reprinted without permission from: THE NCAA REGISTER (February 5, 1996) Administrative Review Panel Actions Case No.: 1221 Sport: Men's ice hockey (I) Citation: B 11.3.2.2 Special circumstances: The applicant institution is in the process of investigating allegations of violations involving its men's ice hockey program. Institutional policy requires the institution to evaluate an employee's actions before the institution may pay legal fees associated with that employee's conduct. If the institution subsequently determines that the employee was not at fault, the institution may pay legal fees associated with that employee's conduct. However, paying the legal fees of the employee in question before completing the evaluation of the employee's actions would be an admission by the institution that the employee was not at fault. At this point, the institution has not determined that the coach was not at fault, and thus does not wish to pay the coach's legal fees; rather, the institution would like the fees to come from a source outside the institution. Application of legislation: An outside source is prohibited from paying or regularly supplementing an athletics department staff member's annual salary and from arranging to supplement that salary for an unspecified achievement. This includes the donation of cash from outside sources to the institution earmarked for the staff member's salary or supplemental income. It would be permissible for an outside source to donate funds to the institution to be used as determined by the institution, and it would be permissible for the institution, at its sole discretion, to use such funds to pay or supplement a staff member's salary. Request of institution: Waive the normal application of the supplemental-pay rule and permit an outside source to pay the legal fees of the coach in this situation. Action taken: Denied. John H ([log in to unmask]) I hesitated posting this at all. It's really none of our business. But, some might be interested in the situation, or simply the NCAA legislation. I personally find it interesting that the institution "at its sole discretion" may use donations to supplement a staff member's salary. I don't think any donations to Michigan have been appearing in my paycheck. :-) HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.