David M. Josselyn ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
: On Wed, 16 Mar 1994, John Grover wrote:
 
: > In Tupper's report, he did not absolve Carville or Ploszek of
: > responsibility. In fact it was not his charge really to assign blame, but
: > rather to detail the break down that took place. Briefly:
: >
: > Carville--Tupper said that Carville stumbled in a couple places.
 
: I understand you've said that Tupper is not assigning blame, but several
: key points about Tupper's statements (or our various paraphrases of them)
: seem to connotate blame on some while removing it from others.  Pointing
: out Carville's "stumbles" is the first.
 
Perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. Tupper's role was to come up
with a detailed scenario of what happened and when. To accomplish this
with any meaningfulness, he had to know the responsibility each person had
in the situation. It was, then, also his task to point out when a
particular responsibility was not fulfilled. The seriousness of each
breach and the resulting punitive action was not his charge.
 
:  He did
: > not notify anybody as soon as he had been told by his student worker of
: > the problem. Then, while he is actually responsive to the Registrar's
: > office (read Ploszek is NOT his boss) he told only Ploszek.
 
: For clarification, am I to understand that as a general rule NCAA
: compliance officers issue their reports to the registrar?  Or to coaches
: directly?  I'd be interested in trying to establish how the procedures
: Maine used (or did not use) differ from those at other schools. i have
: been running under the assumption that the usual channel for such things
: would be for Carville to tell the AD, who would tell the multiple coaches
: involved.  Yes, Carville did wait... but none of the athletes played
: during that delay.
 
I'm unaware that NCAA dictates who the compliance officer reports to. I am
of the impression that each institution has it's own system. I would also
like to hear the different systems used.
 
 
: > Ploszek--Tupper brought up the idea of Ploszek being traumatized to
: > explain his actions, not to relieve him of the responsibility of them.
 
: That does seem plausible.  Did he, by any chance, make similar attempts
: to explain Carville's actions?
 
Not to my recollection. But remember that part of the focus of the probe
was to discover if there was an intention by Ploszek to cover-up. Nobody
has ever accused Carville of that.
 
:  However, he (Tupper) felt any delay in notifying NCAA was
: > an attempt to make double sure the facts were right, that there were no
: > other similar problems in past years and that this delay did not reflect a
: > cover-up or the intent to cover-up.
 
: I don't quite follow this reasoning.  Ploszek was faced with two
: possibilities:  A. The athletes (including Tardif) are ineligible, or B.
: They are not.
 
: If A is true, and Ploszek did nothing or delayed reporting, it could be
: said that the Maine athletic department knowingly allowed ineligible
: athletes to play.  (This has, of course, come true.)
 
: If A is true and Ploszek reports it as soon as he knows, and the coaches
: are informed and the athletes don't play, then Maine has successfully
: self-reported... but there is still the problem of how the violations
: occurred.
 
: If B. is true, and Ploszek does nothing, most likely nothing happens.  At
: the worst, though, it is possible that rumours circulate about the
: possible ineligibilities because no formal statement was made.
 
: If B is true and Ploszek stops the athletes from playing only to find out
: that they are in fact eligible, then those athletes lose one weekend and
: if anything, Maine looks a bit overcautious after the Tory and Ingraham
: problems.  PR problem, sure, but not like the one they have now.
 
: In short, I don't see how Ploszek's delay can in any way be interpreted
: as caution or a desire to "make sure the facts were right." If anything,
: it seems like an attempt to minimize damage, if possible.
 
I don't see where rechecking the facts and minimizing damage are
necessarily mutually exclusive and on their own hardly anyone would argue
about it. The mitigating factor was the contests the 2 athletes were
scheduled to perform in. In that light, it became a bad course of action.
Everybody, including Ploszek, admits that and Ploszek has already been
dealt some punishment for it. Again, Tupper was not excusing Ploszek, in
my view, but emphasizing that a cover-up was not being planned.
--
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John Grover                             "When you pray for rain,"
Computing Center                        "you got to deal with the mud."
University of Maine System                    -- Denzel Washington