This acknowledges receipt of a letter from Chairman Arthur R. Reynolds of the NCAA Committee on Infractions under date of September 10, 1975. The letter and its enclosure arrived here September 12. רוי This institution does not wish to take advantage of the opportunity to appeal the findings or the penalty to the NCAA Council. The President of this institution accepts the criticism leveled at him by the Committee on Infractions. Coaches Bob Field, Charles Garrett, and Dennis Aldridge have been acquainted with the facts of the findings of the Committee on Infractions, and cach of them has been admonished for his lack of knowledge of basic NCAA regulations governing the recruitment of prospective student-athletes. Messrs. Walter Lee Ellis, Howard Miskelly, and Bill Watson have been acquainted with the findings of the Committee on Infractions concerning their activities, and each has been given instructions directing his complete severance of any and all relations he may have, formally or informally, with the University's intercollegiate athletic program including, but not limited to, his financial support, recruiting efforts, and membership in institutional athletic booster groups. Student-athletes Larry Gillard and Richard Blackmore have been informed of their incligibility to participate in intercollegiate competition and championship contests respectively. They have also been informed of the appropriateness of an appeal for restoration of eligibility. We shall appreciate an early release of the information to the public. Mr. LENT. This letter was signed by William Giles, president, of Mississippi State University, addressed to the NCAA. It says in the second paragraph: This institution does not wish to take advantage of the opportunity to appeal the findings or the penalty to the NCAA Council. The President of this institution accepts the criticism leveled at him by the Committee on Infractions. Given your testimony here today, Mr. Ward, and with your feeling that while some of the charges were justified, and, in fact, admitted by the university, that there were others at the university that he was found guilty of that were not really valid charges. Why is it that the determination was made, if you know, not to proceed with an appeal to the executive council of the NCAA? Mr. WARD. Mr. Lent, I will answer that as fully as I can with the knowledge that I have. I was the attorney, of course, throughout the proceedings. One factor that I do not think has been mentioned is that these proceedings were extremely expensive to the institution, extremely expensive. You had four or five faculty members on this committee who had to take off, and you had court reporters and attorneys' fees and travel. You had the travel to Kansas City with a whole host of folks who were allowed to go. That was one factor. Dr. Giles was concerned about the expense and the continuing expense. As this committee knows, an appeal to the council was not really an appeal. It is a de novo hearing with a new trial where added charges can be made. To be honest, we were in shock when we got the 2 years' probation. We did not anticipate that. Things were in a turmoil. I think the decision that Dr. Giles made, as president of the institution, was just based on several factors: cost; the loss of confidence in the NCAA when we got hit with 2 years' probation on what we felt was an extremely severe penalty, based on the evidence; and, to be honest, sort of a confused state of mind that the university officials were in at that time. You would have to be in that position to realize it. I cannot sit here and tell the gentlemen of the subcommittee the feelings that a university has when it gets 2 years' probation and is under a situation that it feels is not justified. I am sure the NCAA officials will say otherwise. It is like any other situation. But we honestly felt this was an extreme situation. I was not asked by the university to give advice on this decision. So, I had no input to this decision, personally. Mr. LENT. During these proceedings, you represented the university! Mr. WARD, Yes. Mr. LENT. Was Larry Gillard represented by independent counsel or did vou also represent him! Mr. WARD. I did not represent anyone except the university. Larry Gillard had no counsel representing his interests until the suit was Mr. LENT. There was a gentleman named Harry Rayburn. Was he the attorney who represented Mr. Gillard? Mr. WARD. He did represent Mr. Gillard and was employed by him at a later time to handle these proceedings in the Chancery Court. Mr. Rayburn was also at Kansas City, but was not representing Larry Gillard in any capacity. Mr. LENT. Mr. Gillard did receive initially a suspension for quite a protracted period of time; is that correct? Mr. WARD. Yes, sir. The infractions committee's findings on item No. 11, and the penalty, provided that Larry Gillard would lose the remaining 3 years of his eligibility to participate. Mr. LENT. Let me stop you there. Three years suspension. Did not Mr. Gillard, through his counsel, then make an appeal and take the appeal that the university, that is, a step of the appeal that the university failed to take, and made an appeal to the infractions committee? Mr. WARD. No, Mr. Lent. Mr. LENT. Rather, to the subcommittee on eligibility? Mr. WARD. Coach Tyler got on the telephone with Warren Brown, Director of the Enforcement Division of the NCAA, and was advised by Mr. Brown that he could make a telephonic appeal to the three members of the Subcommittee on Eligibility. Mr. LENT. So that appeal was prosecuted; is that right? Mr. WARD. Coach Tyler has personal knowledge. I have hearsay. Mr. LENT. Do you know the result of that appeal? Mr. WARD. As I understand it, through the telephone conversation with the Subcommittee on Eligibility, it was reduced from 3 years to a 1-year sanction. Mr. LENT. Was it a 1-year sanction or merely the balance of the current season? Mr. WARD. It would have been the balance of the current season. Mr. LENT. In your testimony, Mr. Ward, you actually call for a "strengthening"-I believe that was your word-of the enforcement staff; is that correct? Mr. WARD. Mr. Lent, I very seldom agree with Mr. Pyles. We do not agree too often. Mr. PYLES. I am glad of that. Mr. LENT. You have been talking for 2 days about how terrible the enforcement staff is and much of your testimony concerns the gentleman, Mr. Delaney, whom we heard about yesterday. We found out that he liked girls, or at least that charge was made. We find he is quite a clever interrogator. But, yet, given all of that testimony, today you seem to call for a strengthening of the enforcement staff. I wondered how you would square that particular request to the committee or to the NCAA with the balance of your testimony. Mr. WARD. I will try to explain that. My purpose here, really, was to relate the facts involved in the procedures; that is, what we ran into in the procedural deficiencies that I think exist as far as an institution faces in undergoing an investigation and with the concern we had with the lack of cooperation and so forth. To be honest, I have not really given a whole lot of thought to what the answers are. I have seen the problems and my testimony goes to that. My own personal view, without giving a lot of thought to it, is that the NCAA itself is, in many respects, a good organization. I think it does a lot of good. I think the enforcement area is one area that has to be improved, however. Denial of due process, lack of cooperation by the NCAA with the institution conducting its investigation, and the insufficient number of qualified investigators within the enforcement division of the NCAA are, in my view, several of the more significant problems. By strengthening, I mean an increase in the number of staff investigators, either in a restructured NCAA or substitute agency, so as to effectively police the total number of member institutions across the board rather than making arbitrary "spot checks" of just a few selected institutions from time to time. Mr. LENT. You would not then throw the baby out with the bathwater and substitute a Federal intercollegiate athletic board for the NCAA; is that right? Mr. WARD. I would not recommend that personally, and I think the staff members that they have are competent. I think they are too close to the mountain, however, to see its shape. Mr. LENT. Mr. Pyles, you are getting edgy. Mr. PYLES. Mr. Lent, I agree with you in your statement that we ought not to create unnecessary Federal bureaucracy. But, as a lawyer, I cannot determine how in the world you can give the NCAA, or any other private organization, jurisdiction over people who are not members of the organization. It cannot be done unless we change our laws somewhere. If I thought that there was anyway to do this without the creation of a bureaucracy, then I would not want it, but I do not believe there is. I have practiced law before the National Labor Relations Board, and, of course, that is a lot different from others, but it has worked fairly well. They have done pretty good. I have in mind some sort of an organization like that where you could appoint an administrative judge to go down and hear adverse testimony and make his recommendations and appeal that to a board. If you then are not satisfied, then there ought to be the right of appeal to a court of competent jurisdiction. You could either limit it to the Circuit Court of Appeals, as the National Labor Relations Act has done, or not. But you have categorized what Bob Tyler did on the telephone with three academicians with an appeal. To me, that is no appeal at all. That is a telephone conversation with some dictators. That is with some local Genghis Khans. Mr. LENT. Let me ask you one final question because I understand that my time is just about up. Were all of you gentlemen here yesterday during the testimony of the first witness, Mr. Brent Clark? I think I saw Mr. Pyles here yesterday. Mr. WARD. I was here during part of it. Mr. LENT. The basic thrust of the Clark testimony was that the NCAA and its investigative staff and I think I am using Mr. Clark's words "routinely cajoled and bribed players and other witnesses in the course of their investigations." Both of you gentlemen-and I also address this to Coach Tyler, who I am sure had some contact with the investigators, and also to Larry Gillard, who is here and who had contact with these investigators from the NCAA-do you agree, or were you ever exposed to any evidence that these investigators bribed football players? Mr. SANTINI. If the gentleman will yield, I think it is important that if they were not here to hear the testimony about what Mr. Clark said in terms of what was a bribe, then I should say this. He felt that giving witnesses free rides, free dinners, free entertainment, and all the sort of things that the universities cannot do, constitute, in his judgment, a bribe in the context of that kind of investigation. Mr. LENT. The kinds of things that lobbyists do with Congressmen. They take them out to dinner and so forth. Mr. SANTINI. Speak for yourself. Mr. WARD. I have no personal knowledge of that. Mr. LENT. Having been the attorney who represented Mississippi State University throughout this entire proceeding, which endured over a period of several months and I assume you had innumerable contacts with investigatory staff and you did make the complaints known with respect to this gentleman, Mr. Delaney and his manner of questioning-you found no evidence of his offering bribes to witnesses? Mr. WARD. We had rumors of that during our investigation. But I have no personal knowledge. Mr. LENT. Coach Tyler, does this charge ring true to you that NCAA investigators, granted that they might have used unfair tactics during questioning of football players and so forth, but have you ever had any evidence that they cajoled or bribed football players, that is, on any of your teams? Mr. TYLER. Mr. Lent, you mean "bribed" not as we refer to it a while ago as you described it, but you mean Mr. LENT. Maybe I am putting the coach on the spot. Mr. LENT. Take it either way. We would like to know. What kind of tactics were used with respect to players to elicit information that might be damaging to other players or to the university that would fit within the most liberal parameters of the term "bribe"? Mr. TYLER. Of course, I was not present when some athletes at our school and athletes at other schools, in connection with our case and in connection with other cases, I was not present when they were interviewed by NCAA investigators. I would have to say-I want to be very careful with the term "bribe." I do not want to make any broad statement that would include that word. But I do want to say that, through the years, both in terms of rumors as Mr. Ward has said, and also I could cite some 26-961 O-79-10 |