Its a sad commentary on the times when a story about UMaine's compliance
problems is rated as a bigger story than the Senate Majority Leader from
Maine announcing that he is not going to run again this fall...
 
In a story this morning, the Maine Sunday Telegram reports that the
University of Maine has been cautioned and criticized in three evaluations
by outside experts in the past six years.  Also, a review of current
policies, and an internal department evaluation pointed out problems with
UMaine's compliance system.  President Fred Hutchinson has ordered yet
another outside assessment of the athletic department.  "I'm horribly
disappointed...I'm disappointed that we didn't realize that we had a
situation where this could take place."
 
The story explains that "a new in-house compliance manual fails to
address investigative procedures, a committee which didn't follow its own
guidelines for examining violations and an interdepartmental system of
checks and balances where forms are simply rubber-stamped and passed along.
Woody Carville, the former University compliance officer, and 35 year
member of the department said "They rubber-stamp things because I have
signed it...Everybody says 'Woody doesn't make mistakes.'  I say Woody
does make mistakes.  I want someone checking me. Please check on me."
 
After serving in the athletic department for 33 years, Carville retired
in 1992.  However, the university asked him to stay on as compliance
officer, and work a 20-hour per week schedule.  A year earlier, Daniel
Ghormley, the asst. commissioner of the ECAC, did a review of Maine's
compliance system.  He said that UMaine depended too heavily on Carville,
who at that time was the associate AD and spent only 4 hours a week on
average dealing with compliance issues.  Ghormley warned that no single
individual, especially with limited time, should have total responsibilty
for a Division I program.
In his new position, Carville was in fact relied upon to check the
eligibility of every athlete in UMaine's program.  He offered several
warnings to his superiors, but says he was ignored, saying he "was like
poison to them".  I can recall when Woody took over his new "office",
which the paper describes vividly.  It was a converted custodial closet,
incredibly small and I couldn't help but wonder at the time why a man with
33 years in the department was given what seemed to me, a slap in the face.
But I was a mere freshman and I worked in AlfondArena, so I never really
thought about it much, and only talked about it with a few friends.
Carville's staff consisted of (and I believe it still does) only two
students, who also worked part-time.  In addition, Carville was given
 
a Macintosh computer system, which was not compatible with NCAA software.
Several people in the athletic department voiced concern over the amount
of reliance placed upon Carville.  But AD Mike Plosek viewed Carville as
the "guru of compliance", and never realized, or wanted to realize, that
there was a problem.  Carville was given complete and total responsibility
for the entire system, when compliance responsibilities should be shared
by the "faculty representative, admissions, the registrar, financial aid
academic advisers, coaches and the athletes themselves."  None of these
departments double-checked Carville, they simply issued a rubber-stamp.
 
Hutchinson cited money as the reason things had not changed in the past.
However, Hutchinson did promise two definite changes: The hiring of a
full-time 40-hour-per-week compliance officer, and an updated computer
system for that compliance officer."I am the president of the
university...its got to stop.  And we will do whatever we have to do."
Hutchinson said.
 
At this point it seems like it will take forever to get to the bottom of
this mess.  But as I have said all along, the program is going to be
cleaned up, and in the long run this will be good for the university.
As for right now, I'd hate to be Grant Standbrook making recruiting trips
for the hockey team, trying to convince a kid to come to UMaine even
though all of this is going on.
 
John Forsyth
Still waiting for the AD's to explain why Maine can't play next week...
and waiting...
and waiting...
and waiting...