Official Conference Stance on Lane College NCAA Violations
The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has received information relative to the Lane College NCAA violations and is under careful review of the infractions. The SIAC will not penalize Lane College any further until official notice of all infractions has been formally submitted to the conference office by the NCAA.
Commissioner William E. Lide stated “The conference is reviewing the report and will work closely with Lane to comply with all penalties and fines that the institution has been cited for by the NCAA. Although a report has been submitted to Lane College the NCAA may place more infractions upon Lane. Until the official infractions report is sent to the SIAC office we will not place any additional penalties and fines on Lane. Possible penalties and fines by the SIAC will be submitted to Lane through the office of the commissioner.”
The NCAA Division II Committee on Infractions has penalized Lane College for a number of major violations in the institution’s athletic program. This case involved multiple major violations occurring over several years, which led to findings of a lack of institutional control and a failure to monitor.
Penalties for the violations include placing the college on four years of probation; vacation of records; a reduction in available scholarships; and ineligibility for telecast opportunities during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years. In addition, the former director of athletics was given a four-year show-cause penalty. Under this penalty, should the former director of athletics seek athletically related employment with this or any other NCAA institution during this time period, he and the hiring institution must appear before the Committee on Infractions to determine whether his duties should be limited.
The committee stated in its report that this case “is another in a long line of cases involving institutions that have failed to establish and maintain adequate athletics compliance systems.”
It was found that the former director of athletics, who was lacking a support staff and running the department by himself, failed to establish a certification system. He alone made the eligibility decisions and erroneously applied initial eligibility, satisfactory progress and transfer eligibility rules on a regular basis.
As a result, from 2001-02 through 2006-07, 32 student-athletes in eight sports were allowed to practice, compete and receive financial aid while ineligible. There were no additional checks of eligibility decisions prior to 2001-02, though the committee said problems likely existed.
For a complete listing of the NCAA Violations report please visit www.ncaa.org.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
As a graduate and long time supporter! Its sad to hear something like this for a fine institue like Lane. My prays go out to President and Staff at Lane!
March 10th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Even though it started before Johnny Cole got there, everywhere he and his brother L.C., has been they leave distruction in their wake. Football coaches know the rules themselves,they have B.S.’s, M.ED’s,and more, when they have incompetent compliance people who and/or that are too lazy to do their jobs, coaches still have an obligation to protect the University, they are looking for wins vs. losses and the next high paying job. Watch out at Texas Southern this will happen again.