They weren't secondary violations. they were major. We got long term probation, we lost scholarships. We lost recruiting time, and Calhoun was personally dinged and suspended for 3 games. I believe we are still on probation(through 2014 I think) for those violations and we might even still be down a scholarship I thought we 1 each year for 3 years, though I could be confusing that with the APR) because of them. In any case, some if not all of the difficulties with THIS YEAR'S team can be traced back directly to Calhoun and things that happened on his watch. many coaches would have been fired, most would have been fired when the APR mess followed the recruiting mess. Calhoun might be the only one who would have been allowed to name his successor and leave to as a hero after that.
What a bunch of bunk. Many coaches would have been fired? Was Boeheim fired? Was Coach K. fired for doing exactly what Calhoun did? Do you know what the NCAA decided? Do you know that Calhoun said he didn't agree with the NCAA's findings? Let's do this again, since we shouldn't try to be nCAA stooges here:
NCAA:
This program devotes significant resources to its men's basketball program and recruits student-athletes of the highest talent levels. One such recruit was the prospect, one of the top high school prospects in the class ofv2008 and a prospective student-athlete coveted by the institution. Of the prospect's recruitment, the director of athletics stated "it was the most intense I've ever seen [the head coach] about the recruitment of any particular student-athlete." In his zeal to get the prospect admitted to the institution and eligible to compete, the head coach acquiesced in the representative's involvement in the process and overlooked indications that the representative might be involved in NCAA rules violations. In doing so, he failed to set the proper atmosphere for rules compliance in the men's basketball program. The head coach also failed to monitor the men's basketball staff.
The institution's coaches did not question the representative's relationship with the prospect or report it to the institution's athletics administration until November 2007, over a year after the institution's recruitment of the prospect had begun.
Let's go through the problems here. The NCAA found over 1,000 messages from Nochimson and the coaches between 2005-2008. The NCAA however states that UConn's recruitment of Miles began in the middle of that period. Nochimson wasn't even an agent at the start of that period. So the timeline here is questionable in that they found UConn to have illegally sent thousands of messages and texts to Nochimson from a period prior to Miles and prior to Nochimson becoming an agent.
Now, the NCAA explicitly states in this document that UConn's coaches worked Nochimson to recruit Miles for UConn. This statement contradicts Tom Moore's claim that he introduced Miles to Nochimson AFTER Miles had already committed to UConn. Whatever UConn's involvement with Nochimson, it would seem that Moore's claim does not mesh with the idea that UConn procured Miles through Nochimson, yet this is the claim the NCAA makes.
Furthermore, that introduction between Nochimson and Miles was made during a November 2006 tournament. Calhoun reported that he found out about Nochimson's relationship in 2007 (which the NCAA acknoweldges). Indeed, Calhoun sent a letter to Nochimson telling him to end all contact with Miles. This letter was sent to the NCAA in 2007. UConn informed the NCAA of this relationship months after Nochimson began a relationship with Miles. The NCAA began investigating this a full 2 years after they had been informed by Calhoun and UConn of the relationship.
The curious thing about this is that someone in the NCAA offices knew about Miles and Nochimson. A year after the NCAA was informed, we had the freedom of information request from Wetzel to the athletic offices.
Beyond this, what was UConn guilty of? 150 calls too many and 190 texts to many. Over how long a period? More than 2 years. This is less than 10 calls/texts every month. And they made these on university public land lines no less. It's not even illegal now. In other words, BFD.
UConn contested the findings about these calls. They argued these were secondary violations. The NCAA deemed them major. MAJOR?? How can they be major violations when a year later the NCAA determines that they are no longer even violations?
Now, read about some of the NCAA's problems with the phone calls to Miles:
On May 5, 2008, the former operations director e-mailed the compliance director, asking if she had sent a Buckley Amendment form regarding the prospect's records. Fifteen minutes after receiving the e-mail, the compliance director responded that the former operations director should "[d]ownload the application and just have [the prospect] fill out the Buckley page and fax it back." While this directive necessitated that the former operations director contact the prospect directly, it did not tell him to make a telephone call to the young man. A letter to the prospect with directions to fill out the form and fax it back would have easily taken care of the task. It was not necessary for the former operations director to phone the young man to get the paperwork signed.
Think about this. The NCAA dings UConn for calling Miles to advise him he needs to fill out a form. The NCAA instead suggests that a letter be sent to his address instead. Think about this in the context of the life Miles was leading at the time (itinerant). The NCAA is once again tone-deaf to the impoverished lives these kids lead. The NCAA's problem here is a phone call rather than a letter. Think about that.
The tickets to coaches, by the way, were secondary violations.
The former associate head coach specifically told the head coach that the representative kept in contact with the prospect, and the head coach later spoke to the young man about the representative, telling him "be careful who you hang around with." At the hearing, the head coach stated he called the prospect "to warn him about [the representative]. I told him the Connecticut staff is the only one who has his best interest at heart." Yet, in spite of feeling the need to warn the prospect, neither the head coach nor any member of his staff discussed the matter with the athletics administration or inquired into the relationship between the representative and the prospect.
This comment by the NCAA not only contradicts the letter to Nochimson sent by the UConn compliance office in 2007 and published in 2010 by the Hartford Courant, but it contradicts the NCAA's claim up above that UConn informed compliance in 2007. I can only assume that this information came to the NCAA late in 2010 (after the Courant published the letter) and in typical NCAA fashion, they released this shoddy report with old information. One wonders whether the final punishments were issued based on this old info. After all, the NCAA accused Patrick Sellers of lying in this same report, issued a show cause against him, and only after his appeal of this finding (while traveling between China and NCAA offices) was he able to clear his name as the NCAA admitted they screwed up this part of the investigation with inaccuracies. Sellers' vindication was huge news all over the college basketball media (actually, it wasn't). This is typical NCAA shoddiness.
Here's the funniest part:
As this committee stated in the case of Indiana University, Bloomington, Case No. M285 (2008), Bylaw 11.1.2.1 places a specific and independent monitoring obligation on head coaches. The head coach in this case did not demonstrate sufficient monitoring of his staff's activities regarding the prospect and the representative. Therefore, the head coach failed to meet his obligation under Bylaw 11.1.2.1.
This refers to the K Sampson case. Calhoun was dinged for failure to monitor. But the timing of his failure to monitor occurred between the period when Nochimson met Miles in November of 2006 and the period when UConn informed the NCAA and the compliance office of the relationship. That period ends in late 2007. But the Sampson rule was made in 2008.
Wait a minute, the NCAA can't punish someone retroactively, can they? For a rule made after the fact? To punish behavior before the fact? That can't happen, can it?
Finally:
ALLEGATION OF MAJOR VIOLATION NOT FOUND BY THE COMMITTEE.
The enforcement staff alleged that the former assistant coach violated the principles of ethical conduct by providing false and misleading information to the staff in interviews held during the investigation. The allegedly false statements were made regarding the former assistant coach's knowledge of how the prospect's learning-disabled evaluation was set up and his involvement in arranging the evaluation. This line of inquiry was significant because it raised the possibility of the prospect receiving an impermissible inducement.
This speaks to Sellers' testimony inducing Miles to commit through Nochimson. When the NCAA charges initially came out, this was the major one. It was about UConn producing a recruit through an agent. A major violation.
The media was in a tizzy. It found that this did not hold water and that Sellers was truthful.
In short, this is what happened in the Miles affair:
1. 100+ phone calls and texts over 2 years, ruled a major violation. Even though there is no such rule anymore.
2. Calhoun was given a "Failure to Monitor" charge for actions dating 11/2006 to 11/2007 (when he informed compliance). Even though the designation didn't exist until 2008.
3. Secondary violations for tickets to coaches.
Unlike freescooter, I can't get exorcised over this. When I was reading the whole Miles story by the NCAA, I did consider that someone like him should not have been considered eligible for a student athletic scholarship, based on his journey through many schools, a few of them sham schools. That should have disqualified him. But then he received a qualifying score on his SATs, a transcript of graduation from some schools, all of which were forwarded to the NCAA, and the NCAA certified him. I still feel this was somewhat questionable, but then I think of the many hundreds if not thousands of student athletes in a similar boat, including at UConn. Not to mention what goes on across the country in this regard.
