In Jan. 2010, Pate learned that one of her head coaches at Brevard College had sent more than 180 text messages to 15 different prospective student-athletes, all in violation of NCAA Division II rules. The recruitment effort, which Brevard had previously instructed its coaches against, would later be deemed a “major violation” by the NCAA and result in orders that the college temporarily suspend recruiting activities and reduce scholarship awards.
When the coach’s actions were discovered, he falsified telephone records requested by Pate and her compliance staff. Eventually the college self-reported the violation and the coach in question offered his resignation.
Pate says the incident was the result of a “rogue coach,” a description repeated by Patrick Britz, NCAA’s South Atlantic Conference commissioner. “I thought Brevard handled it as well as they could have,” Britz says about the violation.
“Like every Division II institution, the ability to monitor things like that, it’s a challenge because you just don’t have the staff. The NCAA committee on infractions, they don’t deem that as an appropriate response to why things happen, but as soon as Brevard became aware that there was an issue, they handled it 1,000 percent appropriately,” Britz says.
As a result of the incident, Brevard added a staff member to its compliance team and boosted the frequency of its telephone record audits.
Pate says she’s reviewing all the policies of UIS athletics, including the student-athlete handbook and the process for revoking players’ scholarships, an element of the program highlighted in a recent controversy over a visiting coach’s revocation of more than half of a team’s players’ scholarships.
“That isn’t to say that it hasn’t been done the right way here,” she says. “It is, just for me, I want to make sure that we have sound best practice across the board in everything that we’re doing. I really want to have a model program.”
But a model program doesn’t necessarily matter if students and Springfield-area residents don’t start caring about UIS athletic teams.
Samuel Remington is a first-year graduate student in business administration who also earned his undergraduate degree at UIS and is lobbying for a student union. He says most students don’t care about UIS athletics. “Who’s excited about soccer?” he asks.
Pate says having a “winning tradition” will help, but in order to create that tradition the university must increase the number and size of its student-athlete scholarships. She says any increases must come from outside sources, like annual fundraising galas.
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