Kansas to reveal NCAA charges

Penalty phase still several months away

The NCAA has responded to Kansas University’s self-report on rules violations by giving the athletic department an official list of allegations.

KU will reveal those allegations, including some serious academic-related ones against the football program, today at an 11 a.m. news conference conducted by Chancellor Robert Hemenway and athletic director Lew Perkins. The university will distribute the NCAA’s notice of allegations report to the media and post it on kuathletics.com at 10 a.m.

The process still is several months away from the penalty phase.

The next step will be for KU to respond to each allegation and appear before the NCAA committee on infractions, probably in August. Typically, approximately two months after such a hearing, the NCAA rules on whether additional penalties to the ones already imposed by the university will be handed down.

If that holds true in this case, KU should learn of any additional penalties in late September or early October.

KU’s self-report released last July included extremely minor violations that merited no penalties by the basketball program under former coach Roy Williams and relatively minor ones by the women’s basketball program under former coach Marian Washington. The most serious violations in the self-report came early in current football coach Mark Mangino’s tenure.

Timeline

¢ July, 2005: KU self-reports minor violations in basketball, more serious violations in football
¢ Today: KU reveals NCAA’s response
¢ August: Kansas responds to allegations
¢ Approx. early October: NCAA rules if KU’s self-imposed sanctions are sufficient

Typically, when the NCAA turns a university’s self-report into a list of allegations, some of what was reported by the university is found not to have been a violation. When the NCAA’s investigation turns up more violations not revealed during a university’s investigation, it can become problematic.

Another possibility, down the road, could be that the NCAA determines that KU’s self-imposed penalties were not strong enough for the violations committed.

On July 15, KU officials made public detailed reports of various violations of NCAA rules in football and women’s basketball uncovered during a two-year internal investigation.

At the time, Hemenway announced self-imposed sanctions in both sports and placed the entire athletic department on two years’ probation.

Mangino, not directly involved in the violations, and KU assistant Clint Bowen were admonished by the university, and the football and women’s basketball programs lost scholarships as part of KU’s self-imposed sanctions.

KU told the NCAA it would cut football scholarships from 25 to 24 over the next two seasons, as well as limit junior-college recruitment. Most of the football violations involved improper monitoring of correspondence work and illegal transportation of student-athletes during the summer of 2003.

“I did not know these violations were occurring at the time,” Mangino said in July, “but as the head coach I am aware that ultimately I am responsible for the actions of my staff.”

Women’s basketball grants were cut from 15 to 13 for the 2005-06 season. Most of the violations in that sport happened during the summer of 2002 and involved assistant coach Tim Eatman, now an aide at Louisville.

When reached Thursday, Perkins said he would reserve comment until today.