Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 7, 1993 TAG: 9305070603
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some say the NCAA's spanking for UVa no-nos that included four years' worth of interest-free loans to athletes barely raised a welt on the Cavaliers' formerly spotless bottom.
UVa got two years' probation, lost one football graduate assistant for one year and four scholarships over two years. Television and bowl games were not affected.
"That's not a real penalty, I guess," said former Wake Forest and Virginia Tech football coach Bill Dooley. "That's not real harsh. I would say they were fortunate and came out in good shape."
Others disagree.
"I thought it was a strong penalty," said Maryland athletic director Andy Geiger, whose men's basketball program received probation and sanctions in 1990.
"I'm kind of surprised that there were any sanctions," Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine said. "They got more than I thought they'd get."
Although loans were made every year from 1982-90, the loan scandal apparently could have been avoided. The NCAA's Committee on Infractions ruled that a statute of limitations applied and that Virginia was responsible only for violations after May 17, 1987.
When Jim Copeland was appointed athletic director Aug. 1, 1987, then-assistant to the athletic director Tom Gearhart said he gave Copeland a "transition book" that covered current departmental issues. Included, Gearhart said Thursday, was the "clearly defined fact that we had a loan policy going on [at the Virginia Student Aid Foundation] that needed to be fixed."
Although Gearhart's description did not specifically mention athletes, it means Copeland could have known in general about VSAF loans in 1987. In May of 1991, VSAF executive director Lawson Drinkard told Copeland of the loan practice; Copeland then alerted UVa President John Casteen.
"I could not tell you exactly what was in the material he sent me," Copeland said of Gearhart's statement. "I don't recall any reference to a loan policy with the student-aid foundation."
The loans and other violations resulted in Virginia's first NCAA penalty, and Geiger said the stigma of probation "by far" outweighs the other losses.
"You have a sense of being a victim to a certain extent," Geiger said. "They have prided themselves on running a first-rate program at a first-rate institution. They can't say that anymore."
Braine, a former assistant football coach and assistant athletic director at Virginia who was questioned about but not implicated in the loan scandal, didn't minimize the penalties - especially in light of scholarship sanctions Tech received from 1988-90.
"To lose a full-time coach for a year, that's tough. And that's four kids you can't recruit. That hurts," Braine said.
Tech football coach Frank Beamer would not comment on the severity of Virginia's penalties.
ACC Commissioner Gene Corrigan praised Virginia's handling of the situation, cited by the Infractions Committee as one reason the penalties imposed were less than the minimum recommended under NCAA guidelines. "It was a model of what an institution ought to do when it finds something wrong," he said. "I don't think [the penalties] should have been any heavier."
Corrigan and Wake Forest President Thomas Hearn Jr. dismissed the possibility that the fact that NCAA executive director Dick Schultz was Virginia's athletic director from 1981-87 had any effect on the severity of the penalties.
"No, absolutely not," Hearn said. "The idea that anybody would play fast and loose with this kind of matter is not plausible to me."
Virginia now must deal with its penalties.
"You can't manage what's happened," Geiger said. "You can [move on] to the next thing you're going to do. You can't wallow. You cannot wallow."
by CNB