Men's Soccer: WVU Response to NCAA Report
May 01, 2007 05:10 PM | General
May 1, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Today’s NCAA finding that a former men’s soccer coach “behaved unethically” grew out of West Virginia University’s initial self-reporting of potential rules violations and a joint inquiry by the NCAA enforcement staff and WVU officials.
According to the NCAA report, the most serious violation was that the former coach withheld information, gave false information, and encouraged a student-athlete to give false information. “Unethical conduct intended to subvert the enforcement process is serious,” the report stated. “The involvement of others, particularly student-athletes, in a concerted plan to deceive is exceptionally serious.”
The University terminated the former head coach’s employment in July of 2006.
NCAA Committee on Infractions chairperson Josephine Potuto confirmed that the NCAA adopted as its own all of the University’s self-imposed sanctions, adding public reprimand and a probationary period, which Chairperson Potuto described as a “typical presumptive penalty” in a major infractions case, and extending one penalty by one year. As noted in the report, WVU accepted all of the NCAA enforcement staff’s conclusions. Chairperson Potuto noted that the Committee’s report credited WVU’s efforts in assisting with the investigation, as well as the University’s protracted efforts to track down possible violations.
The NCAA also found that the former head coach’s involvement with a summer soccer league team led to impermissible try-outs and out-of-season practices with student-athletes and prospective-student athletes; and that prospective student-athletes improperly received preseason housing from one to ten days and participated in preseason practice activities.
“The WVU athletic compliance office spearheaded this entire investigation,” said WVU athletic director Ed Pastilong. “Due to their determination to develop complete information regarding the eligibility of a single student-athlete, the student-athlete did not compete in any championship season (fall) game for WVU. The process worked.”
The WVU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics reported a potential violation in June of 2004 to the Big East Conference and NCAA. The NCAA and WVU athletics compliance office worked cooperatively to develop further information regarding the self-report because it concerned the eligibility of a men's soccer student-athlete. After several months of obtaining information, the WVU athletic compliance office and NCAA major enforcement staff began to investigate the men’s soccer program based on information and circumstances related to certifying the eligibility of the student-athlete - a process that the former head coach was later found to be unethically manipulating.
The inquiry included a review by the NCAA of the overall compliance systems surrounding the issues raised by the self-report. The NCAA found no systemic problems with the WVU compliance operations. The NCAA enforcement staff and WVU were in substantial agreement with the allegations presented to the Committee on Infractions and all parties agree that the most serious issues of the entire case center on the former coach and his deliberate actions to interfere with the University and NCAA’s investigation.
The Committee on Infractions found clear and convincing evidence, largely through the former coach’s own words in his emails, that multiple acts of unethical conduct were committed by the former coach.
The NCAA report states that “the former head coach failed to deport himself in accordance with the generally recognized high standards of honesty normally associated with the conduct and administration of intercollegiate athletics. Specifically:
a. Knowingly encouraged a student-athlete to provide the NCAA and University false and misleading information regarding possible NCAA violations.
b. Knowingly furnished the NCAA and University false and misleading information concerning his knowledge of these matters.
c. Failed to provide the University and NCAA with information known to him that was relevant to possible NCAA violations. In all instances, his conduct was directed at demonstrating falsely that a student-athlete was an amateur under NCAA bylaws and therefore eligible to compete for the University.”
“West Virginia University has a strong history of NCAA rules compliance. We have and will continue to treat NCAA compliance with the utmost importance,” Pastilong said. “There were no surprise issues and the report remained focused on one sport (men’s soccer). We will continue to review and apply best practices in the area of compliance education and monitoring.”
“Our office worked very hard over the past few years to investigate this all the way through to its conclusion,” said Brad Cox, assistant athletic director for compliance. “We also work very hard at rules education and have good systems in place to track compliance. At the end of the day, when we have a coach who does not follow our internal compliance procedures it makes our job harder. This report underscores that challenge.”
