It’s been fairly slow on the news front lately, but here’s some new stories.
The University of Denver’s men’s hockey coach was suspended for one game for an NCAA rules violation. George Gwozdecky violated the NCAA rule prohibiting contact with team personnel after being ejected from a game against the University of North Dakota.
New University of Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin may have already committed an NCAA violation. The school is reporting a possible secondary violation for simulating a game experience while several prospective student-athletes were on campus.
The NCAA accepted the University of Albany’s findings and self-imposed penalties arising from rules violations in the school’s football and baseball programs. The violations all dealty with text messages sent to prospective student-athletes after such communication was banned. The football team responded by disabling the text-messaging feature in the recruiting software, restricted the staff’s off-campus recruiting, and implemented a two-year probationary period. Similarly, the school removed the text-messaging feature on the baseball coach’s telephone, imposed a one-year ban on off-campus recruiting, and reduced the number of allowed scholarships by one.
University of Kansas head men’s basketball coach Bill Self has admitted that he had contact with a prospective student-athlete during an evaluation period. Under NCAA rules, coaches can have no contact with recruits during evaluation periods.
The Arizona Star has a story outlining the new rules affecting NCAA baseball beginning this year. The new rules cap the roster size at 35 players, establish scholarship minimums, and require all student-athletes who transfer to sit out a year before being eligible at the new school. Previously, a baseball player transferring for the first time was not required to sit out for a season as is required in sports like basketball, football, and hockey. For the 2009 season, up to 30 players may receive some amount of an athletic scholarship and those who do receive aid must receive at least 25% of tuition, fees, and books. Further, for the 2009 season, those numbers change to 27 players and 33% aid.
