by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
UNM announced Friday that the Athletics Department received notices from the NCAA of four potential violations regarding members of the football coaching staff.
Three unnamed coaches, not including head coach Rocky Long, helped four recruits and one student athlete get course credit they did not earn from Fresno Pacific University, the notice states.
The potential violations happened in spring 2004 and fall 2005, the notice states.
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"There was no knowledge on the part of the institution until last summer (2006)," said Paul Krebs, executive vice president for athletics. "We immediately put together a task force to begin to assist the NCAA and fully cooperate with them."
Long said the allegations have nothing to do with this year's team but declined to further comment.
According to the Sept. 6 notice, the coaches helped the students enroll in and falsely obtain credit for correspondence courses with help from the instructor of the course.
None of the students are on the UNM football team, and only two of them ever played for the Lobos, Krebs said.
He said he would not speculate on what punishments the NCAA might impose on the department if the allegations are found to
be true.
But he said NCAA punishments could include limiting scholarships and reducing the number of official visits.
"The ultimate is loss of TV and bowl bans and those sort of things," he said. "Again, I say that not commenting on the particulars of our case, but there's a wide range of things they
could do."
He said the department may impose sanctions and penalties on itself depending on the outcome of the investigation.
"The most important thing is for us to conduct our own investigation," he said. "We are going to do what we think is right."
Krebs said the department will respond to the NCAA in December, and there will be a hearing with the association's infractions committee in the spring.
Long and the Athletics Department were unaware of these situations, Krebs said.
Two of the three coaches suspected of violating the rules are no longer on staff, Krebs said.
The coach that is on staff will keep his job at least until the University determines what happened, he said.
"The coach will continue to coach until we complete our
investigation," he said. "The charges are serious, and we don't take those lightly."
He said no other UNM teams would be investigated.
"This does not involve any other programs," he said. "This does not involve any other student athletes."
The emergence of the allegations is the second time in less than a year that the football team's ethics were called to question.
A football recruit was shot multiples times in the legs while leaving a strip club in December with three members of the UNM football team hosting him during his recruiting visit.
Krebs said he and UNM President David Schmidly made changes earlier this year in the department to ensure compliance with NCAA rules.
However, the allegations against the University did not motivate the changes, which include having a larger staff to monitor the department, he said.
"It's important to understand that it's been the individual conduct that's been cited in these particular instances," he said. "There have been no allegations leveled at the University, no allegations of lack of institutional control."
