EWU candidates don’t have clean slate

Three coaches who have been identified as candidates for the Eastern Washington University men’s basketball job, including the two perceived leading contenders, have had brushes with the NCAA.

Former San Diego coach Brad Holland and Utah Valley State coach Dick Hunsaker both had former staff members implicated in NCAA violations more than a decade ago.

Those two are believed to be the main targets of EWU interim athletic director Michael Westfall to replace Mike Burns, who was fired last week.

“I stand behind my record and what I stand for as a person,” Holland said on Tuesday. “I was not implicated in any violations.”

He would not comment on his contact with Westfall.

The violations occurred while Holland was a head coach at Cal State Fullerton in 1992-94. He spent the last 13 years at San Diego but was fired after the season. There was no hint of problems with the NCAA while he was with the Toreros.

Hunsaker was the head coach at Ball State when the Cardinals were investigated. He left by mutual agreement in 1993, although he was not implicated in the violations. He did not take calls from The Spokesman-Review on Tuesday, but it was confirmed that EWU had received permission from UVSC to talk with him.

The other coach is Washington assistant Jim Shaw, who was at Oklahoma with Kelvin Sampson when the Sooners were charged with improper phone contact with recruits. Shaw left Oklahoma before the investigation and Washington imposed some recruiting restrictions during the investigation.

Shaw said Monday he had not had contact with Westfall.

Westfall said he was aware of all the coaches’ history.

“Absolutely, and that will be part of the process,” he said. “It will be addressed, those questions will be asked.”

Westfall expects the NCAA to be on campus in a few weeks to check into self-reported violations within the athletic department, including improper payments to circumvent the 13 scholarships limit in men’s basketball.

According to a 1999 NCAA report, a member of Holland’s staff gave improper benefits to student athletes five years earlier. The school was charged with a lack of institutional control, which resulted in a four-year probation beginning in 1998.

“Look at my record, look at my body of work,” Holland said. “There were no violations in my 13 years at San Diego and we went through (NCAA) certification twice. My program was extremely clean. That’s sad that because of some people that seems to follow you.”

Hunsaker was an assistant for Rick Majerus at Ball State for two seasons and head coach for four before resigning just before the 1993-94 season while the NCAA was investigating the program.

The Cardinals’ top player was also declared ineligible.

The investigation centered on extra benefits to four players dating back to 1989.

A story in The New York Times said Ball State officials did not blame Hunsaker, who took Ball State to the Sweet 16 in his first season, and both sides “decided it was best that he leave.”

Hunsaker, a Weber State graduate and assistant coach with the Wildcats before going to Ball State, then coached in the CBA before returning to college coaching.

The gist of the Oklahoma investigation is that Sampson and his staff made “more than 550 impermissible phone calls to 17 recruits from April 2000 to September 2004,” according to an article in The Seattle Times. That article reported that UW imposed several minor penalties that included Shaw being kept off the road for recruiting for a month.

The NCAA accepted UW’s penalties against Shaw, who made 107 of the calls. Sampson, who left Oklahoma for Indiana, was barred from recruiting off campus for a year.

Seattle Pacific coach Jeff Hironaka has applied for the position and received an e-mail from Westfall confirming the receipt of his application.

“Whether or not that means I’m a candidate, I don’t know,” Hironaka said. “I’m not holding my breath. The candidates are all name guys and I’m a nobody. I’m a little farm boy trying to be a decent basketball coach at a decent Division II school. If they call it would be in an honor. If not I’ll just continue to try to do my job here.”

Hironaka, a native of Weiser, Idaho, is 94-49 in five years as the Falcons’ head coach after assisting current Portland State coach Ken Bone for 11 years.

Travis DeCuire, an assistant at Old Dominion and former Montana player out of the Seattle area, has also expressed an interest in the job.

“I’m very interested,” he said. “With me being from the Northwest and playing in the Big Sky, it would be stupid of me not to be interested. It’s a good job. The Big Sky is an interesting league. You need to have an understanding of it and being able to recruit the Northwest is very important. But I’m in a good situation now.”