St. Aug's blames lack of understanding for probation, removes three from athletics department

Oct 6, 2008

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St. Augustine’s blamed poor training and understanding of NCAA compliance rules for penalties handed down Friday by the NCAA Division II Committee on Infractions.

The school also announced that three members of the athletics department have been moved to jobs at the school outside of athletics.

The NCAA found major violations in the St. Aug’s athletics program, beginning in the 2003-04 academic year and continuing through 2007-08. According to the NCAA, St. Augustine's allowed 29 athletes to practice or compete while ineligible to do so. Fifteen of those ineligible athletes played football.

The Falcons began a three-year probation Oct. 3 and will have to pay a $2,500 fine to the NCAA. The school also must forfeit wins that involved ineligible players.

“All of it was compliance driven – every issue deals directly with compliance,” Chief Development Officer Marc Newman said Monday. “In a lot of cases, it was people who weren’t truly trained on all aspects of compliance. …

“In a lot of cases, it was us not doing our due diligence.”

Newman said, “It came down to our athletics staff, those administrators, those programs, not knowing the rules.”

Newman said the school has moved the compliance officer, senior women’s administrator and associate director of athletics to other jobs at the college. Andre Roach has been hired from Saint Pauls in Virginia to oversee compliance. The new director of athletic operations is Lewis Card, who had been with the college in a different role. The new senior women's administrator is Dot Neal.

George Williams, the esteemed track coach, will remain as athletics director even though two track athletes were found to be ineligible.

“Mr. Williams was not directly over compliance,” Newman said. “If you look at the issues related to the track program, it all came back to the same thing, issues in the registrar’s office and issues with compliance.”

The NCAA is penalizing St. Aug’s 10 percent of its scholarships in the affected sports. So, St. Aug’s will lose two scholarships in football and one each in other sports such as men’s basketball and women’s basketball, Newman said.

Augustine’s will review its procedures to make sure it was in compliance with NCAA rules.