SANCTIONS STAND
Sep 17, 2002
By Cecil Hurt
tuscaloosanews.com
TUSCALOOSA | The NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee on Tuesday pointedly
rejected the University of Alabama’s appeal for relief from sanctions
imposed on the football program by the NCAA in February, repeating much
of the same rhetoric that the Infractions Committee used in its original report.
Terry Don Phillips, who spoke for the appeals committee at the 10 a.m.
teleconference, said that the penalties imposed on Alabama were “appropriate"
and that “[except] for [Alabama’s] institutional cooperation,
the death penalty would very likely have been imposed."
However, Alabama officials continued to dispute that view after the decision
and to distinguish UA from Southern Methodist University, which received
the so-called death penalty in 1987.
“It is absolutely ludicrous to compare this case to the SMU case,"
said Robert “Bobo" Cunningham of Mobile, who served as Alabama’s
lead attorney in the appeal. “It’s like a judge telling a
shoplifter, ëWell, I could have given you the death penalty, so just
be thankful that I gave you life in prison.’"
Asked if there was any avenue which UA could pursue, Cunningham said that
there was “no right of review" of Appeals Committee decisions
within the NCAA, and seemed to discount the possibility of legal action.
“There is nowhere for us to go," he said.
The penalties that remain in place include a reduction of 21 scholarships,
including 13 over the next two recruiting classes at UA; a two-year ban
from postseason play; lifetime disassociation of three boosters, and other
restrictions on recruiting and booster access.
Alabama also received a postseason football ban as part of a 1995 NCAA
probation. The current two-year ban prohibits UA from competing for the
Southeastern Conference championship in 2002 and 2003, and will mean that
the Crimson Tide will miss postseason play in consecutive years for the
first time since 1957-58.
The Infractions Appeals Committee echoed the Infractions Committee in/srejecting
several of the specific arguments made by UA in its appeal.
In rejecting Alabama’s argument that violations committed in the
recruitment of defensive lineman Kenny Smith of Stevenson in 1995 and
1996 were outside the four-year statute of limitations, the Appeals Committee
found that statute was not applicable because there was a “pattern"
of violations that made the charges current. Although the Appeals Committee
acknowledged that the NCAA enforcement staff used a “confidential
source" to ascertain that “pattern," it held that the
use of such a source was permissible because Alabama had waived its right
to exclude such testimony from its November hearing before the Committee
on Infractions
While Alabama acknowledged that it had granted limited use of confidential
sources in a November, 2001, memo from Gene Marsh, the faculty athletics
representative, to the NCAA, it contended that the use of that testimony
was limited to charges involving Memphis lineman Albert Means.
The Appeals Committee further added that, even though the NCAA relied
heavily on confidential source testimony to support allegations that booster
Logan Young conspired to pay a high school coach to obtain Means’
signature, there was “ample evidence supporting the findings,"
even if the use of the secret witness had been barred.
Phillips acknowledged at least one factual error in the Appeals Report,
a mistaken reference to Nevada-Las Vegas’ appeal in 2000. The Infractions
Appeals report spent several paragraphs in which the UNLV case was cited
as a precedent for the imposition of a postseason ban on institutions
who were not found to have a lack of institutional control or a failure
to monitor. UNLV was in fact cited for a failure to monitor in its case.
Despite the prominence of the references to UNLV, Phillips, after acknowledging
the factual error, said it had “absolutely nothing to do with the
findings in the case."
Cunningham said that response was “incredible."
“After all the time and effort we put into the appeal," he
said, “they ignored our central argument and the lame answer they
attempted to give in citing the UNLV case was flawed and showed just the
opposite of what they intended it to show."
The dismissal of procedural arguments left only one issue to be settled
ó the appropriateness of the penalties imposed.
The Appeals Committee noted that the two-year postseason ban is “one
of the longest imposed by the Committee on Infractions." However,
it said the ban was justified because UA was a “two-time repeat
violator" (although the report later states, contradictory, that
the 1999 UA case served to “mitigate" penalties as well as
enhancing them), because of the “very serious nature" of the
recruiting violations, and because the “institution bears some responsibility
for the special status" enjoyed by Young and another booster, Ray
Keller of Stevenson.
Phillips said that the Appeals Committee agreed that “favored access
and insider status (of the boosters)" created “greater university
responsibility" for their actions.
Young, reached by The News at his home in Memphis, said he “could
not talk at this time" on the advice of his attorneys.
“I’ll have my day, but my lawyers have told me not to say
anything at this time," Young said.
The closest that the Appeals Committee came to criticism of any NCAA entity
in the case came when it acknowledged that the Enforcement Staff had failed
to share information concerning possible violations in the Smith recruitment in 1996.
“All the parties regretted this lapse by the enforcement staff,"
the Appeals Committee report read. In subsequent questioning, Phillips
said that enforcement staff error “could be a (penalty) mitigator
in the future," but offered no insight into why it did not mitigate
penalties in the present case.
In a related case, the Appeals Committee also turned down an appeal by
former UA assistant coach Ronnie Cottrell.
Cottrell had appealed a finding of unethical conduct based on a “failure
to make complete disclosure" in an NCAA interview during the UA investigation.
Cottrell contended he had answered the questions asked, but the Appeals
Committee simply noted that the finding of unethical conduct “was
not contrary to the evidence."
Cottrell was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.