THIBODAUX,La. (AP) – Nicholls State University will be on probation for four years afterthe NCAA concluded an academic adviser and assistant football coach didcorrespondence course work for more than two dozen athletes.
The NCAAaccepted the university’s proposed penalties, which included forfeitingfootball and basketball victories and cutting scholarships in those sports, butadded a year to the three-year probation suggested by Nicholls officials.
“Thereis only one side to today’s story, and that is, Nicholls State University andthe NCAA are on the same page,” university president Stephen Hulbert said.”We concur with the facts of the NCAA report and we accept the penaltiesas appropriate to the violations.”
The caseinvolved involved 24 football players, a would-be player and two basketballplayers.
“Theheart of the case involved three former employees _ the head basketball coach,an assistant football coach and an academic adviser,” said JosephinePotuto, vice-chair of the Division I Committee on Infractions. Neither she northe NCAA report identified them.
However,Nicholls State fired assistant football coach Jeff Richards after discoveringthe football scandal last year. It also fired head football coach Darryl Dayefor failing to “maintain proper controls,” though he was notimplicated in the fraud. Ricky Blanton resigned as head basketball coachshortly before last season began, citing family reasons.
Thevolleyball team also was fined $10,000 and forfeited its conferencechampionship. But Potuto said it was for a mistake rather than fraud _ using anineligible course to calculate a player’s grade-point average. That player hasgraduated, Hulbert said.
He said theuniversity registrar noticed last August that nine athletes who had withdrawnwithout grades from Nicholls State courses or had below-standard ACT scores hadgotten Bs and B-pluses in on-line correspondence courses from Brigham YoungUniversity.
The playersinvolved many starters, Hulbert said. He said all 27 lost two to three yearseligibility, and at least half have left Nicholls State.
Potuto saidthe academic adviser suggested the fraud to Richards _ whom she referred toonly as “the assistant football coach” _ in 2003, because twofootball players were having trouble making grades required by the NCAA. Theadviser got the idea because one player had taken a correspondence course fromBYU the previous year.
In 2004,”the thing snowballed,” with the adviser and Richards doing onlinecoursework or providing answers ahead of time for two basketball players andthe other football players, Potuto said.
They alsotold three assistant football coaches who were among the four people named asproctors to ensure that students did their own work, “We just need you tobe a mail-drop for the material,” Potuto said. She said the adviser or acoach picked up the material from those supposed proctors.
They alsotold the athletes and three high-school coaches to lie about whether thestudents had done the course work, Potuto said. The NCAA cannot identify thehigh schools, league spokesman Kent Barrett said afterward.
None of theex-employees cooperated with the investigation, the NCAA said.
Potutopraised Nicholls State for catching the fraud and for its self-imposedpenalties, including the exclusion of the school from Southland Conferencetelevision packages in football and men’s basketball.
But thecommittee said additional penalties were warranted because of the seriousnessof the violations and the complicity of those involved.
Hulbertsaid the committee added only two penalties: an additional year of probation,and forfeits of five victories in the 2003 season. He said the university’sinvestigation involved only 2004, and the NCAA’s findings about the previousyear came late in its investigation.
Probationis “not of concern to us as it is simply a reporting process,” hesaid.
Penaltiessuggested by Nicholls and accepted by the league included loss of onebasketball scholarship and three in football.
Through the2007-08 school year, football coaches will have seven fewer off-campusrecruiting days, and the sport will be restricted to 60 scholarships _ insteadof the maximum NCAA-permitted 63 for class IAA _ for the next two years.
NichollsState also will have to report the case to its regional accrediting agencybecause academic fraud was involved, the NCAA said.
“We atNicholls are relieved to put this series of events behind the universitycommunity,” Hulbert said. “We move forward having learned somepainful lessons and having intiated significant preventative measures to ensurefull compliance with NCAA” rules.
