The Rules of The Game
The NCAA earns millions for policing college sports; it is a most peculiar kind of policeman
Sometimes investigations take odd turns. In a lawsuit filed against the NCAA, former Sam Houston State University basketball coach Gary Moss charged that an NCAA investigator "threatened [his] attorney ... physically" in a dispute over an NCAA memorandum. The NCAA looked into the matter, Morgan says, and was "satisfied that inappropriate behavior did not occur." Moss's lawsuit was dismissed.
"$100 handshakes." The investigative process can be hit or miss. The 13 investigators try to keep track of violations by reading regional papers. But roughly half the violations of NCAA rules found in a given year are reported by the schools themselves. Typically, the NCAA's S. David Berst says, the enforcement staff handles between 35 and 50 investigations each year. Morgan says expanding the enforcement staff would not necessarily solve the problems. But Hale McMenamin, a former FBI agent and NCAA investigator, says the enforcement staff has always been too small. McMenamin thinks another 10 investigators should be hired.
More troubling is the NCAA's uneven handling of enforcement actions. Lawyers for the Robert Morris College basketball team sued the NCAA last year, citing "arbitrary and capricious" treatment. The school was banned from the 1990-91 basketball tournament and was forced to return $88,145 from a 1989 tournament appearance. The school had reported that a college trustee had cosigned and made payments on a loan for a basketball player. Because of the obvious nature of the infraction, Robert Morris was content to accept the school's banishment from postseason play. But when the University of Nevada at Las Vegas team was allowed to choose which year it would have to sit out the NCAA tournament, Robert Morris officials cried foul. UNLV was cited for 38 NCAA violations, including making illegal cash payments to players--the very same offense cited against Robert Morris. The NCAA stuck by its decision, however, and the Robert Morris team sat on the sidelines last year. The school lost its complaint against the NCAA in court.
In 1985, a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles in the Lexington Herald-Leader documented "$100 handshakes" by alumni boosters for basketball players at another college powerhouse, the University of Kentucky. An NCAA investigation ensued, but no violations were found. In Francis Dealy's "Win at Any Cost," a former NCAA investigator, Michael Garnes, charged that the Kentucky investigation "lacked commitment." Instead of being able to pursue the Kentucky inquiry, Garnes says, he was pulled off the case to investigate a small college, which he would not identify. Several years later, Kentucky was sanctioned by the NCAA and banned from postseason play--but only after a newspaper documented another payment, this one for $1,000, to the parent of one of the basketball team's players. Kentucky was then banned from postseason play for two years. A much smaller school, however--Southeastern Louisiana University--was slapped with a five-year ban. Its crimes? A coach had helped some players rent an apartment, lent them rent money and assisted one in getting a job at the local McDonald's.
Perhaps most surprising is the NCAA's generous compensation packages for its top executives. As executive director emeritus, Walter Byers earned $532,428 in 1989. Richard Schultz now earns $328,438. Beyond the salaries, there are the low-interest mortgage loans to key executives. NCAA officials would not discuss the loan program except to say that the rates are below the prevailing market and that the loans are long-term, not unlike conventional mortgages. Schultz says such loans are common practice for many schools. Not anymore though. "It's very difficult," says IrisMolotsky of the American Association of University Professors, "for schools to be able to afford to do that now."
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