Jan. 31, 2002
“I don’t mind saying at this point, I don’t like being here. It’s frankly a situation I’m not happy with, part of it is behind us. The fact we’re here talking about NCAA investigations and sanctions against our institution is a sad thing to be talking about. But this is where we are and we are going to move forward from this point.
“Let me first say that I do appreciate the openness and the professionalism and cooperation by our athletics office and by our compliance office. I think that came through loud and clear with Mr. Yeager’s comments during the internal investigation as well as the NCAA investigation. They even stated, and I quote, “They recognize that the compliance office has a well-documented record of integrity, thoroughness, and confidence.” That is important to me. They also stated that it was clear to the committee that once we were made aware of the violations, we acted swiftly to punish those responsible and conducted a thorough and complete self-investigation. In fact I believe you’ll find the committee didn’t find any additional infractions that we didn’t report ourselves.
“However, as we look at the report, clearly the biggest issue is the committee’s finding is our lack of institutional control. I think that has been explained to some extent in this conversation, but the interesting thing about that particular ruling is that it didn’t lead to any additional penalties as some of you might have proposed and have heard on the radio quite a bit. Still this finding is not how we want our program to be recognized. I am disturbed particularly by the committee’s findings and I am going to give you a couple of quotes that I had already written down and Tom Yeager read them as well.
“The recruiting coordinator was able to violate basic, fundamental recruiting legislation for an extended period of time, approximately two years without detection. They also stated the widespread nature of these undetected violations in time and frequency and in the number of individuals that had the knowledge of improper activities and yet failed to report them to proper authorities. I will have to tell you that when I read our report, our submission that I saw when I took my office, I was struck by the number of people who had taken money someplace, who had done things at hotels, who had just been involved in some pretty sleazy operations. I was shocked that nobody stood up.
“There was a level of intimidation that I think was present, and I wasn’t there to feel that, but there still was enough for me to put in this “Comply Line.” We haven’t gotten as many calls on that like I hoped we would. While we have initiated that, that is an area we hope to focus on and I will tell you now, and will tell any employee and anyone who gets a paycheck from here whether they are a part-time student, full-time coach or athletic director or anyone else. If you know anything going on wrong in this program and if you don’t step forward and tell me about it, or write me a letter, then call this line, it’s here. We’ve advertised it, we’ve gotten a few calls. I want to hear about any rumor, any accusation, anything out there that is believed to be wrong with this program because we are going to clear it up.
“When we look at the violations creating a competitive advantage, the committee did feel additional penalties should be applied. Let me touch on a couple of those. Three years of probation, like any probation this puts us under additional scrutiny and requires us to continue and implement an educational program and NCAA legislation and we will do that and report to them each year. You also heard about the five-year period, we have to be on our toes. That period of time coincides pretty closely with my term of office here and you can rest assured that repeat violations will not occur. If they do occur, we will take them seriously.
“The second is the loss of bowl eligibility for this coming season, and I will address that in a moment. The third was the reduction of football encounters from 85 down to 80 in each of the three years, the self-imposed sanctions had reduced the number of grants and this action limits the number of players for those years as well. The fourth and this hasn’t been touched on previously, we must obtain signature control of all booster club accounts that support the University’s athletic departments. And I will tell you almost the day after we got home from Indianapolis, we put that process in place almost immediately. That has been in place almost since the end of last year.
“This investigation has been like a diagnostic tool, we have implemented things like the Comply Line, the booster club control, and we’re still looking. The committee commended our recommendations for self-imposed sanctions, but still added a few more. We accept responsibility for our violations and are willing to accept our punishment. If I question anything in the report it is the loss of bowl eligibility. We need to evaluate if we think this is fair punishment, because the greatest punishment it’s pointed out here is really on our student-athletes and on coaches that have taken over the program since it was in trouble. As a result I want to consider an appeal of this one particular piece. I want to make it clear, we are not appealing this decision by the NCAA with the exception of this one particular piece.
“We will not, if we do appeal, carry a group to Indianapolis. We will do it on paper. We’ll put down factual information if we think we have a case. I want to talk to Commissoner Kramer, our coaches and I think my only reason for thinking about this is when I look at our coaches and I look at our players and I look at what the players achieved. They overachieved this year, this coaching staff had the ability to get these kids to almost win four games we didn’t think we would win. I don’t want anybody to think we’re backing down, that we don’t want to take our punishment and I am just not ready to say yes or no on that one is still on the table and I am considering it.
“Before I answer your questions, I am going to answer what would be your first question, Where do we, this football team, this athletics program, and the University go from here? As I mentioned, I am not happy about being here and having to deal with this. I’d honestly rather be putting my energy toward enjoying sporting events, and enjoying being a fan, and strengthening our academic and research programs, but I am here. What is, is and this is where we find ourselves.
“I am running this news conference and reporting on these sanctions because I am ultimately responsible. The question came up and the answer is clear to me who bears responsibility for the athletics program. I want to be very clear that we are moving forward as one institution dedicated to the bettering of the Commonwealth. This includes all facets, including athletics, moving toward a common goal. It is in my efforts since I have been here to make this one university. We had two sides of us, the medical center, the main campus, and in many cases I think people view the athletics department as something that is across Euclid Avenue and operates somewhat independently.
“I have now been the President for about seven months and I know I have a lot to learn, but I am certain that I do not want to be back here in front of you again explaining why we are facing violations. We have gone through an investigation every decade since 1950 – the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, we are not going to do that in the 2000s. I am troubled by this ruling of lack of institutional control and I am not comfortable with the direction and isolation of the athletic program. Given the institution’s history of athletics violations and the report’s citation of this being an unusually serious case, widespread and in scope and long term in duration. I have decided we have to go beyond this report and look deeper at the whole athletic organization. It’s time to stop the questions, stop the rumors, stop the accusations.
“Even outside of this football investigation that has just taken place, there is a lot of stuff being talked about in this city and this state about our athletics program. We must delve into every operational practice and procedure of the department and explore the facts. I firmly believe you can’t fix a problem until you identify root causes. I’ll be announcing in the next few days a team that will be charged with a full review of the operations and practices of the UK Athletics Department. I’m already in the process of assembling that team and have asked UK law professor and former dean of the law school, Bob Lawson, to lead this effort. My plan is for the team to consist of no more than three or four representatives from different areas of the university. They’ll report directly to me. My hope is this process will be conducted in a very narrow time window, I’m talking a matter of weeks, not months.
“I’ll expect some very specific recommendations to very specific concerns and issues. I’ll tell you that my charge toward them is that everything is on the table for review – it’s just time for us to get on with it and get a lot of this behind us. I’ve discussed my review plan team with Larry Ivy and he and the athletics administration understands the scope and intent of the review. This is how we are going to move forward and I expect the entire department to give Bob Lawson and his team their full cooperation in this effort.
“While college athletics must focus on the students it serves, we must remember that it’s also a big business- we can’t escape that. When that business is ran professionally and successfully, both on and off the field, the entire university community benefits and that is absolutely our goal. When a team starts to drift or lose focus on its mission the coach often tells them that we’re going back to the basics. I want to make sure our fundamentals are sound. I want to make sure that everyone agrees with the plays we’re calling throughout the UK athletics area.
“I can’t overemphasize enough how serious I am about making sure we move this program in the right direction and I don’t have to stand up here again. Believe me, I like winning as much as any player or any coach in this program, but we’re going to be diligent in our efforts to do it the legal way, the fair way and the right way.”
