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For Immediate Release

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Contact(s)

Stacey Osburn
Associate Director of Public and Media Relations
317/917-6117

INDIANAPOLIS---The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has found that the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga committed major violations in its athletics program. The case centers on 137 impermissible text messages sent and 74 phone calls made to 12 prospective student-athletes or their families.

The case primarily involves the sports of football and men’s basketball, with a few impermissible contacts in the sports of women’s basketball and men’s tennis. The violations also include a failure to monitor by the university, as well as a failure to promote compliance and protect the integrity of the investigation by the head men’s basketball coach.

Penalties in this case include two years probation, recruiting restrictions and scholarship reductions.

This case was resolved through the summary disposition process, a cooperative effort where the involved parties submit the case to the Committee on Infractions in written form. When the NCAA enforcement staff, the university and involved individuals agree to the facts of the case and the university proposes penalties, they may use this process instead of having a formal hearing.

From September through December 2008, an assistant football coach sent 113 impermissible text messages and placed six impermissible telephone calls to five prospective student-athletes. These violations included contacting a student-athlete enrolled at another member school before receiving permission from that institution to do so.

In 2008 and 2009, the men’s basketball program sent 23 impermissible text messages and placed 61 impermissible phone calls to prospective student-athletes. Of these 84 violations, the head men’s basketball coach sent 19 of the text messages and one of the phone calls. The former director of men’s basketball operations, who may not recruit student-athletes according to NCAA rules, and two assistant coaches committed the remaining violations.

The scope and nature of the violations demonstrated the head men’s basketball coach failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor the program, according to the committee. Further, it was determined the head men’s basketball coach failed to protect the integrity of the investigation by discussing the information pertaining to the case on three different occasions with other individuals after receiving instructions by the university not to  do so.

The university also was cited with a failure to monitor for not assuring compliance with text messaging and telephone recruiting rules. Specifically, the committee found the compliance staff did not follow through to ensure phone logs were submitted, did not compare the records to available telephone bills and did not have access to all coaches’ cell phone bills.

The penalties in this case are as follows:

• Public reprimand and censure.
• Two years of probation from September 23, 2010, through September 22, 2012.
• Reduction of basketball scholarships from 13 to 12 for the 2010-11 academic year (self-imposed by the university).
• Indefinite recruiting restriction for a former assistant football coach (self-imposed by the university).
• Ban of any recruiting contacts for the entire men’s basketball coaching staff from November 15, 2009, to March 15, 2010. The number of recruiters after March 15 was reduced from three to two (self-imposed by the university).

The members of the Committee on Infractions who reviewed this case include Paul Dee, lecturer of law and education at the University of Miami and formerly the institution's athletics director and general counsel. He is the chair of the Committee on Infractions. Other members are Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto, the Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law; Melissa Conboy, deputy director of athletics at University of Notre Dame; James O’Fallon, a law professor and faculty athletic representative for University of Oregon; John S. Black, attorney; and Roscoe Howard, Jr., attorney.