SPOKANE — Eastern Washington will appeal an NCAA ban on postseason play by its football team this coming season.
Athletic director Bill Chaves said in a news release Saturday that Eastern will appeal only the postseason ban — not the other penalties levied by the NCAA earlier this month. Most of those penalties were self-imposed after EWU reported violations to the NCAA in 2007.
Among the violations were allowing ineligible athletes to practice, having too many assistant coaches and failure to properly monitor the team.
Chaves said the appeal process will take several months.
The postseason ban was issued by the NCAA on Feb. 11, after a two-year review of secondary rule violations involving the EWU football team from 2003-07. Together, they led to a major infractions case.
The NCAA also placed EWU on three years of probation, from 2009-2012. During that time, EWU will be required to file additional compliance reports with the NCAA. Eastern was also penalized two scholarships and had limits placed on recruiting and coaching.
The violations occurred under former coach Paul Wulff, now the coach at Washington State. Under the NCAA penalties, Wulff cannot have any contact with the Washington State football team during the first three days of practice this season.
Wulff has taken responsibility for the infractions, but also said they are the kinds of violations that occur when a program is too cash-strapped to afford full-time compliance officers.
Eastern Washington is a Football Championship Subdivision team in the Big Sky Conference, and has often made the playoffs in recent years.
Wulff and others initially expressed dismay that the postseason ban would penalize current players for past actions.
Acting school president John Mason said when the ban was announced he was “disappointed with the decision to levy a postseason ban and will be assessing our appeal options.”
Paul Dee, chair of the NCAA committee on infractions, has said it’s unavoidable that current players suffer when a program is punished for past violations.
Eastern officials say new monitoring systems and resources for coaches have been created that will prevent such problems in the future.
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