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Wulff’s thoughts on NCAA violations

Feb. 12, 2009 8:58 a.m. • 35 comments

COUGARS, EAGLES

Let’s change gears. As you probably know, the NCAA handed down its sanctions against Eastern Washington’s football program Wednesday for violations that occurred while current WSU coach Paul Wulff was in charge. Wulff was also hit with two penalties: missing the first three days of this fall’s practice and having to attend compliance seminars for the next three years. The news was well covered throughout the state. Read on.

••••••••••

• Our end of this story was covered by John Blanchette, who wrote the news piece and a column. … But of course that’s not all. The Seattle Times’ Bud Withers had this story while freelancer Howie Stalwick wrote this piece for the P-I. The Associated Press story can be found in the News Tribune. ESPN.com’s Ted Miller was on the Wulff conference call last night and he filed this blog post. The News Tribune Dave Boling adds this column.

• So that’s about it. Wulff had a lot to say last night and we thought you might want to know what it was. So we transcribed the tape and offer some of his more pertinent comments.

• Wulff on the athletic culture at Eastern Washington: “Anybody that’s aware of Eastern Washington and its athletic history would understand the financial limitations it has to work under. … They’ve done it with the smallest budget in the conference, year in and year out, and with everyone in the athletic department wearing not one but two, three, four, five hats.” Wulff went on to explain the academic advisor was a business professor, Frank Nelson, who also was the compliance officer. Wulff did say the one good thing to come out of this is the school now has an academic advisor and a compliance officer.

• His regrets: “My part that I have a regret is the things that slipped through the cracks under my watch. But that’s just the reality. It did and I admitted it and I addressed it over two years ago. Unfortunately, there are so many rules that things slipped through the cracks.”

• The NCAA sanctions: “My biggest problem with all of this is just the ban for next season on postseason for them. I think that’s probably too much. I don’t think that’s probably fair. I don’t agree with that one. … The rest of them are probably OK and warranted. I think that went just a little far, but Eastern Washington is a little easier to kick around, I guess.”

• The lack of compliance help and how that hurt: “There are compliance people that are hired to help coaches, that’s their job. A lot of universities have three full-time employees to do that. … Those are the resources as coaches you use. … People wouldn’t spend a hundred plus thousand dollars or more, $200,000 on a compliance department in all athletic departments without the idea they are there to help. … We at Eastern Washington didn’t have those kinds of resources to have anyone do that. You have to understand at Eastern Washington this has gone on for two, three decades. This isn’t anything new.”

• The violations in the grand scheme of EWU athletics: “That’s what people aren’t looking at, that we’ve done thousands and thousands of things right with limited resources. I’m pretty proud of that to be honest with you. We’re not talking recruiting violations, we’re not talking the types of violations that are truly the competitive advantage. But they are still violations. They’re secondary violations, all of them, but when you put them together over multiple years, it becomes a major infractions case. … They’re still very important and they shouldn’t have happened. But that’s how we did it.”

• In the press release about the violations, the NCAA said: “The committee found that the violations in this case were the result of the former head coach’s inattention to certain aspects of his program. The committee stated it was most concerned that the former head coach did not report various violations to the compliance office once he learned of them.” Wulff was asked if this indicated the NCAA felt he was indifferent to violations: “I totally disagree because there have been other secondary violations over the years I did report. These ones I actually did report. I didn’t do it in a timely manner. In fact, I reported them to the NCAA in my interview, that’s how they found out about them. If I didn’t report them, they probably wouldn’t even have known about them. But I reported them through them. I didn’t do it in the timely manner they thought I should do and that’s true.”

• Taking responsibility: “It is the coach’s responsibility. It is. I can’t deny that. I’m taking responsibility. I’ve accepted the penalty of going to compliance seminars to learn to be a compliance officer now. I’ll miss three days of practice and I am accepting it. But I do know a lot of rules. And I beg to differ. I think I know as much or more than any coach out there because I have to. But if you see the rule book, there are so many rules in the book you can’t help but break them. There hasn’t been a coach out there that is coaching right now that hasn’t broke some rules. Ours got exposed because the NCAA came on campus and found them. … But I’m very proud to say recruiting violations, academic fraud, any of those things that are truly competitive advantages, did not occur. I thought we have done some great things there. I know a lot of the rules extremely well, and I don’t know rules to figure out how I can walk the gray line like a lot of people do. I know the rules and I abide by the rules I know. I’m not that type of person, never have been and I won’t be.”

• The NCAA said “during the 2006-07 academic years, 13 football student-athletes were allowed to participate in practice activities.” Wulff’s explanation: “If you’re a non-qualifier, and I didn’t know this rule, you’re not allowed to even view practice.” He went on to explain Eastern’s fields are wide open and occasional one of the non-qualifiers would be doing some activity where they could view practice, whether it was working out, playing intramurals or whatever. “Several times players who were ineligible would be out there.” “I never paid attention to them because we never dealt with those kids. … But come to find out, them being out there, which had gone on for a number of years, long before I was the head coach, that was something we always did there. No one knew any different.”

• The extra coaches were, according to Wulff, not on the field coaches but kids who worked around the office: “Those kids were not enrolled in 12 units. You have to be a full-time student to be considered a student (assistant). Plus, you have to be still within your five years of eligibility. Primarily the issues were the kids weren’t in 12 units. I didn’t have a way to monitor that. That’s something our administration should be able to obviously do. But you know, I didn’t have a secretary and, my first two years, I didn’t have a strength coach, so I was monitoring all those things as I was going through the process as I was handling all the clearinghouse stuff. So I wore four or five hats, but those things occurred and that’s the facts. But we never had more than 11 coaches that truly coached football.”

• Whether this came up while he was interviewing at WSU: “Within the committee it was asked if there was something going on at Eastern, could I just give them some details of what was going on. Then I relayed all the information that I was aware of in terms of the investigation, the types of things we were talking about. They were all secondary violations but they had extended over multiple years. … And I explained the types of violations that had occurred, the non-qualifier rule and the coaching limitations were the primary two things that occurred over that time and that occurred prior to that time as well.”

• How these violations came to the attention of the NCAA: “We reported a couple things, then we had the athletic director (Darren Hamilton) that was there was fired. When he was fired I think he called the NCAA and told them they had to do all this investigation. I think there was a bitter dispute on that deal. The NCAA told me, they said 50 percent of all the deals that they go and do are always disgruntled employees. That’s how they get most of their information whenever they want to go do any kind of investigation. That’s what I was told.”

•••

• That’s it on the NCAA front. We will be back this evening with our usual pregame post. Till then …

35 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

MikeSequim on February 12 at 10:01 a.m.
Well, that didn’t take long did it? “Hey Judge, I’ve been driving this road for 7-8 years at 35mph and never saw the sign’s for 25mph”! “Everyone drives at that speed. You should waive that law for me just because of that!” “There are just too many rules to follow”?

How about the Reporters whose job it is to report the TRUTH and let the Public decide without their opinions? How about the Administration? Right up front, huh?

Is this the end of the World? No, but wouldn’t it be nice to see anyone step up, take FULL responsibility for their actions or in this case “lack of”, instead of finishing with “I only know the rules I know” or at least they weren’t “major rule” violations.

After all, he is at WSU now and all of us Cougs know that our Manure is cleaner than anyone elses, Right?

Hey, this will be gone in a month or so anyway! Well, maybe not at EWU. JMO.

Mike, Sequim
dickkenn on February 12 at 10:45 a.m.
Let’s not make mountains out of molehills. WSU put in a fulltime compliance department to help all the sports and coaches to be in compliance. This came about when a very good baseball coach gave out to many scholarships , due to poor math,when too many halfs went over the limit. I believe we are in good hands at WSU. Beat the ducks tonight,GO COUGS
RobH on February 12 at 11:35 a.m.
When I heard the sanctions, I felt a lot worse than when I heard some of the explainations. The two that worried me were the coaches, and the players participating.

I knew both those rules, or thought I did, and would expect a coach would. Now assuming that Coach Wulff isn’t lying, I think it is a credible explaination that they didn’t keep track of students hours, when they dropped below 12, they were now a coach. I also knew non-qualifiers couldn’t participate in practice. I always thought that this meant participate in the action, not watch. I guess WSU would have had to have monitors in the library, and the CUB to be sure to be compliant with this one.

Regardless, Wulff messed up, and will have to pay a price, not good enough for Mike, but Sark on the other hand is getting off scott free.

As for the reporters……Mike, did you notice that Vince printed the text of Wulff’s comments, what do you want?
kaddy on February 12 at 11:59 a.m.
Mistakes were made, but when you look at the details, it does seem a bit overblown, looking at the circumstances. It’s lucky that there weren’t more, to be honest.

Look - if you know Coach Wulff, and his history as a person, he is as honest and straightforward as you can be. These weren’t major violations that happened during recruiting, and where Eastern was given a competitive advantage. I think the NCAA was too harsh, no doubt, especially with everything else that goes on at big-time schools.

That said, I don’t expect any of this to happen at WSU. We run a tight ship, and that’s what will continue.

Those of you that are ready to throw CPW off a cliff need to get a grip.
MikeSequim on February 12 at 12:23 p.m.
RobH,

ACCOUNTABILTY. Thats all! You see, RobH, unlike most, there are actually some in sports that do account for their actions, both good and bad. As always, you missed my point. By the way, did I say anything about Vince by name? Could I have been referring to any other reporters in the US?

The violations were not my issue, the non reporting them for 7-8 years was not my issue. Comparing them to the UW’s excuses is not my issue. Paying the price for Wulff is not my issue. However, all of these should be issues.

My issue is ACCOUNTABILITY! Truthfully admitting to the errors. Zero excuses, just end your guilt that you screwed up and by accepting ACCOUNTABILTY, move forward. My Generation and location I was raised in called it Man-up. If you can’t see that, then I understand your posts! As I expressed in earlier posts, it will be interesting to see how the Coug Faithful on these blogs react! At least you’ve been consistent on your posts, not necessarily accurate all the time but consistent.

We obviously see things different from different sides of the street. When I read the sanctions it didn’t surprise me at all. When I read the explanations and excuses as presented, is when my stomach turned! ACCOUNTABILITY RobH, thats all!

Go Coug’s

Mike, Sequim
TommyCoug on February 12 at 12:38 p.m.
What ever happened…when it happened…how it happened…why it happened…during this Wulff deal…is all a little speculative. However, it happened…and EWU, unfortuanetly, is going to pay most of the price.

I suspect that the NCAA was not pleased to learn that this had been going on for longer than the Paul Wulff era. Therefore, the reason they got whacked harder than anticipated.

I have never seen or read the NCAA Rule Book on Recruiting…but based on what comes out from Jim Sterk’s comments in Cougar material about what an alum, supporter can do…it’s probably about the size of a US Congress bill and in fine print like an insurance policy!

No excuses…we don’t want it to continue or happen at Wazzu. Now certainly, if the explanations are correct, this is not in the same light as what occurred at USC in their football and basketball programs. And you know what happened there…NOTHING!!

A good guy by the name of Ronald Reagan said of the soviets…”Trust, but Verify!” So, that’s what all of these extra people in the AD do.

We will be fine with Paul Wulff, Cougar football fans.

Now…GO COUGS!!…BEAT THE DUCKS!!
MikeD on February 12 at 12:50 p.m.
MikeSequim, if this isn’t taking accountability, I am not sure what is….

“It is the coach’s responsibility. It is. I can’t deny that. I’m taking responsibility. I’ve accepted the penalty of going to compliance seminars to learn to be a compliance officer now. I’ll miss three days of practice and I am accepting it.”
SeeRed on February 12 at 1:07 p.m.
When I was a Graduate Assistant at a D-1A school working in the athletic department everyone had to take NCAA compliance classes, and not just the sport specific GA’s. Marketing, promotions, tickets, sports info, strength & condintioning…everyone had to take compliance courses. While a lot of this can come down to institutional control and oversight problems, I find it very, very hard to believe that the Head Coach of any sport at any NCAA school at any level wouldn’t be aware of some of these very basic rules regarding non-qualifiers and coaching limits.
Nuss on February 12 at 1:24 p.m.
SeeRed —

I can see your point, but look at what Wulff was saying:

1) He knew nonqualifiers couldn’t practice, but he wasn’t aware that it would be a violation if they happened to be somewhere nearby and could see the field.
2) He knew about the coaching limits, but thought it applied to actual football coaching. Apparently, he thought having people doing other tasks didn’t qualify as coaching.

Now, should a coach know these things? Maybe. But this is a lot of NCAA minutiae where it seems like Wulff understood the spirit of the rule, just not the letter. I’d have a hard time believing this stuff is common knowledge. It’s the kind of stuff a full-time compliance officer would know and recognize, but possibly not a coach who’s supposed to be head coach, secretary, strength coach and compliance officer all in one.
kaddy on February 12 at 1:32 p.m.
Great comments, Nuss.

No excuses, but not everything is completely black and white, especially when it comes to the NCAA.
terrymr on February 12 at 2:18 p.m.
Seems we need a “no ticky-tack penalties” rule for off the field as well as on.

Sport has become more about “rules-lawyering” than it has about playing a game.
gocougs05 on February 12 at 2:27 p.m.
It is frustrating to me to see people try to throw blame all over the place. EWU already had a shoestring budget for athletics, so they were short-handed then. People who talk about the media not reporting the “truth” aren’t living in reality. Like Wulff said, if he hadn’t reported this, nobody would have known about it. Do you expect a beat reporter to be out at spring or fall practice, counting coaches and student-aides? I would hope they’d be watching the practice. Wulff is taking responsibility for it. It isn’t his fault that EWU doesn’t have a compliance officer. That’s on the AD and EWU. He has no way of knowing how many classes student-aides are taking. How do you expect a reporter to know that rule? He probably knew that his student aides were in classes, versus how many classes. I agree with Nuss too. The NCAA is so ticky-tacky on their rules. I doubt many of the school presidents know ALL of the NCAA rules. Let’s be realistic and not over-react. Wulff is going to turn this thing around…just not tomorrow. GO COUGS!
terrymr on February 12 at 2:38 p.m.
But would the reporter be considered a player or a coach if he was there ?
MikeSequim on February 12 at 3:15 p.m.
MikeD,

“I got caught with my fingers in the cookie jar. Because I told them about swipping cookies and they are punishing me? I shouldn’t have told them I was swipping cookies and I could’ve got away with it and Mike from Sequim wouldn’t be posting such stupid truths! However, since I disagree with the RULE’S but am basically a good guy, I’ll take my punishment”

How about: “I blew it on that one, I knew it, but was just trying to do the best for the kids. Sorry it was wrong for me to break the rules. There are no excuse’s for ignorence of the rules.”

Any difference in those two types of approaches? Arrogant come to mind?

You talk about some stupid rules! Most of those infractions surely are. Should they be hosed? YEP! So get’m changed. Don’t however bend or break or ignore the ones that are in place but if you do and get caught, fess up and take it instead of dragging it through the court of technicalities.

I like PW. He just errored in the way he handled this one and I for one won’t give him the pass on this but I do support him as the WSU Coach. Hope you can see the difference in my opinion, not that it’s right by your standards, just different.

Mike, Sequim
DCinSEA on February 12 at 3:22 p.m.
@ Terry MR - depends on how many credits they are taking. Vince- are you taking any classes? /sarcasm

Go Cougs, Beat the Ducks (my favorite Mike Price image is him in his Duck hunting outfit! - Price was a great motivator and I choose to remember the positives from that guy…)
Ned on February 12 at 10:12 p.m.
I have to agree with MikeSquim on this one. After reading all of Wulff’s comments, he doesn’t appear remorseful at all and tries to make excuses at every turn. He blames Eastern, money and the history of the program left and right. Well even if that’s true, PW should have stood up and tried to fix it instead of letting it ride.

The one quote RobH puts out there appears to come from an answer about the head coach’s responsibility - how else is he going to answer that question? “It’s not my responsibility.”? Come on, coaches are like politicians; read between the lines. He knew he was breakings some rules and didn’t do anything about it until he got caught. PW himself says that he reported things (in his interview with the NCAA mind you) but not as soon as the NCAA wanted him to. Take off your crimson glasses and translate that: “I knew I was breaking the rules and when the gig was up I came clean to save face.” Looks like it worked.

One last thing, I’m disappointed in Coug fans that there’s not more unrest about this. This bothers me quite a bit. I can handle loosing, but I always take pride in thinking that WSU does it clean - hopefully it still does and still will. But most posts here are making as many excuses as they can for PW. No excuses, he knew he was breaking rules and we should be a little worried about that. If PW was the USC or UW coach this board would be lit up with negative comments … just look back a few weeks when Shark had three minor violations! Even today people are commenting on USC. WSU fans shouldn’t be throwing rocks from their glass house.
Leo_Z on February 13 at 2:34 a.m.
MikeSequim — You are out of control. You say you wanted his apology worded differently? You say you are behind him, but you clearly have some agenda with all these posts. Seriously, you act as if the man just violated your sister.

Put this in perspective. PW is still a class act. This is an Eastern problem that has come up in more than one athletic program. I see the difference you are “pointing out” and I think you are either really bored, or don’t have a grasp on reality. Your definition of accountability differs from Webster. PW was accountable for his actions — so much so that he pointed out his own mistakes to others! PERIOD.
MikeSequim on February 13 at 12:51 p.m.
Leo_Z,

Thanks, My Wife thinks so too, except on this point! It’s always nice to have some back up in your corner. The reality is it’s just an opinion, like yours! The facts speak for themselves.

I wasn’t coaching at EWU for 7 years and new about violations and that it was my job to report them, he was.

My Agenda is simple. He showed poor judgement IMO in His job and to me didn’t show the right CHARACTER in dealing with his responsiblity. I still like him as WSU coach. I can’t help it that you’re view is different. It’s fun for me to read how other people view the World! Some of us just aren’t as tolerant as you but I’m working on it!

Mike, Sequim
eaglealum08 on February 13 at 6:47 p.m.
Mike,

You are blowing this way out of proportion. Why don’t you go read the NCAA rule book and get back to us, oh wait, it would take you several months to get through it. Most people in America work to live and survive and don’t have time to go through it and I would hope you do the same. I don’t think you should leave comments unless you really know the person you’re talking about. I believe he handled this situation like he handles every situation… by being honest. He truthfully spoke what he thought and felt, and there is nothing wrong with that. The NCAA should be the one that is getting ragged on, not Paul Wulff. Just wait and see, his qualities as a person and coach will start showing up on the field and WSU will start winning games and competing for conference championships, even against more talented teams. I hope you can sleep well in your little town of sequim knowing you are disrespecting someone publicly, that you don’t even know.
Leo_Z on February 13 at 9:20 p.m.
amen
MikeSequim on February 14 at 11:42 a.m.
eaglealum08,

I can and I do! Thanks for your concern on my health.

I’m assuming you graduated from EWU, by your name post? If so, congratulations on a difficult task in life.

I would hope that your endeavor there required you to follow the rules. If you did, great. If you didn’t and cheated, thats your problem. If you did and told the University after you graduated, thats your problem too, not theirs. Does that sound familiar? Since you have not mentiomed anything about cheating on the rules at EWU, without knowing you I will assume you are a person of good character IMO. That would hold the same for any people I haven’t met but only saw or read about. Thats me, good or bad, my opinion. If the information that was printed and was taped for for the public was incorrect about Coach Wulff, I would agree with you and certainly change my opinion.

As far as not posting or surpressing rights of opinions for yours or anyone elses convience, far better men and women than I have died for the right for me to express mine freely! Some of those were very close friends of mine. I would hope that a College Graduate in this Country would have gained enough knowledge to be grateful for that right and support it.

Your unquestioned support for Coach Wulff as an apparent friend of yours is great! Your right about him being a good Coach for WSU, IMO. However, I think he handled it wrong if the information presented to the public is as stated, thats all. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe not! Whatever it is, just be thankful that you have roundheads like me to vent your opinions too, right or WRONG!

Go Coug’s

Mike, Sequim