Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 7, 1993 TAG: 9305070064
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
How else to explain the NCAA Committee on Infractions gift-wrapping two years of probation for UVa?
It seems the punishment may have been the crime in a high-profile case that has left fingerprints on the NCAA's own doorknob.
Only the football program received sanctions, but really, the loss of a couple scholarships and a graduate assistant coach doesn't seem to worry coach George Welsh as much as the uncertainty about a starting quarterback this season.
So, maybe the NCAA's statute of limitations should be an amendment to the Jeffersonian ideals on which the school was founded.
After two years of this S&L scandal - sports and loans - the major impact for first-time offender UVa has been worry and hand-wringing since the in-house investigation began in May 1991.
Now, UVa is subject to the NCAA's "death penalty" if it is a repeat offender with major violations within five years. It wasn't that long ago that "death penalty" at Virginia was having football season tickets.
The NCAA uncovered more than 50 instances of NCAA rules violations in 13 areas. What started with illegal loans to student-athletes by the Virginia Student Aid Foundation brought a gotcha phrase found on many NCAA probes:
"Failing to exercise proper institutional control" was the summary guilt, to which Welsh and athletic director Jim Copeland were parties of the first part.
The numbers on the bottom line? It began with an internal investigation of a nine-year period including 45 loans to 30 athletes. The clean-up cost was $366,000 from the athletic department's reserve fund to finish a probe of $14,949 in loans.
"It was well-spent," decided Copeland.
Copeland, for good reason, was smiling after discussing the NCAA conclusion, although it was only his years in the UVa athletic director's chair that had been raked with a fine-tooth comb.
The Cavaliers could have gotten sanctions that prohibited TV appearances or bowl trips. Seven programs were mentioned in the NCAA conclusion, and men's basketball was somewhat prominent, too.
Lately, the NCAA has become reluctant to link television and postseason prohibition with infractions guilt because that becomes a penalty to a school's brethren in share-the-wealth conferences.
This case could have been ruled an exception to the infractions committee's statute of limitations provision, which states that only evidence dating back four years from the start of a probe can be used.
No, this case should have been ruled an exception to the statute of limitations.
The pattern of loan-sharking by the VSAF extended to May 1982. When the infractions committee decided not to exempt UVa from the statute of limitations, five years of violations were wiped out.
One of the exceptions to the statute is "cases showing a pattern of willful violations beginning before but continuing into the four-year period."
If that doesn't describe this case, what does? Yet, infractions committee chairman David Swank, the dean of Oklahoma's law school, said UVa's "loan program had stopped for a period of time. . . . For that reason, we didn't feel there was any continued pattern."
What? In UVa's very thorough self-report - which the NCAA used as a basis for its probe - the school admitted VSAF made loans to student-athletes every year from 1982 to 1990. In a stretch of 14 semesters from 1984-91, a loan was made to a football player in 13. And, of the 45 loans to athletes in that period, 36 came before the statute of limitations took effect.
That pattern of violations - willful or not - was established when Dick Schultz was UVa's athletic director. His departure for the NCAA executive director's post not only created a conflict-of-interest question in this case, but, conveniently came at the start point of the statute of limitations.
Schultz's future is in the sweaty hands of the NCAA's 14-person executive committee, which will not use the statute of limitations, and - also unlike the infractions committee - will make public a separate report prepared by Judge James Park of Lexington, Ky., on Schultz's involvement in the UVa case.
Schultz's reputation and ability to govern are based on his candor and credibility. Schultz has said he didn't know about the loans to athletes.
Swank said Park's opinion in the UVa case, echoed by the infractions committee, was that there was no pattern of willful violations.
Is there another pattern developing here?
by CNB