California State University at Northridge has been put back on probation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association after an NCAA panel ruled that a basketball coach had tried to arrange for a player to receive credit for courses he never took.
The university, which went off probation in 2003 after being punished for violations of recruiting and ethical-conduct rules, will also lose a men’s basketball scholarship for three years.
In its ruling, the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions found that in the final week of the fall semester in 2002, an unnamed former assistant coach at Northridge had asked assistant coaches of the baseball and volleyball teams who taught kinesiology courses to enroll and give credit to the athlete, who also was not named.
The baseball coach added the athlete to the course roster, but gave him no credit because the athlete never showed up for the class. The volleyball coach agreed to the scheme and even provided a copy of the final examination and an answer key to the basketball coach, who then also persuaded the volleyball coach to give the athlete an A to keep him eligible, according to the committee’s report, which the university did not dispute.
“It’s not uncommon at a lot of institutions that there can be coaches that also have some teaching responsibilities,” said Thomas E. Yeager, chairman of the infractions committee and commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association. “On its face, does that raise some concerns? I’m sure it does, but no more so than many instances where there are favorite professors that everybody knows about anyway. It runs the risk, but the record would demonstrate that people who want to subvert the academic process come in all shapes, sizes, and disciplines.”
The basketball coach also arranged for the same athlete’s grade in a psychology course taken in the spring of 2002 to be changed to keep him eligible for sports, the infractions committee found.
The basketball coach also lied to the NCAA about the arrangements and persuaded the volleyball coach to do the same.
Neither coach still works for Northridge, and both will be subject to “show cause” penalties, which means that if either one takes another job coaching an NCAA team, his new employer will be required to justify the hiring to the infractions committee. The basketball coach will be under the show-cause penalty for 10 years, the volleyball coach for 3 years.
Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the California State University System, pointed out that the NCAA had commended the university for its prompt reporting of the incidents and said he was satisfied with the penalties imposed.
http://chronicle.com Section: Athletics Volume 50, Issue 32, Page A37