Iowa State Asks NCAA for Probation in Recruiting Violation

Iowa State University coaches and staff made improper phone calls and text messages when recruiting athletes from 2008-2011, the athletics department announced Tuesday.

The University declined to name the coaches involved but said they served self-imposed sanctions and cutback recruiting trips and recruiting calls from 2011-12.

The University self reported the violations to the NCAA and the case remains under investigation. The University is requesting two years of probation.

In 2012, the NCAA deregulated texts and calls to basketball recruits who had completed their sophomore year of high school, according to ESPN.

The lifting of a similar restriction for football recruits will be reviewed in May, according to the Bleacher Report. The Bleacher blog said that people at the college and high school levels were concerned that athletes and high school coaches would be inundated if the restrictions were lifted.

Iowa State declined to name the sports involved the recruiting violations, but said in a release that the Athletics department “reviewed three years worth of telephone and text message activity for every member of its coaching staff in all 18 of its sports.”

Out of approximately 750,000 total calls made during the three-year period, 55 impermissible phone calls were placed by non-coaching staff members and 24 phone calls were made by coaching staff members at impermissible times. 

The institution also discovered that many of its coaches had failed to properly document 1,405 calls in which a coach attempted to make a call but failed to connect with a prospect (e.g., dropped calls, lack of an answer or voice mail).  The failure to properly log all telephone calls resulted in further NCAA violations.

Read the full release:

IOWA STATE ENTERS INTO SUMMARY DISPOSITION PROCESS

AMES, Iowa – The Iowa State University Athletics Department announced today that it has entered into a summary disposition process with the NCAA stemming from inadvertent and impermissible telephone and text messages made by members of its coaching staff from 2008 to 2011. The department discovered and self-reported the violations to the NCAA over 18 months ago in November of 2011.

"Our institution is fully committed to strict compliance with all rules and regulations of the NCAA," Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard said.  "We have worked hard to maintain a culture of integrity by hiring quality staff and reinforcing moral and ethical conduct at all times.  That is why we immediately reported these inadvertent violations to the NCAA in the fall of 2011."

The department reviewed three years worth of telephone and text message activity for every member of its coaching staff in all 18 of its sports.  The exhaustive review —broader than any known review by a NCAA member institution — included examination of more than 2,500 individual monthly telephone bills. The institution discovered, out of approximately 750,000 total calls made by its coaches during the three-year period, 55 impermissible phone calls were placed by non-coaching staff members and 24 phone calls were made by coaching staff members at impermissible times. 

The institution also discovered that many of its coaches had failed to properly document 1,405 calls in which a coach attempted to make a call but failed to connect with a prospect (e.g., dropped calls, lack of an answer or voice mail).  The failure to properly log all telephone calls resulted in further NCAA violations.

The department's self-imposed sanctions for these violations, which were already served by its coaches during the 2011-12 academic year, included a reduction in the number of coaches on the road recruiting and the number of times coaches could place calls during a four-month period, as well as requiring all coaches to attend a compliance education session on telephone and text messaging.  In addition, the department has recommended to the NCAA that Iowa State University be placed on two years probation.

"We are hopeful the NCAA will recognize our sincere effort to adhere to NCAA rules and will accept our self-imposed sanctions," Pollard said. "We are definitely a stronger organization as a result of what we learned about our internal monitoring system and we look forward to resolving these self-reported violations in a timely manner."

The University will have no further comment on this matter until the case is completely resolved with the NCAA.