The following article appeared in the March 29, 1995, issue of
The Maine Campus, the University of Maine's student
newspaper. It is copyrighted (C) 1995 by The Maine Campus.
At no time may this article be sold or distributed in any
publication, electronic or otherwise, without the permission
of its author, Ryan Robbins, or The Maine Campus.
 
You may reach the author at the following e-mail address:
[log in to unmask]
 
Keep this header attached to the article at all times.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ryan Robbins
UMaine-NCAA-Violations
03-28-95
 
     More trouble may be brewing for the University of Maine's
athletics department.
     An internal investigation by the university has revealed
that 17 student-athletes -- most of whom were hockey players --
violated NCAA rules when they accepted free breakfasts from a
cashier at Stewart Commons during the 1994 fall semester.
     The university immediately reported the violations to the
NCAA and fired the cashier, Carolyn Cust.
     According to a Feb. 16, 1995, letter to Cust from Dining
Services Director Jon Lewis, an informal audit of meal receipts
and cash payments revealed "very serious irregularities and an
apparent loss of substantial amounts of university funds."
     The total value of the meals was estimated to be "slightly
more than $600," according to UMaine Director of Public Affairs
John Diamond.
     "It was an unauthorized act of an employee who was extending
what that employee thought was a courtesy to students," Diamond
said.
     He declined to confirm whether the student-athletes involved
were from only the hockey team.
     "As a practice, we have not been identifying the teams," he
said. "That information will be included in the larger report we
are preparing."
     The athletes reimbursed the university for the meals and the
NCAA restored their eligibility, Diamond said.
     The range of reimbursements for each player was from $9.50
to $57, he said.
     "Restitution was determined through identifying which days
the students had been given free meals by the employee," Diamond
explained.
     All of the athletes were off-campus students, Diamond said.
     Dining Services managers became suspicious when they
discovered that daily cash receipts rose when Cust took some time
off in December and dropped when she returned.
     The university suspended Cust on Dec. 20, 1994. According to
Lewis's letter to Cust, Cust admitted that she had allowed the
athletes to enter the commons without paying.
     The athletes involved were upfront about their involvement
and cooperated with the investigation, Diamond said.
     "There's an honor system involved with some of the
student-athletes," he said. "When asked, they're expected to tell
the truth, and they did."
     Diamond said the NCAA considered the violations to be
secondary. He stressed, though, that the university has taken the
violations seriously.
     "We know from our past experience, obviously, that if the
NCAA feels that an infraction was done in an egregious way they
will respond very severely," Diamond said,  "so I think we have
to keep the nature of the infractions in that context."
     All UMaine student-athletes go through an orientation in
which they are informed of NCAA regulations, Diamond said.
     The NCAA's prohibiting student-athletes from accepting gifts
is perhaps its most widely known rule.
     "I can't speak to the degree to which those students
realized their (MaineCards) weren't being scanned or whatever,"
Diamond said.
     Regardless, Diamond said, the student-athletes took
advantage of a "perceived hospitality, which was inappropriate."
     Efforts to contact officials at the NCAA have been
unsuccessful.
     Cust, who had worked for the university since 1975, declined
to comment last weekend, saying she was doing so on the advice of
her attorney.
     Diamond said the violations would be included in the
university's self-report to the NCAA. The university began an
investigation into its athletic department last year after
discovering that several student-athletes were academically
ineligible.
     The report won't be completed for some time, he said.
     "Every infraction, no matter how perceptually insignificant
it might seem, is reported -- period."
     The university didn't announce the violations to the public
because it "does not make a practice of disclosing disciplinary
action involving employees unless the circumstances are highly
unusual, as exemplified by some of the actions last year, Diamond
said.
     Last year former hockey player Cal Ingraham had to sit out
the first 14 games of the hockey season when the university
discovered it had made an error in transferring his academic
credits. Jeff Tory, another hockey player, was declared
ineligible by the NCAA because he had failed to meet the NCAA's
requirement that student-athletes maintain a 2.0 grade point
average in high school.
     Five more student-athletes, all of whom were graduate
students, were declared to be ineligible by the NCAA when the
university discovered they had not been enrolled in the minimum
amount of credit hours.
     Then, last summer, the university discovered that its
allowing student-athletes to use Latti Fitness Center for free
during the summer violated NCAA regulations because other
students had to pay.
                             - 30 -