Here's a message to anybody at the NCAA who's listening: Stick
it to the University of Maine's hockey program.
     UMaine's administration is so blind and cavalier it has the
audacity to defend its hockey program on the premise the program
may have violated NCAA rules but not intentionally. Please, spare
the people of Maine such bureaucratic drivel.
     UMaine President Frederick E. Hutchinson told the Bangor Daily
News earlier this month he has had no second thoughts about his
decision to suspend head hockey coach Shawn Walsh for one year
instead of firing him. Hutchinson said Walsh made "errors in
judgment."
     Nobody's contesting Walsh made errors in judgment. However,
it's painfully clear to any level-headed person Walsh's errors in
judgment were either deliberate and calculated or the result of
incompetence borne from reckless disregard for the rules. Walsh
knew exactly what he was doing when he accepted $1,700 from
athletics boosters during his three-week suspension during the
1993-94 season. And then he lied. Not once, not twice, but three
times.
     First Walsh told the NCAA he hadn't accepted any money. When
the NCAA refreshed his memory with copies of the two checks, Walsh
said, "Oh, yeah. That was a Christmas gift."
     As former Saturday Night Live actor John Lovitz used to say
during his slick-character sketches, "Yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's the ticket."
     But then the Christmas gift turned into a reimbursement for
speaking engagements Walsh supposedly gave to customers of the
boosters' business.
     Which is it, Walsh, a Christmas gift, a reimbursement, or
extra cash? Either way, a $1,700 Christmas gift is pretty
expensive, whether you live in Veazie, Maine, or Los Angeles, Cal.
Getting paid $1,700 to give a speech to a local business's
customers isn't small change, either.
     But this stuff doesn't matter because NCAA rules prohibited
Walsh from accepting the money. But Walsh went ahead and accepted
it anyway. Then he lied about it, again and again.
     Hutchinson then stuck his foot in his mouth, telling the
Bangor Daily: "Shawn is obviously a very, very aggressive person
and he works very hard to win. He intended to remove all obstacles
to get the job done."
     Therein lies the problem, which obviously Hutchinson and his
administration have failed to recognize. The obstacles, it seems,
were NCAA rules. UMaine Athletics Director Suzanne Tyler told the
school's alumni magazine Walsh looked the other way when Reg
Cardinal immediately enrolled in the school during a recruiting
trip, an NCAA violation.
     "Shawn was aware of that rule but did not think it was a
serious thing," Tyler said.
     Nor did Walsh consider Jeff Tory's likely ineligibility to be
serious. Nor did Walsh consider $1,700 serious. What does Walsh
consider serious?
     In the end, Walsh did not get the job done. He didn't take the
rules seriously and he got caught. He failed the state of Maine and
he failed the upcoming sport of college hockey.
     There is nothing inherently wrong with being aggressive and
using the rules to one's advantage. But that's not Walsh did. He
went beyond the rules. And for some reason Hutchinson fails to
understand what Walsh did that was so unethical. For a man in his
position, Hutchinson would be wise to recognize that lying to
investigators is unethical. The NCAA's definition of what is
unethical is quite clear in Walsh's case:
     "Refusal to furnish information relevant to an investigation
of a possible violation of an NCAA regulation when requested to do
so by the NCAA or the individual's institution."
     And:
     "Knowingly furnishing the NCAA or the individual's institution
false or misleading information concerning the individual's
involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible
violation of an NCAA regulation."
     The university has also chosen to disregard Walsh's and his
attorney's contacting potential witnesses despite being told not to
do so. Some of the witnesses, most notably an unidentified former
hockey player who had voluntarily offered to cooperate, decided not
to cooperate after being contacted by Walsh and his attorney.
     The university says that despite Walsh's defying the order,
there is no evidence he influenced the player's decision not to
cooperate after all. According to the university, the witnesses
said they decided on their own not to cooperate.
     But why should the witnesses be believed? Being approached by
Walsh, one of the most influential figures in college hockey, isn't
exactly a comfortable position to be in. Why did Walsh feel the
need to contact these witnesses? If he had nothing to hide, why
didn't he just wait to find out what the witnesses had to say to
investigators?
     The university is being extremely naive to actually think the
witnesses would say anything other than they weren't influenced.
     And what about former Maine goaltender Mike Dunham's receiving
a $2,000 stipend from USA Hockey? Maine officials claim Dunham knew
nothing about the money until the summer of 1993, months after
Maine's championship season had ended. Yet, Dunham reportedly told
the Bangor Daily he wasn't aware of the money until he read about
it in the paper this past fall.
     While Dunham's mother did ask USA Hockey officials whether it
was legal under NCAA rules to accept the money, she asked the wrong
people. Why didn't she ask the university? Why didn't she ask the
NCAA? What made her think USA Hockey would have the definitive
answer?
     But one question that has yet to be publicly addressed by the
university or by the news media is: Why didn't Dunham ever realize
his bank account had grown by $2,000? Two thousand dollars is a lot
of money. If you asked Maine students at random how much money they
had in their bank accounts, they probably wouldn't be able to give
you an exact figure. But chances are they'd be accurate within
$1,000 at least.
     It should be pointed out Dunham shared his savings account
with his mother. This isn't an unusual arrangement for college
students to have with their parents. However, it appears that in
Dunham's case Dunham had no idea how much money was in his account.
This is the strange part. How did he ever transfer money to his
checking account to write checks? How did he ever not know how much
money he had remaining in his account when he used an ATM?
     It is clear from the university's handling of its woefully
corrupt or incompetent athletics department that Hutchinson and his
administration value athletics too much. Tyler told the alumni
magazine she didn't recommended Walsh be fired because it was in
the best interest of the university not to fire him.
     Read: If we fire Walsh, our hockey program may go down the
tubes and we'll lose our identity as a national power house in
what's become a major college sport.
     Oh, my!
     "Do you throw away what (Walsh) has accomplished here?" Tyler
asked. "Do you throw away a great coach because he made mistakes,
or do you give him a second chance?"
     Groan.
     So the second message Hutchinson and Tyler want to send people
is: If you're really successful and bring notoriety to the
university, you can break the rules and get off easy.
     Linwood "Woody" Carville and Carolyn Cust, on the other hand,
made honest mistakes but were dispatched by Hutchinson and his
administration without even so much as a second thought.
     Carville, Maine's part-time NCAA compliance officer, worked
out of a converted janitors closet and didn't have a computer worth
doing anything with. Carville had been associated with the
university for more than 25 years when Hutchinson said good-bye to
him in early 1994.
     Cust, a dining commons employee for 20 years, was
unceremoniously terminated in early 1995 when she admitted to being
gullible to hockey players' claims they didn't have any money to
pay for mandatory breakfast.
     It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Hutchinson and his
administration didn't give Carville or Cust second and third
chances like Walsh got. Neither Carville nor Cust brought notoriety
to the university. They were expendable. It is for this reason the
NCAA must recognize Maine's failure to put athletics in its proper
place. Maine has said athletic notoriety is more important than
anything else. Hutchinson and his administration have treated Walsh
differently than other employees at Maine. Walsh has received
special treatment.
     On May 11 Hutchinson addressed graduating students and their
families and friends at Alfond Arena. It was the first large-scale
gathering at Alfond since the NCAA's findings of Walsh's unethical
conduct became known. An interesting thing happened as Hutchinson
spoke. The university's seal was displayed prominently on a black
backdrop, below the 1993 hockey championship banner. Within minutes
the seal came undone, falling a third of the way down before
folding in half and eventually dropping out of sight. Perhaps it
was only fitting.
 
 
 
 
 
_____________________________________________________________________
Ryan Robbins               "Nothing in fine print is ever good news."
University of Maine                                  -- Andy Rooney
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