TUSCALOOSA | At the end of an eight-hour hearing in November 2001, an emotional Marie Robbins, speaking as the compliance officer for the University of Alabama at a hearing of the NCAA Infractions Committee, had a terse summation.
"I could never advise another school to do what we did ..." The comment was prompted by concerns that the NCAA had, in effect, allowed violations in the UA football program to develop rather than work with UA officials to prevent or limit those violations, a common theme in the 424-page transcript of the hearing obtained by The Tuscaloosa News. The closed hearing covered 16 allegations of rules violations by the Crimson Tide football program, ultimately leading to harsh sanctions, an appeal and legal action by individuals that is still ongoing. Much of the eight-hour hearing was spent in evaluating the university's compliance efforts and the assistance, or lack of assistance, given to those efforts by the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference office. Ultimately, UA was repudiated in stern fashion by the Committee on Infractions, which added additional penalties to those self-imposed by UA, rejecting -- and in some cases, ignoring -- UA's disagreements on factual matters and interpretations of NCAA legislation. Much of the information contained in the hearing transcript has already entered the public domain through the NCAA's Infractions Report, and through Alabama's appeal of the sanctions. Two former Alabama coaches -- Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams -- have filed defamation lawsuits against the NCAA, as have disassociated boosters Ray Keller of Jackson County and Wendell Smith of Chattanooga. Another disassociated booster, multimillionaire Logan Young, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Memphis for conspiracy charges relating to his involvement in the recruitment of former Memphis prep star Albert Means. However, the transcript contains the first unredacted look at precisely what was put in evidence before the Committee on Infractions and how Alabama officials and attorneys present at the hearing responded. Throughout the hearing, the NCAA Enforcement Staff hammers away at boosters Young and Keller, linking them or mentioning them in connection with virtually every infraction, even when there is no apparent connection to either. For instance, on an allegation regarding excessive entertainment, including strippers, at a recruiting party hosted by former UA player Fernando Bryant, UA enforcement representative Rich Johanningmeier says that Bryant -- who had two uncles that played in the NFL -- could have had the means to pay for the strippers "because he was a very good friend of Ray Keller." Mark Jones, the NCAA's director of enforcement, said that the NCAA withheld information from Alabama on allegations of potential recruiting violations involving Kenny Smith and Means because "we represent the rest of the schools." "Our obligation has to be for the development of the information, because we represent the rest of the schools. For some reason, a lot of other people knew it, but they [UA] didn't. They could have known it, too." Jones indicated that the NCAA was concerned about sharing information because compliance officials at Alabama, including Robbins, were "overmatched by a very powerful man [Young] who had control over a lot of people. "[We] have every confidence in Marie and Gene [Marsh, Alabama's faculty athletics representative at that time] and the people on campus, but we did not think they had control over Logan Young." At another point, Jones says that the only reason the NCAA Enforcement Staff became interested in possible violations committed during the recruitment of Smith -- a recruitment which occurred more than five years prior to the UA infractions case -- was because it believed that Young was involved. "I think maybe I might have even said to [Rich Johanningmeier] that if it was Logan Young or Ray Keller or somebody, it's probably worth doing. But if this is just something else, I don't know if it's worth the time it is going to take to investigate." Then-UA President Andrew Sorensen responded at one point, denying that Young exerted undue influence at Alabama. "During all the time that Coach [Bob] Bockrath was our athletics director, and Coach (Mal) Moore was our athletics director, never once in any conversation that I have had with them, and I meet with them on a weekly basis, has Mr. Young's name been referred to in any decision that we have made," Sorensen said. "[Young] never enters the conversation. "[Not] once has any trustee ever, in any circumstance ... said, I want you to do this because this is what Mr. Young would want. Never, ever, once." Jones returns to the issue in his closing statement, however, implying that the NCAA's actions were the only way to control Young. "[UA compliance officials] say they want something so they can take a crack at it," Jones said. "We can take them at their word. Yet, despite all of that, we still have Logan Young." Jones also indicated that Alabama had imposed "very significant penalties" on itself, but that the university did not acknowledge violations that were "the more serious ones in our view." That included the allegations involving Smith and Means. Alabama argued that the NCAA's statute of limitations barred the Smith violation and that, while Smith had received money, that an alternate source of that money might have been Jackson County businessman R. D. Hicks. UA attorney Stan Murphy even noted that in the NCAA's strongest evidence -- a tape made of Wendell Smith, a booster referred to by the NCAA's Jones as "an errand boy in this whole operation, working for Ray Keller and Logan Young" -- there was nothing linking Young to the case. "There is no reference in Wendell Smith's ... sordid, egregious soliloquy, there is no reference to Logan Young." Murphy said Moore, Alabama's director of athletics, was questioned specifically about a meeting between Smith's father and Young in 1995, at which Moore was briefly present. "[That] wasn't a concern for you or it didn't throw a flag for you that this recruit and his parents were in the room of a very substantial booster to your program?," asked COI member Andrea Myers. "Well, it did not," Moore responded. "I know that over the years, people would stop by Mr. Young's room occasionally ... I knew they weren't supposed to be in there and I told Mr. Young and I told the family to leave immediately, and they did." When Myers said she found it "strange" that the incident was not reported to compliance personnel at UA, Moore responded that "I just thought that I handled the situation because I honestly think they had only been in there minutes before I walked in." Keller, meanwhile, is described as Logan Young's "best friend," among other descriptions. "Unfortunately for us," Robbins said at one point, "[Keller] sought medical advice and they advised him to lose himself in something and he lost himself in Alabama football, which the guy is admittedly crazy." Other items of interest contained in the transcripts include: ? In discussing the appropriateness of "confidential source testimony," attorney Rich Hilliard, representing UA, acknowledged that Alabama had agreed to allow "some facts" from an individual who wished to be unidentified. "Professor Marsh, I believe in good faith, said, 'Okay, we want the information and we will assess it after we get it, but we will proceed with the understanding that he has been identified to us." The Enforcement Staff then introduces testimony from a confidential source that it describes as "a guy that has been in the media area ... involved in TV and radio. He was working at a recruiting service. He was in the thick of the whole thing. "He meets Young in August of '99. They develop a relationship." Ultimately, according to Johanningmeier, "Young comes right out and tells [the source] that he bought Albert Means -- that he was giving $40,000 to [Lynn] Lang, $40,000 to an assistant coach and $35,000 to Felicia Means." The Enforcement Staff's reliance on the confidential source in the Albert Means allegation is primarily to support the story told by Means' assistant high school coach, Milton Kirk. The point is critical, because UA officials contend that Kirk is not a credible witness. Lang was Means' head coach. "Could we get to the same [spot] that the enforcement staff did with Milton Kirk?," Hilliard asks rhetorically at one point. "Unfortunately, we could not. In the final analysis, we found his information ... the inconsistencies were troubling enough to cause us to believe it was unreliable." The Enforcement Staff responds that "the source" as well as a social acquaintance of Young's named Duke Clement and former University of Memphis coach Rip Scherer, are "corroboration" for Kirk's story. "We feel the source, who does not know Kirk, lives in a completely different state, a different socioeconomic background, we have the source basically telling us some of the similar things that Kirk is telling us," Johanningmeier says. Recent revelations, however, may cast that conclusion in a much different light. The summary of a confidential NCAA interview with University of Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer has been made public as part of the discovery in Young's pending criminal trial in Memphis, and that interview reveals that Fulmer had a lengthy meeting with Tom Culpepper. Culpepper, a Birmingham recruiting analyst, is allegedly the "confidential source" (and fits Johanningmeier's description of that source) and could have had access to information about Kirk from Fulmer. Johanningmeier did not reveal information about that meeting to the Committee on Infractions or to Alabama, which might have taken a different view of allowing confidential source testimony had that fact been known. Robbins seems to hint at such a possibility in her closing statement. "Having seen how this has played out, I could never advise another school to do what we did against our self-interest in agreeing to the admission of the information from the confidential source," Robbins said. Perhaps the most ominous statement of all concerning the Means' recruitment, however, comes from COI chairman Tom Yeager. "Somebody was going to end up in this room out of this kid," Yeager said. "It was just a matter of who." ? There was at least one indication that Milton Kirk wanted to talk about other schools that may have committed violations in Means' recruitment. "He also made reference to some other Universities," Johanningmeier said. "[We] tried to direct Mr. Kirk to stick with one school, but that was almost impossible." ? Alabama coach Dennis Franchione appeared before the COI on a prepared videotape. He also answered questions through a teleconference. "The [Means] story that broke in the Memphis Commercial Appeal ... had a terrifically negative impact on our recruiting, both in talent and our numbers." Franchione said. "However, I made a choice to use our scholarships for incoming freshmen, to people of good character, who had a chance to contribute, rather than loading up with twenty-five bodies in anticipation of scholarship losses..." ? At approximately the midpoint of the hearing, UA assistant coach Ronnie Cottrell and his attorney, Todd Vargo, were brought into the room for discussion of NCAA charges against Cottrell. Those discussions centered mainly on Cottrell's responses, in an interview conducted by Johanningmeier, to questions concerning "compensation" provided by Logan Young. "I am thankful that Logan provided me a loan," Cottrell said. "I didn't know at the time it was a violation. I wasn't trying to hide it. "It was just [that] I was frustrated at the time that someone said my home had been purchased by that individual [Young.] To me, there is a big difference in a purchase of a $600,000 home and a second mortgage on an investment property in Tallahassee, Florida." Ivy Williams, who has also filed suit, was dropped from the Means allegation because he, unlike the university, had given no waiver to allow the use of "confidential source" testimony. "I think we have concerns that Coach Williams knew," Jones said. "I think he did know at least of the offers..." Williams has denied any knowledge of such improprieties, and the NCAA apparently felt it could not pursue the charges without using a confidential source. "We had a little bit of hope that maybe the [source] might allow us to use the name and that maybe there was a way to effectively have a discussion ... [That] somehow we could have a conversation in here about the source without telling who he was, and then got kind of convinced at the pre-hearing with the school that was probably crazy, so we decided we'd better withdraw [Williams'] name," Jones said. • • • Earlier this week, Cottrell's attorney, Tommy Gallion, raised a point concerning a violation regarding a vehicle obtained by former Alabama linebacker Travis Carroll. UA argued vigorously that the transaction did not violate NCAA rules, but the Committee on Infractions ultimately rejected that argument -- apparently with little attention given to Alabama's version of the facts. At one point, Robbins points out that the COI has in its possession a document -- a "retail purchase worksheet" -- that clearly shows "that the mileage on that Jeep was 132,000 plus miles, well above 77,000 miles." Yet, when the Infractions Report was issued in February 2002, it referred to the vehicle as the Enforcement Staff had referred to it, as having "about 77,000 miles on the odometer," according to "Student-Athlete 1" (Carroll). In discussing a later charge, Johanningmeier also described Carroll as a "reluctant witness." "Without going in there and being able to pull out my 10.1 and say 'Here, read this,' and going through that procedure with him, he wasn't there by choice," Johanningmeier said. A "10.1" refers to NCAA Bylaw 10.1, which covers unethical conduct, including the stipulation that a student-athlete's eligibility may be at risk for "refusal to furnish information relevant to an investigation of a possible violation." Cecil Hurt can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________ RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List "Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup!" 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