Appearing before the Committee on Infractions in any division can strike fear into the heart of college presidents, athletics administrators and coaches. While some of the trepidation is necessary — even a healthy part of the process — much of it stems from the prevalent misconception that the committees are somehow biased against the institutions that appear before them or are just looking to punish institutions for even the most minor of violations.

Neither belief is true, say both committee members and administrators who have appeared before the committees at all levels.

The committee members take their jobs seriously — they are thorough and firm but compassionate and question the enforcement staff with the same amount of vigor they employ when querying an institution’s officials. They prepare extensively for the meetings and are not simply looking for ways to punish administrators and student-athletes who often were not at the institution at the time of the infractions.

Administrators who have appeared before the committee admit to being nervous, uncomfortable or apprehensive before walking into the room, but most admit that once the process is over, besides the rush of relief, they’ve learned a lot.

"My first thought was, ‘Thank God that is over,’" said Tim Abney, athletics director at Lincoln University (Missouri), whose institution went before the Division II infractions committee in 2005. "But I started understanding more and making sure we would be more responsible for the things we were doing and more careful to make sure that we did things in line with the NCAA rules. At the same time, I don’t ever want to go through that again."

Ken Dobbins, president of Southeast Missouri State University, likened the waiting to preparing for a dissertation defense.

"I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew they were going to be thorough," he said. "I didn’t know the line of questioning, though."

Even committee members themselves know they are likely not the most beloved people among NCAA institutions. Bruce Kirsh, chair of the Division II Committee on Infractions, said he thinks people often look at the committee as "the hanging judge."

Gene Marsh, a long-time member of the Division I Committee on Infractions and a law professor at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, appeared before the committee as a faculty athletics representative for his institution before joining the group a few months later. Marsh said he thinks the membership likely has a "general dislike" for the role of the committee and its members.

"It’s a regulatory body. From a distance, the membership has a distrust and a dislike. It’s the same feeling people have toward the IRS or the state trooper that pulls you over," he said. "That’s just part of the deal."

"I personally believe that when an institution appears before the committee, there should be a sense of intimidation present. If an institution must appear before the committee, it has been established that they have been guilty of some major violations. That is serious and should be recognized as such," he said.

While committee hearings are serious events, they also are part of what committee members strive to make a fair and balanced process. Instead of simply endorsing the findings of the enforcement staff and issuing subsequent sanctions, infractions committee members sift through hundreds of documents, listen to interviews with dozens of people and spend time reviewing all the materials involved with a case.

Shep Cooper, director of the infractions committees, works closely with the Division I panel. He said that often, administrators and others who appear before the committee believe that the members simply rubber stamp any decision made by the enforcement staff.

"In reality, the committee wants to hear all sides. They ask a lot of questions. They’re people like everybody else," he said. "They keep an open mind."

Jim Elworth, an NCAA enforcement staff representative who oversees much of the work of the Divisions II and III infractions committees, said the work of those committees might not be as attractive to the media, but the stakes are just as high for the schools involved — and the committee members are just as committed as their counterparts are in Division I about being fair and balanced.

"They want everybody to be successful. They’re not looking to put notches on their belt or anything," Elworth said. "They want to improve compliance offices."

Tom Simmons, athletics director at Ohio Northern University, which just recently went through the process, said the Division III committee has an "unenviable task."

"They have to get the facts out and make a decision. It was very professional. There was no agenda," he said of his institution’s procedure. "(An institution) is not there to win a prize. You’re there because something bad happened. I very much respect (the committee). They have a job to do. You respect it, and you move on."

Simmons said he thinks some of his colleagues might have the misconception that the "NCAA" is going to punish the institution or the coach for misdeeds.

"It’s not the NCAA — it’s a committee of our peers," he said. "They just want the truth. That’s all they want. They don’t want a lot of fluff. They’ve got a lot of information to ferret out. I think you also have to have some empathy for their situation. It’s not a fun thing to do."

In Dobbins’ experience before the Division I committee in 1998, he said he believed members wanted to make sure they heard all sides of each issue and judge fairly.

"When I look back and I see the results and the judgments they came down with, I thought that they were very fair — they did listen," he said. "What they are doing is trying to look at the overall picture of not only what happened at an institution, but also how it affects the NCAA as a whole."

Educational experience

Tom Yeager, commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association, has participated in the infractions hearings from two sides — as a member of the NCAA enforcement staff and as a committee member. He just completed his ninth and final year on the Division I committee. He said that the process has changed significantly since he joined the NCAA staff in 1976, when a lot of the staff’s work was done in secret and without the cooperation of the accused institutions — a process that likely contributed to many of the misconceptions about the committee and its members that still exist today. Since then, he said, the process has opened up considerably, and the staff and the institutions work together to prepare for the hearing.

"A long time ago, it was like a bare-knuckle fight when you got into a hearing because the process was so different and nobody really knew who was who and what was what," Yeager said. "There’s much more disclosure and real cooperation between the staff and the institution. There’s a lot more sunshine in the process than there used to be."

That sunshine has brightened an environment where there are what Yeager calls "legitimate disagreements between the staff and the institution about what happened."

"It’s absolutely OK, and the committee is left to try to sort out, if possible, which version is accurate," Yeager said. While he was a committee member, he said, several presidents and university counsels would tell him how surprised they were at the fairness of the committee — how the members questioned the staff and the institutional representatives with "equal vigor."

The committee members take their jobs seriously and have the utmost integrity, Yeager said.

"They recognize the stakes that are involved. If they’re putting their name on a report, they’re going to make absolutely certain that they’re comfortable with their findings," he said.

The goal of any hearing before an infractions committee is to improve the institution and assist it with compliance efforts. Penalties must be levied, but the committee members don’t relish handing them out, and they don’t do so haphazardly or without careful consideration. Kirsh, the Division II infractions committee chair, said the penalties are designed to improve the institution’s compliance efforts. The infractions process can be an educational experience, he said.

"The NCAA (and the committee) looks at this as an education process and not just punitive action," he said. "We try to make the penalty fit the crime, but have the penalty be one that can advance the institution after they recognize what their deficiencies have been."

Several institutions that have appeared before the committees take the educational aspect to heart — they want to apply what they’ve learned not only to ensure that they never return to the hearing room, but also to be a model of success for other institutions to follow.

Schumacher at Lewis said that was his institution’s goal — becoming a model of compliance that can offer advice to other institutions seeking to build compliance departments.

"We are as a department and as a university very encouraged with the way things (in our case) have been handled. It was a great learning experience for our university, there’s no doubt," he said. "We got a lot better."

Despite the perception that the committee members may be biased against an institution or have a preconceived idea of guilt or innocence before a hearing, Schumacher’s description of what has happened on his campus is the ultimate goal of the committee — making the Association’s members stronger, smarter and better.