Documents: NCAA overstepped in USC case
The NCAA’s chief adjudicative body overstepped its boundaries and was improperly influenced by prejudicial statements in finding USC guilty of major violations, plaintiffs for a former Trojans assistant coach say in documents unsealed Tuesday and obtained by CBSSports.com.
The NCAA had sought aggressively to seal the documents in which lawyers for Todd McNair say at least three persons improperly tried to influence the powerful NCAA Committee on Infractions. The nearly 500 pages of documents were unsealed amid continuance in McNair’s defamation suit against the NCAA filed in 2011.
McNair’s lawyers cited numerous examples of what they said was bias in revealing emails between NCAA staffers. Specifically, the documents show:
–Two non-voting members of the infractions committee made disparaging statements about McNair – his lawyers contend – against proper NCAA procedure. One of those non-voting members, Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney, said, “I don’t think this committee should be chained to a (enforcement) staff that has seemed to have fallen short with this investigation or an Institution that has no intention of having us find out what actually happened here. I was insulted by arguments made by (the) institution and embarrassed by the reaction of the staff.”
Documents also show that committee liaison Shep Cooper told the committee that McNair was “a lying morally bankrupt criminal, in my view, and a hypocrite of the highest order.”
–In correspondence to the infractions committee, Rodney Uphoff, the NCAA coordinator of appeals, calls into question USC’s hiring of Lane Kiffin. Uphoff had no voting rights with the infraction committee.
“A failure to sanction USC both in basketball and football rewards USC for swimming with sharks,” Uphoff wrote. “Although they all talked about the importance of compliance at the hearing, winning at any cost seems more important … USC has responded to its problems by bringing in Lane Kiffin. They need a wakeup call that doing things the wrong way will have serious consequences. In light of all of the problems at USC, a failure to send a serious message in this case undercuts efforts to help clean up NCAA sports.”
–Also in a memo, Uphoff went to great lengths to compare the Bush case to the Oklahoma City bombing trial. Uphoff was attempting to show how witnesses’ credibility could be attacked by challenging the weight given to hearsay.
“This evidence in this [Bush] case is, for example, [is] markedly stronger than in the OKC bombing case which was built entirely on circumstantial evidence,” Uphoff wrote. “In fact, there was no direct evidence that [Terry] Nichols was ever involved in the bombing plot.”
–Howard added in correspondence to committee members: “McNair should have all inferences negatively inferred against him … we need not say why we disbelieve him, we only need to let the public, or whomever, know that we do disbelieve him.”
Lawyers for McNair argued in their lawsuit that the lengthy messages by Uphoff and Howard were intentionally sent to voting infraction committee members in violation of the NCAA’s procedures to influence them in their decision. Howard had just joined the infractions committee but was supposed to only be observing the USC case. Neither had voting rights to decide the case.
–Infractions committee member Eleanor Myers admitted to a “botched interview” in which investigators got the year of a key phone call wrong between McNair and former agent wanna-be Lloyd Lake. That contention had been a key part of McNair’s appeal to the NCAA, which was rejected.
–McNair was even questioned about a animal fighting charge in his past. The charge never appeared in the investigative record in regards to the Bush case. McNair’s attorneys contend the infractions committee found the incident while scanning the Internet.
–As part of a lengthy exchange of emails between infractions committee members about the USC case, Meyers questioned whether they should be communicating in writing. “I am concerned about confidentiality both because I do not know the California open records law and because several of us use our institutional email accounts at public institutions,” Meyers wrote. “Further, it is not clear that everyone is equally comfortable using email in this way and I think it is important for the deliberations to be inclusive.”
As a whole the documents seem to once again call in the veracity of the entire USC investigation. Almost five years after one of the most contentious enforcement cases in NCAA history, the fallout lingers. McNair was not retained by new coach Kiffin who replaced Pete Carroll in early 2010. He filed his suit against the NCAA in June 2011. He has not worked as a college or pro coach since leaving USC .
To this day, USC AD Pat Haden is criticized by some USC fans for not pushing back hard enough against the NCAA in the Bush case.
CBSSports.com national college football writer Jon Solomon contributed to this report.
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