Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 16, 1991 TAG: 9102160093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SYRACUSE, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
For the past 10 years, NCAA rules have prohibited athletes from receiving extra benefits from boosters. Since 1986, NCAA rules have specifically barred relationships between players and booster families.
While boosters can have contact with enrolled players, the rules prohibit them from providing transportation, entertainment, meals or anything else of material value, Chuck Smrt, NCAA director of enforcement, said.
"It's not that complex," said Andy Geiger, athletic director at Maryland, which ran afoul of the NCAA during the era of former coach Bob Wade and is on probation. "You basically can't have a relationship with a player. There's very little that's legal."
Meg Werner, executive director of the Wildcat Club at Villanova, said, "The bottom line is the university is responsible for anything its alumni or friends of the program do or say. It's the university's obligation to maintain its integrity."
Former NCAA Infractions Committee member Thomas Niland disagreed, saying, "I don't buy that argument" about boosters who complain the NCAA's regulations are excessive and bewildering.
"I helped rewrite the manual. I don't find them so outrageous that I can't know them. It's something they just have to learn," said Niland, former basketball coach and athletic director at LeMoyne.
Syracuse is involved in an internal investigation of its men's basketball program after a series of stories in December by the Syracuse Post-Standard that reported wrongdoings by boosters and recruiting violations. The NCAA also reportedly has begun an inquiry into the allegations to determine whether it will conduct its own investigation.
Past and present players told the newspaper they received discounted or free merchandise, meals and lodging for themselves and family members, cut-rate use of cars and even cash from boosters.
On Feb. 8, the university suspended seven players, including four starters, as a result of the investigation. The NCAA reinstated them later that day.
Monday, Syracuse "disassociated" itself from Joseph Giannuzzi, president of the school's largest basketball booster club, ordering him to resign and forfeit his preferred seating privileges. The newspaper reported Giannuzzi had allowed two players to live at his house before their freshman year and had provided free meals and free services at his beauty salon to other players.
"They [the newspaper] made it sound like we're out of control," said Dennis Cleary, second vice president of the Hardwood Club, the men's basketball booster organization, which has nearly 600 members who contribute a minimum of $25 a year to the program.
"I say these ex-players lied," Cleary said. "No one willfully broke any rules or tried to cheat the system. These are good, honest people who volunteer their time to make the Syracuse program as good as it can be.
"I know there are rules, but the rules are goofy."
Booster activities were primarily unregulated before the last decade, Niland said. Years ago, schools routinely - and legally - used boosters to help sell their programs to prospects.
But the complexion of college basketball began changing as its popularity grew and television networks began spending huge sums of money on the game.
Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said many boosters still have the old mentality.
"They feel because they give money, they should have a say in how the program runs and access to the coaches and players," Tranghese said. "For the schools competing at the highest level, it's an everyday problem."
That's why it's important, say officials, that universities educate their supporters.
Some schools, Smrt said, employ compliance officers, conduct seminars or set up hot-line numbers to keep boosters informed.
"Boosters don't want to take the time, but they have to have a working knowledge of the rules," Werner said. "Unfortunately, a lot of lives and careers can be affected by just one person messing up."
by CNB