University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

In March, the Division I Committee on Infractions placed Brigham Young University on probation for three years for major recruiting violations stemming from the recruitment of two men's volleyball student-athletes who had defected from Cuba.

During the recruiting process, the prospective student-athletes were given many impermissible benefits including transportation, housing, and meals provided by current members of the men's volleyball team. A booster also provided employment at an inflated wage for one of the prospects and paid his legal fees for his immigration issues after defecting.

Further, during the investigation into the recruiting violations, it was discovered that the former head coach had impermissibly arranged for a student-athlete and a prospective student-athlete to obtain bicycles at no cost.

The Committee determined that the former head coach had failed to properly monitor the situation involving prospective student-athletes arriving to the area early and without any financial support.

Other penalties imposed on the program included a reduction in the roster size and a reduction in the team's allowable financial aid equivalency.

This was the first major infractions case for Brigham Young University.

Long Beach State University

Long Beach State University was put on probation for three years and two of its assistant men's basketball coaches were put under show-cause orders for at least four years after the Division I Committee of Infractions determined that several major and secondary violations had occurred.

The major violations included the impermissible benefit of paying for special correspondence classes to help two junior college transfers meet their academic eligibility requirements. One of the assistant coaches allowed one of the transfers to take a correspondence exam without a proctor and then forged the name of a friend as the proctor. The assistant coaches then provided false information to investigators.

The Committee determined that the institution and the team's head coach had failed to properly monitor the program.

Additional sanctions included a prohibition on recruiting two-year college transfers or allowing them to play for two seasons, as well as a reduction in scholarships and official visits.

This was Long Beach State University's second major infractions case.

Education

Countable Financial Aid and Equivalency Limits

NCAA regulations limit the amount of athletics-based financial aid institutions can provide to its student-athletes, and also limit the number of student-athletes who can receive athletics-based financial aid in any sport.

There are two types of financial aid limits: head-count limits and equivalency limits. For head-count sports - including basketball, volleyball, and tennis - institutions are limited to a set number of counters on each roster. A "counter" is an individual who receives any financial aid that counts against the aid limitations in a sport.

For equivalency sports, any percentage of the sport's roster may be counters, but institutions are limited in the total value (full grant equivalents) of financial aid awarded to all of the counters in the sport. This equivalency limitation works much like a salary cap in professional sports, in that an institution may take the total amount of equivalent awards allowed and distribute it among the entire sport's roster as it sees fit (keeping in mind the limitations on the amount of aid that can be granted to any individual student-athlete). To compute the equivalency for a particular sport, the institution must add up all of the countable financial aid awarded to each counter and create a fraction for that student-athlete with the numerator being the amount of aid awarded, and the denominator being the value of a full grant-in-aid. That fraction is added together with the fractions for all members of the same team to determine the equivalency for that sport. See Bylaw 15.5.3.2 for additional information.

For determining which student-athletes are counters and what amount of aid counts against the team limit, countable financial aid includes the following: financial aid administered by the institution that is based in any degree on athletics ability; aid granted by certain outside sources for which athletics participation is a major criterion in the issuing of the award (including high school booster clubs); and aid granted by a National Olympic Committee or sport's National Governing Body. See Bylaws 15.02 and 15.5 for more information.

It is also important to note what types of aid neither make a student-athlete a counter nor effect equivalency computations. Certain types of academic honor awards do not count against a team's equivalency. These types of academic honor awards include financial aid granted to an incoming freshman based on his or her high school academic record, as long as it meets certain criteria, including:
• The award must be part of the institution's normal arrangement for awarding academic scholarships;
• The recipient meets certain academic requirements
o The student is ranked in the top ten percent of his or her high school class,
o Has a minimum core-course GPA of 3.500 out of 4.000,
o Has a minimum ACT sum score of 105 or a minimum SAT score of 1200;
• No member of the institution's athletics department may be involved in the designation of such awards. See Bylaw 15.5.3.2.1.1.1 for more information. Another type of exempted award is any institution academic scholarship granted to a current student as long as:
• Athletics participation/ability is not part of the award's designation;
• The award is consistent with the institution's pattern of granting such scholarships;
• The student-athlete has been enrolled at the institution for at least one year full-time;
• The student-athlete has a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.300 out of 4.000. See Bylaw 15.5.3.2.1.2 for more information.
Awards from sources granted by outside sources that have no relationship to athletics ability or for which athletics participation is not a major criterion in the designation are also exempted as not countable. See Bylaw 15.2.6.

Motivation

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."
--Vince Lombardi