A week after publicly releasing a report revealing that the university mistakenly allowed ineligible athletes to compete, Southeastern’s administration is opening up about the controversial investigation.
The report itself is the result of an investigation that began in July 2008 after the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) requested a data review of the 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 academic years. At the end of the review, it was discovered that between the 2005-06 and 2009-10 academic years, 137 student athletes in 16 sports did not meet NCAA academic eligibility requirements and were allowed to play.
When asked about the situation, Erin Cowser, executive director of public and governmental affairs, said that there is no scandal here, just poor bookkeeping.
“The most important thing that I take away from this is that there was no mal-intent,” said Cowser. “There was no flagrant disregard or anything malicious. It was poor record keeping. Hopefully we now have the mechanisms in place to prevent it from happening again.”
According to the report, in 90 percent of the cases ineligibility resulted from the timing of degree changes. These students would have remained eligible if they simply had been properly advised about NCAA deadlines for changing majors. Also, 86 percent of the ineligible athletes went on to graduate, or leave the university in good standing. Cowser thinks of this as a silver lining to the situation.
“That’s impressive for any school,” said Cowser. “This is what we’re all about. That’s what we’re here for.”
In addition to revealing the mistakes, the report also recommended several self-imposed sanctions on Southeastern’s athletics that include the reduction of scholarships, vacating victories in games where ineligible athletes participated and the imposing of a two-year probation period. According to Cowser, the probation period, if accepted by the NCAA, will be retroactive and begin on July 12, 2012. The university expects to hear the final word on the sanctions from the NCAA at the end of April.
The report was submitted to the NCAA on July 28, 2012. However, it was not made public until March 28, 2013, which drew criticism from the local media and surrounding community. According to Cowser, the decision to release the report later rather than sooner was vital for the still on-going investigation to be successful.
“Whenever you’re working in tandem with the NCAA on a self-investigation, you don’t want to say anything that would jeopardize what you’re doing,” said Cowser. “There is a formal process that we have to follow. Also, in the off-chance they perform their own investigation, we want to make sure that nothing would taint that investigation.”
John Long, assistant president of athletic compliance, agreed that releasing the report earlier would only complicate the matter.
“This isn’t us taking control of everything,” said Long. “We have ongoing negotiations with the NCAA. This was an investigation on Southeastern University’s campus, which included interviewing current personnel and gathering current files. If you’re going to conduct a pure investigation, you have to maintain a level of secrecy to avoid assumptions and tainting the investigation.”
In order to safeguard from this occurring again, new software, procedures and personnel have been implemented to work as a “checks and balances” system to prevent mistakes in the future. One key difference in the current seven-step process from the old one is the involvement of several campus departments.
“What you see in the system that we have now is several people from different areas across campus who have expertise to offer to the eligibility certification process,” said Long. “What you saw back then was a unilateral assumption of responsibility by the then-current compliance officer.”
According to Long, considering the workload associated with certifying a single student athlete to play, it is not surprising that there were problems.
“Certification entails looking at transcripts, looking at curriculum sheets, progress toward graduation documents, determining GPA and how much they have progressed toward earning a degree in their declared major,” said Long. “Only one person in the compliance office was doing all of this; that’s going to cause some mistakes.”
The “new” system was implemented when Long arrived at Southeastern in Fall 2010. Currently, Lori Fairburn, director of enrollment services; Sarah Pinion, assistant director of records and registration; the Academic Affairs Director for Athletics (unnamed) and Long, who serves with Josh Smith as compliance officers, makes up the Certification Committee.
According to Cowser and Long, the investigation is not complete. Until the NCAA responds with its resolution, all Southeastern can do is wait and look forward to the future.
“What I keep telling people is that this was in the past,” said Cowser. “We’re now focusing on the present and the future, and I’m very thankful we are at an institution where they saw a need to clean house, get the cobwebs out of the closet and move forward.”
Because the NCAA investigation is still ongoing, Southeastern coaches and student athletes were unable to comment on the report or the investigation. The Lion’s Roar will be reporting on the situation as it develops.