduction in the number of equivalency scholarships in men’s track and field by a cumulative total of 3.0 from the NCAA maximum limit of 12.6. The committee determined that vacation of records was warranted and more appropriate to the circumstances of this case than the total equivalency reduction self-imposed by the institution. In consequence, the committee has informed the institution that it may immediately increase equivalencies in men’s track and field up to the limit of 12.6 during the 2007-08 academic years, should it so desire. 
• Reduction in the number of off-campus recruiters in men’s track from two to one for a six-month period effective January 2007. (Institution imposed)
• Disassociated the former assistant coach permanently from the institution’s men’s athletics program due to his involvement in the violations documented in this report. (Institution imposed). The committee further ordered that the disassociation include all areas of the athletics department, not just the men’s program. The terms of the disassociation shall include:

a.         Refraining from accepting any assistance from the individual that would aid in the recruitment of prospective student-athletes or the support of enrolled student-athletes;

 

b.         Refusing financial assistance or contributions to the institu­tion’s athletics program from the individual;

c.         Ensuring that no athletics benefit or privilege is provided to the individual, either directly or indirectly, that is not available to the public at large; and

d.         Implementing other actions that the institution determines to be within its authority to elimi­nate the in­volvement of the individual in the institution’s athlet­ics program.

 

• The university will vacate all NCAA, school and conference individual records as well as all individual meet results attained by the prospect (then a student-athlete) during the time he attended the institution and competed on the track team. Further, all team results from any competitions in which the student-athlete participated during the same time frame, as well as the record of the head coach, will be reconfigured to reflect the vacated records/results. This includes the 2004 and 2005 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships won by the institution. The reconfigurations will be recorded in all publications in which institutional track and field records are reported, including but not limited to institution media guides, internet websites, recruiting materials and institution and NCAA archives. Finally, any public reference to any team or individual performance that includes a vacated result shall be removed, including but not limited to athletics department stationery and banners displayed in public areas such as the venues in which the track and field team competes.
• The former coach received a two-year show-cause order, effective October 25, 2007, through October 24, 2009.

The Committee on Infractions consists of conference and institutional athletics administrators, faculty and members of the public. The committee independently rules on cases investigated by the NCAA enforcement staff and determines appropriate penalties.  

The members of the Committee on Infractions who reviewed this case are Josephine Potuto, the Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law and chair of the committee; Paul Dee, director of athletics at the University of Miami, and formerly the university's general counsel; Eileen Jennings, general counsel at Central Michigan University; Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and formerly director of athletics at Hampton University; Alfred Lechner, Jr., attorney; Thomas Phillips, attorney with the Austin, Texas, office of the law firm Baker Botts and formerly the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court; and Jack Friedenthal, professor at George Washington University National Law Center.