In the news: A major NCAA infractions case touches off lawsuits by coaches, a request for a Congressional hearing, and introduction of state legislation to impose specific due-process requirements on the Association's enforcement staff.

All of those events have occurred during the past year, in response to a decision in a recent infractions case.

And all echo a series of events that occurred during one of the most tumultuous periods in NCAA enforcement history -- a period running from the early 1970s to the early 1990s that prompted a lengthy and ultimately successful legal defense of the Association's rights to enforce its rules, as well as serious internal re-examination of investigative procedures.

That period had its roots in a 1972 infractions case involving Long Beach State University, and a lawsuit by basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian in response to a "show-cause" finding and two-year suspension order resulting from that case.

The main battleground, though, was Nevada, where Tarkanian served as coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and won rulings in state courts preventing the NCAA from enforcing the show-cause finding.

The NCAA ultimately appealed those rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1988 that the NCAA was not engaged in state action and thus was not bound by formal due-process standards in penalizing Tarkanian. It was a landmark finding that remains in force today, but it also was just one of several milestone events in a lengthy struggle to defend the enforcement process even as it underwent change.

A Nevada Congressman, James Santini, responded to the initial Tarkanian-NCAA standoff by obtaining a hearing on NCAA enforcement procedures from the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The hearing produced no federal legislation affecting the NCAA enforcement process, but it did result in several internal changes to enforcement procedures that were enacted in 1979.

In 1987, new allegations of rules violations emerged at UNLV, where Tarkanian continued to coach.

The case eventually was affected by the Nevada state legislature's adoption in 1991 of a law requiring the NCAA to use defined due-process procedures in its investigations. Several other states adopted the Nevada law, posing a serious threat to the NCAA's ability to enforce its rules equally in all states.

The NCAA sued in federal court to have the Nevada law overturned, asserting that it imposed unattainable due-process standards on infractions cases in that state. The federal court determined in 1992 that the law and others like it were unconstitutional, and that ruling was confirmed when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.

Lee committee review

That 1992 ruling marked a halt -- at least until recently -- to legal challenges to NCAA enforcement, and to counter-challenges by the Association to efforts by states to curtail its activities.

Shortly before its challenge of the Nevada law, the NCAA also initiated what would become the most thorough internal review ever of its procedures -- a review that resulted in the enforcement process that exists today.

In April 1991, then-NCAA Executive Director Richard Schultz directed the formation of a Special Committee to Review the NCAA Enforcement and Infractions Process -- remembered today as the Lee committee, after its chair, Brigham Young University President and former U.S. Solicitor General Rex Lee.

The influential panel also included among its members former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger and former Carter Administration Attorney General Benjamin Civilletti.

The action came during a time of bracing criticism from a variety of sources, ranging from state senators in several states where due-process laws were under consideration to an author who published an inflammatory book titled, "Undue Process: The NCAA's Injustice for All."

"It's not out of concern for providing due process that we're doing this," Schultz told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in discussing the Lee committee review. "We think our practices are relatively fair. Our major concern is that we don't have laws passed that make it difficult for us to have any type of rules enforcement at all."

Schultz asked the Lee committee to ensure the enforcement process was being administered efficiently, fairly and consistently, and to consider appropriate changes to make the process "more positive and understandable to those involved, as well as to the general public."

The committee reported later in 1991 that it found the enforcement process "fundamentally fair," but it responded to Schultz's request to consider changes by suggesting significant revisions in the process, including separate administration within the national office of the Committee on Infractions, appointment of members to that committee from outside the NCAA membership, and establishment of an Infractions Appeals Committee to review decisions.

Those recommendations were adopted and remain key elements of the enforcement process today.

Due process under fire again

Today, the process again is being challenged. A bill, the Alabama Collegiate Athletic Association Procedures Act, has been proposed in that state's House of Representatives, and would require the NCAA to provide specific due-process provisions in its enforcement proceedings. The state also would implement judicial remedies (including court review of penalties imposed by the Association) under the law.

In May, the chair of the U.S. House of Representatives House Judiciary Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, directed that panel's Subcommittee on the Constitution to schedule hearings to review the NCAA enforcement process. The directive came in response to a request from Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, who is asking that the committee "investigate whether the public, compulsory nature of the NCAA makes it a state actor" under a provision of the United States Code that permits civil penalties for "deprivation of rights."

It seems unlikely that those actions on the state and federal legislative fronts will touch off as lengthy an examination of the enforcement process as the Long Beach State/UNLV infractions cases and the Nevada due-process law, but it's anyone's guess whether these newest developments could prompt further defense of the process in courts, or another review by the Association.