South Carolina will reduce the number of football scholarships by six over the next three years and undergo a three-year probation period as part of self-imposed penalties following an NCAA investigation into the program.
In Wednesday’s formal response to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations received by the university on Sept. 19, USC also agreed to pay a monetary fine of $18,500, reduce the number of official visits in football and track and field, and disassociate with anyone involved with the allegations.
As a result of the infractions, track and field coach Curtis Frye will not be allowed to coach the men’s and women’s track teams at the 2012 Penn Relays, nor will he be allowed to attend the event. In addition, he will not be eligible to receive any salary bonuses for the 2011-2012 academic year and will not receive any salary increase for the 2012-2013 year. Quarterbacks coach G.A. Mangus will be prohibited from off-campus recruiting during the month of January and will not be eligible to receive bonuses for the 2012-2013 and the 2013-2014 academic years. Assistant basketball coach Michael Boynton will be prohibited from off-campus recruiting for the month of December. All three coaches will have to attend NCAA Regional Rules Seminars.
Official visits in football will be reduced to 30 for the 2012-2013 year, while men's track and field visits will be limited to 50. Typical visits for football allowed is 56, though track and field has no limit. The football program will lose no scholarship offers in 2012, but three in 2013 and in 2014. It will lose scholarship players in each of the next three seasons – one in 2012, two in 2013, and three in 2014.
The NCAA can accept the punishment or add to it after USC appears before the committee on infractions on Feb. 17-18 in Los Angeles.
The response addressed the specific allegations outlined in the NCAA notice, detailed the university’s actions in regards to the allegations, and any changes it’s instituted since receiving the notice. South Carolina did not contest the NCAA’s allegations.
In its notice, the NCAA alleged that the Whitney Hotel, located on Devine Street in downtown Columbia, provided extra benefits to 12 student-athletes amounting to approximately $47,000 from May 2010 through October 2010. Furthermore, it alleged that the Whitney Hotel made special arrangements with nine of the student-athletes to postpone paying rent, which constitutes an impermissible loan, according to NCAA statute.
In response to student-athletes staying at the Whitney Hotel for a discounted rate, South Carolina said that the University’s Office of Compliance Services made a “good-faith error in judgment” when it approved the lease terms in August 2009, comparing the lease terms at the Whitney to those for other furnished apartments in the surrounding Columbia area, but not considering the rates the hotel had previously charged South Carolina for extended-stay guests.
Since the hotel was a representative of the University’s athletics interests when at least some of the violations occurred, the violations are considered to be an extra benefit, which means that USC has to take responsibility for the violations.
In regards to the student-athletes receiving an impermissible loan when nine of the student-athletes deferred their rent payments, South Carolina responded that it had no notice that the student-athletes were behind on their rent, and so, it concluded that an institution’s obligation to monitor does not extend to confirming that each student-athlete has paid his or her rent each month.
USC sent a notice of disassociation to Jamie Blevins, the Whitney’s general manager. The Athletics Department had paid for newly hired athletics employees moving to Columbia to stay in the Whitney, as well as other hotels in the area. South Carolina did not allow the Whitney to renew its Gamecock Club membership in 2011.
Also in the Notice of Allegations, the NCAA alleged Steve Gordon and Kevin Lahn made impermissible recruiting contacts, as well as provided incentives and extra-benefits to both prospective student-athletes and USC student-athletes, through the Student-Athlete Mentoring (SAM) Foundation from the spring of 2009 through February 2011. Lahn and Gordon are co-founders of the SAM Foundation and are graduates of South Carolina. The alleged inducements and extra benefits totaled over $8000.
Of the impermissible recruiting contacts, the NCAA notice lists the SAM Foundation bringing large groups of prospective student-athletes to South Carolina’s campus. In the response, South Carolina argues that most of the high school students were not Division I caliber athletes, and so USC was not recruiting many of the prospective student-athletes. South Carolina does acknowledge that the trips benefited the recruitment of the prospects involved in the SAM Foundation that it was actually recruiting.
Prior to South Carolina receiving the NCAA notice in Septemeber, the NCAA ruled that freshman wide receiver Damiere Byrd received about $2,700 in impermissible benefits through his involvement with the Delaware-based SAM Foundation. Byrd was ruled ineligible for the first four games of the 2011 season.
The response detailed both Lahn and Gordon’s affiliation with South Carolina. Lahn has given $190,529.80 to the university, and he is also a football season ticket holder, member of the Gamecock Club, member of the University’s Alumni Association Board of Governors, and president of his local South Carolina alumni chapter. Gordon has not donated funds in the past or been formally affiliated with USC.
The response states that Lahn had a personal relationship with Frye in that Lahn funded an annual University Alumni Association gathering for the track and field team in conjunction with the Penn Relays for the past several years. Lahn also donated to Frye’s foundation.
Gordon developed a relationship with Mangus, as Mangus coached at a college in New Jersey while Gordon’s father was a high school coach in New Jersey.
Both Gordon and Lahn were sent letters of disassociation, while Mangus and Frye were sent letters of reprimand and penalized for their involvement in these activities. Furthermore, South Carolina ended its recruitment of prospects affiliated with the SAM Foundation.
The final NCAA allegation was the South Carolina violated the principles of rules compliance in that it did not sufficiently monitor the violations that were alleged to have taken place in student-athlete housing at the Whitney Hotel and in the activities of Lahn and Gordon.
South Carolina acknowledges in the response that it should have taken additional steps to prevent or detect some of the violations. As a result, Jennifer Stiles was sent a letter of reprimand and reassignment, in which she was demoted from Director of Compliance Services to Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance. The demotion includes a 15 percent salary reduction. Judy Van Horn is the Interim Director of Compliance Services.
“We continue to work in full cooperation with the NCAA on this very serious matter," said University President Harris Pastides in a statement. "As an institution, we established self-imposed penalties and Implemented corrective actions."
