University Daily Kansan, April 29, 1981
Page 5
Athletics
From page 1
This emphasis on winning also was mentioned by KU football and basketball players.
"Schools are too competitive right now," Frank Searle said. "They're not as tough, they're not as much ambition, they're not as much ambition."
Marcum readily admits that winning football and basketball programs are a must for a basketball team.
KU, as an NCAA Division I school, is permitted 95 scholarship athletes on a football team at one time, and 15 on a basketball team. With scholarships at $4,000 apiece, the teams cost $40,000, not including the salaries for head coaches and numerous assistants.
ALL THIS BEFORE any revenue comes in. And if there is to be any revenue, those scholarships must go to athletes who can pack the stadium and field house.
Large NCAA paychecks—KU received $170,000 from last March the NCAA basketball championships—can help offset such costs. In addition, recruiting and fund-raising are enhanced.
With the existing problems in balancing KU's athletic budget, coaches are consistently having to make difficult decisions.
Last year, when KU failed to make NCAA basketball tournament play for the second consecutive season, fans and alumni were clamoring to have head coach Ted Owens fired. This season, after KU advanced to the NCAA regional, Owens was rewarded with a new three-year contract, although another year remained on his old one.
Basketball player Tony Guy said pressures from alumni and administrators were absorbed by him.
"You know it there's there. That's bad enough," Guy said. "Somehow we're protected by the coaches.
They take full responsibility. It's not fair to them at all.
"I think that many of the problems would be solved if we'd just let the coach run his program the way he saw fit. Just say, 'It's your show.' The way it is, you've got people who have no idea how to coach a team trying to tell the coach how it's goined to be done."
'Contracts such as Owens' are not unusual in athletics. In effect they give a coach three or four passes.
Shankel said coaches should have some kind of job security.
"It shouldn't be tenure, because that's given for different reasons, to assure academic freedoms," he said. "But a coach's entire future depends on it, and 20-year-olds perform during any given month."
"I've known some coaches let go who were very capable. It may not have been the coach's fault at all, but he frequently ends up with all the blame."
Marcum said it was important to give a coach time to develop his program.
But, he said. "Not everyone can win. Like it or not, most successful teams are based on financing and, whether you want to call it human resources, the number of people you have."
EVIDENCE SUGGESTS that recruiting—or getting those "numbers"—is the most pressing problem in athletics, as well as the most difficult to control.
"The assistant coach wants to be a head coach. The head coach wants to be successful," the former KU administrator said. "The pressure is to recruit the athletes to get that winning team."
He said many of the problems began with
"To turn a kid's head," he said, "one coach will offer something, but the second and third coaches are not interested."
Seuer, who was 17 when he was recruited, said that players who accepted illegal inducements had been excluded.
recruiting underprivileged youth who saw athletics as a means of upward mobility.
"In the long run, it's not worth it," he said.
"There plenty of time to make lots of money and
make a living."
IN MOST OF THE INSTANCES revealed to the Kansan about alleged recruiting inducements, which could not be adequately substantiated. KU alumni were involved.
"Any time alums do something," the former KU administrator said, "someone knows about it. Maybe not the head coach though. He's got a lot of that stuff. But it that he couldn't be nudged for it if he did know."
"The alum has no fun doing things for the players unless someone knows about it. It's like giving a gift anonymously. It happens occasionally." They (alumni) are the same at eax school."
"They promised me an education and they were very honest with me," Houssey said. "They didn't offer me a car, $25,000, a palace or anything."
Art Housey, senior basketball player, said he was recruited by head coach Ted Owens and worked for the team.
But Hossey said he had had to deal with many coaches and recruiters who were not honest
"Recruiting is there. It's reality and it's always going to be here, I think." he said.
THE FORMER KU administrator said that eliminating recruiting entirely could curb currents.
"Most of the kids who play college ball really don't have that much loyalty to their school. If they don't get what they want, they threaten to play for another school."
"Recruiting is the worst thing about college athletes," he said. "The ideal way would be to sit back and play with those who come to KU, like it is done in high school.
However, he said that such a solution was not feasible.
"When you're trying to compete in the Big Eight, there are not enough people for the state schools except in Missouri," he said. "So (the team) are people from all over the country for their teams."
That is, coaches have to get the players if they want to win. And according to Harry Sydney, senior football player, the problems of recruiting definitely 'died' to the pressures on coaches to win.
"The coach has a job to do." Sydney said. "He wants to win and his family will eat more. To吃 he doesn't want to do something, but if he wants to eat and live, he has to."
According to Seer, "Every recruiter is going to the greatest gift you've ever met. They make it happen."
Sydney she didn't know how often, at KU or other schools, recruiting inducements were made.
"It's hard to tell." he said. "It doesn't happen to all athletes, it does happen."
"Parents just love all that attention." the
Sources also said that when recruiting inducements and other pressures were put on prospective athletes, parents got caught up in the issue. Parents ordinarily unable to give their sons needed perspective.
former administrator said. "Even the parents aren't capable of handling it, let alone the kids."
"For many, this is the closest they ever come to the big time. The maturity of a 17- or 18-year-old kid may not be enough to handle the temptations thrown at him."
SYDNEY SAID THAT recruits, some only 16 years old, were too young for recruiting
"Every coach hates it," the former KU administrator said about recruiting. "They've told me they hate it. It gets out of focus, having to wine and dine a 17-year-old kid. But they have to get a winning team if they don't want to get fired."
some athletes compared recruiting to finding a job and looking for the best benefits. But they didn't know how much better it was.
"The hardest part is deciding what college to go," Sydney said. "You've got all kinds of coaches making promises and then when you get called in, you're told you can coach you told you you'll be sort of left alone in the dark.
"I don't think there's much you can do about it. The coach wants to get the good players to his team."
A 1974 report for the American Council on Education stated that major collegiate sports programs around the country were not building character, but destroying it with "exposure to the unethical and immoral practices in which the athletic establishment indulges."
The former KU administrator said recruiting problems would continue as long as there were no changes in the KU system.
that our faculty do not he said. "It teaches enough attributes. For God's sake, let's keep it honest."
Athletic violations are often difficult to prove, sources say
Tomorrow: The Student Athlete
By REBECCA CHANEY and
Staff Reporters
University sports programs across the country have been penalized for athletic abuses such as allowing players to accept gifts of money, clothing, cars and other expensive items, and for offering recruiting inducements such as jobs, gifts and travel arrangements.
Sources contacted by the Kansan indicated similar abuses might be relatively widespread among a small percentage of student-athletes on KKL varsity football and basketball teams
However, most of those same sources said there were no chance that any such allegations would ever be heard.
"Nobody short of the FBI or the IRS could have firsthand knowledge of abuses he had firsthand knowledge of abuses."
KU officials have maintained that players involved have been billed for the calls and are paid.
Another, choosing to be less specific, said another. "It's no different here (at KU) than it is now."
MISUSE OF TELEPHONE credit cards at KU which did not result in NCAA disciplinary action, was acknowledged by athletic department officials last November.
However, similar misuse of telephone credit cards as well as athletic department funds at the University of Oregon resulted in indictments on assorted felony charges for OU athletes.
Through the years, KU has undergone several NCAA investigations that resulted in penalties, but few significant violations have ever been substantiated.
David Berst, NCAA director of enforcement, said it was difficult to justify an investigation based on charges which were not reasonably substantiated already.
As KU administrator Jerry Lewis put it, "Once an athlete, coach or anybody been labeled, an allegation becomes as serious as a conviction."
Berst said the NCAA tried to learn whether information was accurate before beginning an experiment.
"We deal with a disgruntled athletes, coaches and parents," the Berst said. "We receive a large amount of information and not a lot looks particularly reliable. It is difficult to look
NCAA OFFICIALS have said they do not have the time, money or staff to adequately police all college programs. Eigh full-time investigators demanded NCA enforcement on just $750,000 a year.
NCAA and Big Eight Conference recruiting handbooks repeatedly asked that anyone knowing of attempts to recruit players with the offer of a position in the NCAA report matters to the NCAA or conference.
But Berst described NCAA enforcement as "only moderately effective."
"We are very thorough in those cases we do look into," he said. "But I think it would be an exaggeration to say we have a handle on what's going on around the country."
Berst explained that in 1979, the NCAA initiated a policy of interviewing the top 100 prospects in both basketball and football, along with their parents. He said that if cheating were going to occur, it would probably involve some of these players.
OUTSIDE OF THIS, he said, the association
relied primarily on information reported to its head office in Shawnee, Kan.
Yet most sources of information, especially firsthand information, forpled on anonymity to avoid losing the jobs that offered the perspective from which such abuses have been discovered.
Others are often found to have a conflict of interest that could be said to motivate their comments, even if they deny such motives consciously exist.
Still others refuse to involve themselves in the complications of testifying before investigative committees. Many said that no concrete proof existed in most athletic department violations, especially in cases where inducements of gifts were outside the University, rather than through it.
Consequently, they said, it was not worth the risk to their own reputations to make an issue of them. They argued that it would be wrong.
"Just call me a source close to the athletic department," asked one Kansan source who has been at KU for many years. "I feel like this is my school, and it galls me to think these things are real."
Another, who asked that his name not be attached in any way, said, "You're not supposed to
upset the apple cart, or you get blacklisted People in athletics can be very vicious."
A FORMER KU ADMINISTRATOR said coaches, players and others still directly instruct in the NCAA or anyone else of infractions out of fear of being turned in themselves.
"You won't get much from the people in athletics," he said.
Under Big Eight and NCAA enforcement regulations, the only normally acceptable evidence must be live testimony, affidavits, or other documents properly identified and validated.
Berst and other NCAA officials support the belief that most cleanups will have to be instigated by individual schools, despite the political, financial and administrative obstacles.
The former KU administrator said these obsessions would probably prevent such individual behaviors.
"There are too many problems," he said. "One school can't do it, unless they want to drop out of the conference. There are a few schools like ours that can run on an honest, as well as a good, program."
But they're unusual."
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