NCAA will not punish Neuheisel

SEATTLE – An erroneous memo bailed out Rick Neuheisel in the NCAA’s eyes.

The University of Washington athletic department escaped almost as cleanly.

While the NCAA Committee on Infractions mostly absolved Neuheisel, Washington’s head football coach from 1999 to 2003, of gambling violations on Wednesday, the committee extended Washington’s probationary period another year for gambling and recruiting violations.

University officials said they were happy with the findings and accepted the penalties.

“We’re very pleased that the NCAA was in agreement with our position, especially on the institutional-control question,” UW president Mark Emmert said. “We can close this chapter out and move on. That’s always a sense of relief, that it allows us to focus on the future instead of worrying about what’s happened in the past.”

The committee did not find a lack of institutional control, which most certainly would have brought more severe sanctions. It did find a failure to monitor in the athletic department with respect to the use of a booster’s yacht for recruiting purposes and gambling issues.

The committee decided to slap another year of probation on the football program, limiting it to 48 incoming recruiting visits until Feb. 9, 2007. The Pacific-10 Conference, agreeing with a recommendation from the university, set the date at Feb. 9, 2006. The usual number of such recruiting visits is 56.

“The extension of the length of the penalties previously imposed by the Pac-10 was not expected, but is not excessive,” UW athletic director Todd Turner said.

Despite already having its men’s basketball program on probation for recruiting violations, the committee failed to consider the university a “repeat offender.” The reason is the unusual circumstances surrounding the gambling issue.

The committee found Neuheisel and other athletic department staff violated NCAA gambling legislation. Neuheisel had claimed he relied on gambling memos issued throughout the department by former NCAA compliance director Dana Richardson.

The 1999 memo incorrectly stated that betting among friends in off-campus pools was within NCAA rules.

The committee could not determine whether Neuheisel relied on the gambling memos. It thus allows him to accept a coaching position should one be offered him. It did, however, chastise him for initially denying that he participated in the gambling pools when questioned by an NCAA investigator.

“(The committee) was very troubled by the fact that when he (Neuheisel) was first questioned about his participation (in a basketball gambling pool), the former head coach did not provide truthful information,” the report read.

Had it been found that Neuheisel hadn’t relied on Richardson’s memo and simply participated in the gambling pool, Turner said, the NCAA would have required any school that tried to hire him take extraordinary measures.

“(The NCAA) had the opportunity, if they had found him guilty of unethical conduct, to have another university that wanted to hire him, to cause why they should be allowed to do that,” Turner said. “They chose not to do that.”

The 65-foot yacht was used to transport recruits from the campus to Neuheisel’s house on Lake Washington. Recruits were charged a “ferry” rate, rather than the proper full rental rate, even after the Pac-10 and the NCAA national office told Washington officials to boost the charge.

“Apparently, those in position of authority either did not understand that the representative himself would be piloting the boat or that his piloting of the boat and inevitable contact with recruits would be a potential violation of NCAA legislation,” the report read.

Under the NCAA penalties, the university will not be able to use that or any other yacht for recruits until Feb. 9, 2007.

Thomas Yeager, committee chair, said Neuheisel’s firing in 2003, along with the extensive penalties, resignations within the department, implemented safeguards and new hirings since June 2003 may have had an influence on the committee.

“I think it’s fair to say that there are a number of people here, involved in this case, that there are those who have been involved in a great amount of penalties,” Yeager said. “Their lives have changed since the summer of 2003.”

In June 2003, a report surfaced that Neuheisel, then head football coach, admitted his participation in an NCAA men’s basketball tournament gambling pool the previous two years. Neuheisel added that he didn’t know the pool was a violation of NCAA rules.

Neuheisel reportedly wagered $6,400 in two years of college basketball pools with his friends. He won both years, collecting net winnings of $11,219.

Neuheisel has worked on a volunteer basis for the last two years as quarterbacks coach at Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School. Recently, he was hired as a football analyst at College Sports Television, a New York-based show. For that, he receives $1,500 per show.

Although he led the Huskies to a Rose Bowl, two Holiday Bowls and a Sun Bowl in his four seasons, Neuheisel gradually gained the reputation as an attempted dodger of NCAA rules. He was investigated for recruiting violations less than a month after taking the job. Also, he was found to have committed more than 50 violations when he was head coach at Colorado from 1995 to 1998.

In January 2003, Neuheisel was reprimanded by then-athletic director Barbara Hedges for interviewing for the head-coaching job with the San Francisco 49ers, then denying to her and the media that the interviews took place.

Also in 2003, the American Football Coaches Association censured Neuheisel for what it considered “a lack of remorse” for his actions in the Colorado violations.

Things will be different now, UW officials said.

“We are eager to move forward, continue to implement our own corrective actions and build a program that fully reflects the university’s values,” Emmert said. “I have confidence that, under Todd Turner, all of the pieces are in place to accomplish that,” Emmert said. “We will do things the right way. We expect to be exemplary in everything we do.”