A small school gets a big punishment
By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
Posted 11/13/2003 11:42 PM
Updated 11/14/2003 12:26 AM
Little Morehouse College seems an unlikely target of NCAA retribution.
Founded almost a century and a half ago to train freed slaves to read and write, it stands proudly today in Atlanta as the nation's only historically black, private, liberal arts college for men ? alma mater of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Edwin Moses and Spike Lee. No athletic factory, it's content to compete in lower-key Division II.
Last week, however, in a bizarre case that flew beneath national radar because of the low profile of both school and sport, the Maroon Tigers were slapped with arguably the most severe sanctions in the NCAA's 51-year rules-enforcement history.
The Atlanta school already had disbanded its men's soccer program this year because of a succession of violations that included the use of signed professionals, and there was no timetable for reinstating it. The Division II Committee on Infractions ensured that the shutdown was long term, extending it by at least three years and in effect imposing the NCAA's "death penalty" for the first time since the NCAA shuttered Southern Methodist's football program in 1987.
The multiple-season ban on competition was the first handed down by any infractions committee, and it was accompanied by a record-tying five years' probation.
"It's a situation where the committee found there was a complete failure to have a program comply with NCAA rules," explains the NCAA's Kay Hawes, "and that's not something you see very often."
Morehouse agreed with the association's findings and didn't contest the penalties, announced last Wednesday. "We all have discussed it and feel like it's a just decision," says athletics director Andre Pattillo. "It gives us a chance to do some things to make sure that, when we bring the program back, everything is going to be in order."
Troubles from beginning
Order, it appears, was all but nonexistent in the five seasons soccer operated as a varsity sport.
In essence, it functioned independently of Morehouse's overall athletics program. Augustine Konneh, chairman of the school's history department and the soccer program's founder and volunteer coach, went outside the athletics department and dealt directly with a provost to upgrade the program from club status in 1998, according to the NCAA's infractions report. Many school officials, including the AD at the time, had no idea the program was there, and it was funded in part that first year by approximately $4,000 from the president's discretionary fund.
The team practiced and played games at a nearby public park and high school fields.
There was no regard for NCAA rules requiring players' certification. So it was that two Nigerian-born standouts suited up and played two years for the Tigers after they'd competed in 1998 for the Atlanta Ruckus, a team affiliated with the United Soccer Leagues' A-League, the rough equivalent of baseball's Class AAA. The two were signed with the Ruckus through 2000 and 2001, respectively.
One more problem: Both apparently played for Morehouse before actually enrolling.
"It's one of those things where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong," says Walter Massey, a Morehouse alumnus and former National Science Foundation director who has been the school's president since 1995. "We had an interim athletic director. Then, we had a different reporting structure. Then, our provost left. Everything that shouldn't have happened, happened so that the oversight system broke down."
No doubt, that facilitated the two pros' admission to the college on full scholarship. Just as their athletic pasts were overlooked, so was questionable information submitted with their student applications. They would have been ages 4 and 5, respectively, when they entered high school and 9 and 10 when they enrolled at the University of Liberia, based on details they provided.
Professor's word good enough
In each case, the NCAA says, Morehouse simply skipped past the details and went with Konneh's recommendation to accept them.
A tenured faculty member who teaches African, Caribbean and Islamic history, Konneh had been active in finding places at U.S. colleges for West African war and political refugees. According to the NCAA, three soccer players were among six to nine refugees admitted to Morehouse with his assistance.
Massey ascribes Konneh's soccer transgressions to "a combination of naivet? with respect to the strictness of NCAA rules and ... probably being overly empathetic toward the needs of the young men from Liberia.
"It was not motivated," he suggests, "by any attempt to simply have a winning soccer team."
The school removed Konneh as coach, and he was barred by the NCAA from involvement with any college athletics program during Morehouse's probationary period. He remains, however, chairman of the history department.
"He was a tenured faculty member, and none of this related to his performance in his academic discipline," Massey explains. "There were two totally different lines of evaluation of his performance."
"As far as I know," says Robert Wilson, chairman of the school's health and physical education department and its faculty athletics representative, "there's been no dissension among the faculty in regard to that individual. ... He understands fully what he's done and the problems it has brought."
Konneh could not be reached.
Coming down hard
The NCAA hit Morehouse with the most serious charge in its book, a lack of institutional control. Not only did the school fail to monitor the soccer program, the association says a school vice president and the AD at the time became aware in the spring of 2000 that pros might have participated in soccer. They didn't immediately investigate, the infractions report says, and the two pros were allowed to play for the Maroon Tigers again during the 2000-01 school year.
Even when the school caught on, replacing Konneh as coach and initially self-imposing recruiting and scholarship restrictions and three years' probation, problems went on. A player was allowed to compete in the fall of 2002 without completing NCAA paperwork, including a drug-testing consent form, despite warnings from a team trainer and an assistant AD.
With that, Morehouse disbanded the program last spring. The NCAA's five-person Division II infractions committee probably wouldn't have initiated such drastic action, says Julie Hill, its chair when the case was processed. But it didn't hesitate to follow the school's lead.
"It's kind of mind-boggling what they had going on," says Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Tom Yeager, who might be more acquainted with such stunning violations as a former NCAA investigator and current chairman of the Division I infractions committee.
"We've seen a lot of programs that may not have had a lot of attention from the athletic administration, but they sure as hell knew they existed and there was some oversight. This was ... a mess."
Clean-up under way
Morehouse is conducting an internal review, among other things, hiring a consultant "to come in and review all of our compliance procedures, our oversight procedures and our institutional control, just to make sure we don't have any other issues," Massey says.
As for soccer, its immediate future at Morehouse is as an intramural sport. The school hadn't planned to reinstate the varsity program next year, or perhaps the next several years, even before the NCAA lengthened its blackout.
"We're going to live with the decision," says Pattillo, who took over as athletics director three years ago. "And we're going to try to revamp the program when the opportunity is given ... to do so."
Check back in 2006-07.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2003-11-13-morehouse_x.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
Posted 11/13/2003 11:42 PM
Updated 11/14/2003 12:26 AM
Little Morehouse College seems an unlikely target of NCAA retribution.
Founded almost a century and a half ago to train freed slaves to read and write, it stands proudly today in Atlanta as the nation's only historically black, private, liberal arts college for men ? alma mater of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Edwin Moses and Spike Lee. No athletic factory, it's content to compete in lower-key Division II.
Last week, however, in a bizarre case that flew beneath national radar because of the low profile of both school and sport, the Maroon Tigers were slapped with arguably the most severe sanctions in the NCAA's 51-year rules-enforcement history.
The Atlanta school already had disbanded its men's soccer program this year because of a succession of violations that included the use of signed professionals, and there was no timetable for reinstating it. The Division II Committee on Infractions ensured that the shutdown was long term, extending it by at least three years and in effect imposing the NCAA's "death penalty" for the first time since the NCAA shuttered Southern Methodist's football program in 1987.
The multiple-season ban on competition was the first handed down by any infractions committee, and it was accompanied by a record-tying five years' probation.
"It's a situation where the committee found there was a complete failure to have a program comply with NCAA rules," explains the NCAA's Kay Hawes, "and that's not something you see very often."
Morehouse agreed with the association's findings and didn't contest the penalties, announced last Wednesday. "We all have discussed it and feel like it's a just decision," says athletics director Andre Pattillo. "It gives us a chance to do some things to make sure that, when we bring the program back, everything is going to be in order."
Troubles from beginning
Order, it appears, was all but nonexistent in the five seasons soccer operated as a varsity sport.
In essence, it functioned independently of Morehouse's overall athletics program. Augustine Konneh, chairman of the school's history department and the soccer program's founder and volunteer coach, went outside the athletics department and dealt directly with a provost to upgrade the program from club status in 1998, according to the NCAA's infractions report. Many school officials, including the AD at the time, had no idea the program was there, and it was funded in part that first year by approximately $4,000 from the president's discretionary fund.
The team practiced and played games at a nearby public park and high school fields.
There was no regard for NCAA rules requiring players' certification. So it was that two Nigerian-born standouts suited up and played two years for the Tigers after they'd competed in 1998 for the Atlanta Ruckus, a team affiliated with the United Soccer Leagues' A-League, the rough equivalent of baseball's Class AAA. The two were signed with the Ruckus through 2000 and 2001, respectively.
One more problem: Both apparently played for Morehouse before actually enrolling.
"It's one of those things where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong," says Walter Massey, a Morehouse alumnus and former National Science Foundation director who has been the school's president since 1995. "We had an interim athletic director. Then, we had a different reporting structure. Then, our provost left. Everything that shouldn't have happened, happened so that the oversight system broke down."
No doubt, that facilitated the two pros' admission to the college on full scholarship. Just as their athletic pasts were overlooked, so was questionable information submitted with their student applications. They would have been ages 4 and 5, respectively, when they entered high school and 9 and 10 when they enrolled at the University of Liberia, based on details they provided.
Professor's word good enough
In each case, the NCAA says, Morehouse simply skipped past the details and went with Konneh's recommendation to accept them.
A tenured faculty member who teaches African, Caribbean and Islamic history, Konneh had been active in finding places at U.S. colleges for West African war and political refugees. According to the NCAA, three soccer players were among six to nine refugees admitted to Morehouse with his assistance.
Massey ascribes Konneh's soccer transgressions to "a combination of naivet? with respect to the strictness of NCAA rules and ... probably being overly empathetic toward the needs of the young men from Liberia.
"It was not motivated," he suggests, "by any attempt to simply have a winning soccer team."
The school removed Konneh as coach, and he was barred by the NCAA from involvement with any college athletics program during Morehouse's probationary period. He remains, however, chairman of the history department.
"He was a tenured faculty member, and none of this related to his performance in his academic discipline," Massey explains. "There were two totally different lines of evaluation of his performance."
"As far as I know," says Robert Wilson, chairman of the school's health and physical education department and its faculty athletics representative, "there's been no dissension among the faculty in regard to that individual. ... He understands fully what he's done and the problems it has brought."
Konneh could not be reached.
Coming down hard
The NCAA hit Morehouse with the most serious charge in its book, a lack of institutional control. Not only did the school fail to monitor the soccer program, the association says a school vice president and the AD at the time became aware in the spring of 2000 that pros might have participated in soccer. They didn't immediately investigate, the infractions report says, and the two pros were allowed to play for the Maroon Tigers again during the 2000-01 school year.
Even when the school caught on, replacing Konneh as coach and initially self-imposing recruiting and scholarship restrictions and three years' probation, problems went on. A player was allowed to compete in the fall of 2002 without completing NCAA paperwork, including a drug-testing consent form, despite warnings from a team trainer and an assistant AD.
With that, Morehouse disbanded the program last spring. The NCAA's five-person Division II infractions committee probably wouldn't have initiated such drastic action, says Julie Hill, its chair when the case was processed. But it didn't hesitate to follow the school's lead.
"It's kind of mind-boggling what they had going on," says Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Tom Yeager, who might be more acquainted with such stunning violations as a former NCAA investigator and current chairman of the Division I infractions committee.
"We've seen a lot of programs that may not have had a lot of attention from the athletic administration, but they sure as hell knew they existed and there was some oversight. This was ... a mess."
Clean-up under way
Morehouse is conducting an internal review, among other things, hiring a consultant "to come in and review all of our compliance procedures, our oversight procedures and our institutional control, just to make sure we don't have any other issues," Massey says.
As for soccer, its immediate future at Morehouse is as an intramural sport. The school hadn't planned to reinstate the varsity program next year, or perhaps the next several years, even before the NCAA lengthened its blackout.
"We're going to live with the decision," says Pattillo, who took over as athletics director three years ago. "And we're going to try to revamp the program when the opportunity is given ... to do so."
Check back in 2006-07.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2003-11-13-morehouse_x.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------