The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has placed the University of Miami (Florida) on two years of probation due to violations primarily in the institution's baseball program.

The case concerned violations of NCAA bylaws governing recruiting, financial aid, playing and practice season restrictions, honesty standards and institutional monitoring of the baseball program. This is the institution's fifth major infractions case; the university appeared before the committee in 1995 (baseball, football, women's golf and men's tennis), 1981 (football), 1964 (men's basketball) and 1955 (football).

The case began in the spring of 1999, when an anonymous source contacted the university to report information concerning possible NCAA bylaw violations. The information concerned a local sports club/conditioning program co-owned and operated by the university's assistant baseball coach, in which the attendees allegedly paid varying enrollment costs and used the university's facilities.

The university investigated and determined the sports club was using the university's facilities at no cost. As specified by NCAA legislation, the university immediately required the assistant coach to sign a contract and pay a fee for the use of university facilities. In addition, university officials asked the assistant coach whether he was charging any of the sports-club participants a lesser amount. The assistant coach denied charging any of the participants special rates.

In August 2000, the anonymous source contacted the university again, as well as the NCAA enforcement staff. The university and the NCAA enforcement staff conducted a subsequent joint investigation that centered on the sports-club operation, although questions were asked about the operation of the entire baseball program.

The committee's report states that the assistant coach co-owned and supervised the sports club from fall 1998 to spring 2001, and conducted conditioning and weightlifting activities. A number of prospective student-athletes participated in activities that demonstrated their athletics abilities, which violated NCAA tryout legislation. In addition, the assistant coach was found to have violated NCAA standards of honesty because he failed, as required by NCAA Bylaw 11.2.2, to accurately report his outside athletically related income to the institution during a three-year period.

The investigation also found that the institution failed to comply with grant-in-aid penalties in its baseball program that were imposed by the Committee on Infractions as a result of the university's 1995 infractions case. Further, during the 1998-99 academic year, after the end of the grant-in-aid penalties resulting from the previous infractions case, the institution over-awarded athletics aid in baseball.

In its report, the committee said it was disturbed that the university exceeded baseball financial aid limits imposed by the committee as a result of violations found in the 1995 case. The committee noted that the 1995 case included financial aid violations and, therefore, the university should have been especially alert to its financial aid accountability. For these reasons, the committee found these violations to be major.

Also, the investigation found that on more than one occasion the coaching staff permitted representatives of the institution's athletics interests to have impermissible recruiting contacts with prospective student-athletes and their parents on official paid visits. The committee concluded this was a major violation, since the occurrences were neither isolated nor inadvertent.

The committee also found a lack of monitoring by the institution primarily for the impermissible recruiting activities associated with the sports club, and the impermissible financial aid for failing to count wages earned by student-athletes at the sports club.

In addition, there were several secondary violations of NCAA bylaws governing promotional activities, offers and inducements, and general playing-season regulations.

In determining the appropriate penalties to impose, the committee considered the institution's self-imposed penalties and corrective actions. The university imposed the following penalties on its baseball program:

Publicly reprimanded the baseball program in order to affirm to institutional personnel the importance of NCAA compliance.

Reduced the amount of grants-in-aid in baseball by a total of 2.36 over the 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06 academic years (the amount of over-award as a result of the employment wages).

Reduced by one the number of coaching staff members who may recruit off campus during the summer of 2003.

Reduced the number of official visits in baseball from 25 to 18 during the 2003-04 academic year. During the past four years, the institution has awarded as many as 24 visits and as few as 13 annual visits.

Imposed an average limit of $40,000 on the recruiting budget for baseball for the next three years (2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05). The sport has averaged $44,000 over the past three years.

Informed the assistant baseball coach in May 2001 that he must immediately cease any and all involvement in the local sports club. This cessation included, but was not limited to: (i) working out any prospect or non-prospect-age participants; (ii) marketing the program in any fashion with any group; and (iii) collecting dues from participants. The assistant coach has divested himself of any interest he had in the local sports or conditioning clubs.

Informed the assistant coach in June 2001 that he must cease any and all coaching activities outside of the university for any and all prospect-aged participants. He was informed he could not be involved in any outside coaching activities until the completion of the NCAA investigation.

Prohibited all baseball coaching staff members from being involved in any manner with any clubs, clinics, camps, instructional sessions, lessons, etc., other than the head baseball coach's private camp from November 1, 2002, to October 31, 2003.

Required that any and all camps/clinics operated outside of the university be part of the university's camp/clinic auditing process. Submission of the camp/clinic packet for all such camps will be required.

Froze the assistant coach's salary for the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years at his salary level for the 2001-02 year and prohibited him from receiving any bonuses based upon the team's participation in any NCAA tournament. Further, his salary from the head baseball coach's private camp cannot be increased significantly over the summers of 2002 and 2003 to compensate for loss of income from punitive activities in this report.

Reprimanded publicly the head baseball coach and reinforced to him his responsibility to develop an environment of NCAA compliance, and to monitor activities that are occurring within the baseball program.

The Committee on Infractions agreed with and adopted the actions taken by the university, but it imposed additional penalties because of the nature of the violations in light of the university's recent infractions history. Some of the same issues from the case in 1995, including over-awarding of financial aid and employment of student-athletes, also were factors in this case.

Because this case was determined to be major in nature, the university is considered a repeat violator, as specified in NCAA Bylaw 19.6.2.3.1. It appeared to the committee that the university either did not follow through with corrective measures outlined in its annual compliance reports from the previous case, or that the measures failed to prevent similar violations from occurring.

However, the committee chose not to impose all of the presumptive penalties permitted under Bylaw 19.6.2.3.2. The committee made this decision because of the actions taken by the university to institute appropriate corrective and disciplinary measures, the university's cooperation in the NCAA investigation, and the significant mitigating factors outlined in the committee's report.

Additional penalties imposed by the committee include:

The university shall be publicly reprimanded and censured.

The university shall be placed on two years of probation beginning February 27, 2003, and ending February 26, 2005.

In addition to the institution's self-imposed reduction of 2.36 baseball equivalencies during the same period, the committee imposed an additional reduction of 2.3 equivalencies for a total of 4.66 over the three-year period beginning with the 2003-04 academic year, and ending with the 2005-06 academic year. (The reduction of 4.66 equivalencies represents twice the amount of baseball grants the institution over awarded (2.33). This two-for-one reduction is the standard penalty for over-awards in secondary cases. Although the committee found this to be a major case, it was believed that there were mitigating factors that warranted only the imposition of the standard secondary case penalty for over-awards.)

During this period of probation, the institution shall:

a. Continue to develop and implement a comprehensive educational program on NCAA legislation, including seminars and testing, to instruct the coaches, the faculty athletics representative, all athletics department personnel and all university staff members with responsibility for the certification of student-athletes for admission, retention, financial aid or competition;

b. Submit a preliminary report to the director of the committees on infractions by April 1, 2003, setting forth a schedule for establishing this compliance and educational program; and

c. File with the committee's director annual compliance reports indicating the progress made with this program by December 15 of each year during the probationary period. Particular emphasis should be placed on adherence to legislation relating to financial aid and the employment of student-athletes. The reports also must include documentation of the university's compliance with the penalties (adopted and) imposed by the committee.

* At the end of the probationary period, the institution's president shall provide a letter to the committee affirming that the university's current athletics policies and practices conform to all requirements of NCAA regulations.

As required by NCAA legislation for any institution involved in a major infractions case, Miami shall be subject to the provisions of NCAA Bylaw 19.6.2.3, concerning repeat violators, for a five-year period beginning on the effective date of the penalties in this case (February 27, 2003).

The members of the Division I Committee on Infractions who heard this case are: Thomas Yeager (chair), commissioner, Colonial Athletic Association; Alfred J. Lechner Jr., attorney, Princeton, New Jersey; Gene A. Marsh, professor of law, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Andrea Myers, athletics director, Indiana State University; James Park Jr., attorney, Lexington, Kentucky; Josephine R. Potuto, professor of law, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and Eugene D. Smith, athletics director, Arizona State University.

A copy of the complete report can be found on NCAA Online at http://www.ncaa.org/.