The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has placed Texas Christian University on probation for two years and reduced scholarships in men’s tennis as a result of major and secondary violations. The case involves impermissible phone contacts and a failure to monitor by the institution and the former head coach.

The violations include 105 impermissible phone calls made by members of the men’s tennis coaching staff to 24 prospective student-athletes from summer 2002 through spring 2006. More than 70 calls came from the former head coach.

The institution is a repeat violator and the committee noted that, as in the previous infractions case, the violations in this matter involve, at least in part, a failure to monitor international student-athletes.

Penalties for the violations, including those self-imposed by the institution, include two years of probation, a reduction in recruiting activity, and a reduction in the number of men’s tennis scholarships for one academic year.

The committee found that the institution’s and the former head coach’s failure to monitor the tennis program allowed the violations to continue for a number of years before being discovered. During the 2002-03 and 2003-04 academic years, the institution’s coaches were required to maintain logs of recruiting calls in their offices. Compliance personnel visited the coaches’ offices occasionally to check the records, but no cross-checking with institution phone bills occurred, which resulted in the former head coach’s impermissible and unrecorded calls going undetected. Beginning in 2004-05 the coaches were expected to submit their phone logs to the compliance office for review. However, the former head coach kept, at best, insufficient information regarding phone calls and did not have a system for tracking them or submitting information to the compliance staff. The violations were discovered after the 2005-06 academic year when a member of the compliance staff was performing a year-end review of all phone records.

In addition, from June 1 to August 11, 2005, an assistant men's tennis coach made impermissible contact with a prospective student-athlete he formerly coached at another institution by placing 23 telephone calls to the young man. These calls were made before obtaining written permission from the director of athletics of the prospect’s previous institution. There was an apparent miscommunication between the former director of compliance and the former head coach at TCU regarding whether the assistant coach’s pre-existing relationship with the prospect allowed him to speak to the young man before obtaining the previous institution’s permission. As such, the assistant coach believed he was allowed to maintain contact.

The case involved a secondary violation as well, which is outlined in the Committee on Infractions’ public report.

In determining the penalties, the Committee on Infractions considered the institution’s self-imposed penalties and corrective actions. The penalties, some of which were self-imposed by the institution and adopted by the committee, are as follows:

• Public reprimand and censure.

• Two years of probation (February 28, 2008, to February 27, 2010).

• Discontinuation of all international expense-paid recruiting visits for men’s tennis from May 27, 2006, through May 27, 2007. (Self-imposed by institution).

• Discontinuation of all international off-campus recruiting activities for men’s tennis during May 27, 2006, through May 27, 2007. (Self-imposed by institution).

• Discontinuation of all domestic off-campus recruiting activities except for evaluation purposes only (no in-person contact) for men’s tennis during May 27, 2006, through May 27, 2007. (Self-imposed by institution).

• Reduction of financial aid awards in men’s tennis from the 2006-07 academic year to 3.5 equivalencies from the maximum allowable equivalency of 4.5. (Self-imposed by institution).

• The former head coach is prohibited from serving on any NCAA committees for two years from the date of the release of this report.

The Committee on Infractions consists of conference and institutional athletics administrators, faculty and members of the public. The committee independently rules on cases investigated by the NCAA enforcement staff and determines appropriate penalties. The committee's findings may be appealed to the Infractions Appeals Committee.

The members of the Committee on Infractions who reviewed this case are Josephine Potuto, the Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law and chair of the committee; Paul Dee, director of athletics at the University of Miami (Florida), and formerly the institution’s general counsel; Eileen Jennings, general counsel at Central Michigan University; Alfred Lechner Jr., attorney; Dennis Thomas, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and formerly director of athletics at Hampton University; Richard Dunn, professor of English and chair of the English department, University of Washington; Andrea Meyers, athletics director emeritus, Indiana State University; and Ted Leland, the vice president for advancement at the University of the Pacific, and formerly the director of athletics of, among others, Stanford University.