NCAA Imposes Penalties and Probation on Howard University

INDIANAPOLIS---The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has concluded that five former assistant or head coaches committed unethical conduct and that a number of other major violations, including academic fraud and lack of institutional control, occurred at Howard University from the mid-1990s to the 1999-00 academic year. As a result, the university has been placed on probation for five years and show-cause penalties have been imposed on three former coaches. Those penalties are in addition to many penalties self-imposed by the university.

A show-cause penalty requires any NCAA institution seeking to employ the individual to appear before the Committee on Infractions to determine whether the individual's athletically related duties should be limited for a specified time.

The involved sports were baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball and men's and women's swimming, and the case included violations of NCAA bylaws governing recruiting, extra benefits, academic eligibility, academic fraud, ethical conduct and a lack of institutional control.

The university appeared before the Committee on Infractions twice. University officials first appeared in June 2000 for violations that had been identified primarily in baseball and men's basketball. At that time, the committee asked the NCAA's enforcement staff to review other possible violations. Other allegations involving the swimming program and women's basketball were discovered and a second hearing was conducted on August 10, 2001.

Overall, the committee noted that the university conducted a comprehensive investigation, accepted responsibility, and committed itself to restructuring to avoid repeat violations. But the committee also said the case emphasized that member institutions must have a system in place to uncover violations. Members expressed disappointment that Howard's president did not participate in either hearing before the group.

The violations in the baseball program occurred between 1994 and 1997 and centered on a former volunteer assistant baseball coach. For example, two individuals were certified as student-athletes with four seasons of eligibility even though both had attended and competed at junior colleges. In another incident, a student-athlete was enrolled in six hours of summer coursework at the university even though he had returned to his home in another state for the summer. In addition, the cost of his courses was paid through a loan deposited in his account. The student-athlete did not fill out paperwork associated with the course or the loan. According to a separate violation, the former assistant used the father of one of the student-athletes as a recruiter for the baseball program.

In men's basketball, the primary violation occurred when a prospect and his junior college coach visited the university for an official visit. Following the visit, the former head men's basketball coach authorized payment of the trip by the prospect's coach by identifying him on paperwork as a prospective student-athlete. Unethical conduct findings resulted when the head coach and former assistant coach provided false and misleading information to the university and the NCAA's enforcement staff during the investigation.

The women's basketball violations originated from one incident involving an impermissible recruiting trip by a prospective student-athlete. The former head women's basketball coach purchased a ticket for the prospective student-athlete to visit the campus. Howard had not received the prospect's college entrance exam results or had high school transcripts on file, a requirement before an official visit can occur. Unethical conduct and related charges resulted because of the head coach's actions following the prospect's trip. These actions included attempts to influence student-athletes then on the team to provide false information about the trip.

In men's and women's swimming, five student-athletes competed in multiple meets though they had not met academic satisfactory-progress requirements, had not met institutional standards for grade point average or had not received initial academic certification from the NCAA Clearinghouse. The institution's director of compliance informed the former head swimming coach on more than one occasion that the student-athletes were ineligible, but the coach continued to allow them to compete.

The Committee on Infractions found a lack of institutional control at the university, stating that the university had not placed a "sufficiently high priority" on compliance, which resulted in no demonstrable control of the baseball program. Specifically, the former head baseball coach said he turned over all recruiting and administrative duties to the assistant. The committee concluded that such abdication was a serious lack of institutional control. The committee also concluded that the former swimming coach violated the principles of institutional control when he failed to report a violation to appropriate officials after being made aware that a violation had occurred because of an impermissible training trip to Orlando, Florida.

The full report of the infractions is available at www.ncaa.org.

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