Massachusetts Athletics To Appeal Decision From NCAA Committee On Infractions

AMHERST, Mass. – Today, the NCAA Committee on Infractions (COI) released its decision regarding unintentional violations in university financial aid distributions impacting student-athletes from the University of Massachusetts men's basketball and women's tennis programs. The University of Massachusetts strongly disagrees with the ruling and in support of its student-athletes will appeal the Committee's decision to vacate wins.

"As an athletics department we accept that we made administrative mistakes in the distribution of athletic aid through our financial aid process," said Bamford. "However, we do not believe that the penalties imposed by the NCAA are appropriate, nor proportional to the violations that occurred. These were simply operational errors in our compliance systems that did not functionally detect payments above our cost of attendance. The errors occurred with no intent to gain a competitive or recruiting advantage, or to compromise the collegiate model. Our administrative and coaching staffs and student-athletes were completely unaware of the mistakes until we audited our records as part of the NCAA review. To vacate wins as a form of penalty – hurting our student-athletes who did nothing wrong – is an overreach by the infractions panel and is deeply disappointing."

"The University of Massachusetts is committed to maintaining and ensuring the highest standards of compliance in our intercollegiate athletics program," said Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. "Our athletics leadership acted promptly and appropriately when these administrative errors were discovered. We acknowledge and accept that violations occurred, however we respectfully disagree with the sanctions issued by the NCAA as they do not align with the nature of the infractions."

The NCAA COI acknowledges in its report that there were 13 unintentional and inadvertent violations in the issuance of financial aid above the cost of attendance. The administrative errors affected 12 student-athletes in total – 10 in men's basketball and two in women's tennis – over a three-year period from 2014 to 2017. The 13 financial aid overages over the three-years totaled just over $9,000. At the time of the infractions, UMass administrators, coaching staff and student-athletes were not aware of the violations.

The NCAA COI decision finds that the involved student-athletes participated while technically ineligible and UMass should have withheld them from competition even though neither UMass nor the athletes themselves were aware of the violations at the time the student-athletes participated in competition. The inadvertent violations provided no recruiting or competitive advantage for either UMass team. The NCAA COI imposed as penalties a two-year probation, a $5,000 fine, vacation of records associated with the ineligible competition, and standard NCAA Regional Rules attendance for UMass staff members.

After initially learning of potential violations in the spring of 2017, UMass was proactive in engaging the NCAA and outside counsel and worked collaboratively with the parties to thoroughly assess athletics compliance efforts and remedial measures at the university. In the interest of transparency and to ensure the Department of Athletics was operating within the expectations of NCAA membership, the review ultimately encompassed compliance and financial aid operations for all 21 sport programs during a five-year period (2013-18). The financial aid infractions discovered during the review began in 2014 under UMass athletic department administration, basketball and tennis coaching staffs who are no longer at the institution.

Since 2017, the University and athletics department has enacted remedial and corrective measures and reviewed relevant policies and protocols for athletics compliance which include:

• Creation of a new Assistant Director of Financial Aid position to administer and monitor aid disbursements to student-athletes
• Updated aid disbursement procedures between the Financial Aid and Athletics Compliance offices
• External Compliance Audit performed by Bond, Schoeneck and King
• Increased educational efforts with student-athletes, athletics staff and campus partners
• Implementation of compliance software (ARMS) to assist monitoring of compliance efforts
• Athletics Compliance and Financial Aid staff attendance at NCAA Regional Rules seminars
• Athletics Compliance Office has updated its policies and procedures manual
• As of the opening of the 2017-18 academic year, the institution hired a new Associate Athletics Director for Compliance

"This unfortunate error in our operational processes has led to a comprehensive review of our procedures for setting and distributing athletic scholarship aid," Bamford added. "We have updated our procedures, invested in new compliance software and added a full-time position in student financial services to assist our department in monitoring the financial aid disbursement process."

University of Massachusets Athletics

Massachusetts Athletics To Appeal Decision From NCAA Committee On Infractions

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