A day after Morgan State fired its football coach, the school was slammed by the NCAA with a lack of institution control penalty for failing to to manage the eligibility of more than 90 athletes over a four-year period.
According to a Division I Committee on Infractions panel, Morgan State improperly certified the eligibility of 94 athletes throughout 10 sports and improperly provided financial aid to athletes in nine sports.
As a result of the infractions, Morgan State will be placed on probation through 2021, receive a one-year postseason ban in football, tennis and softball and be penalized $5,000 plus one percent of the 2017-18 budget in football, softball and women’s tennis.
The school also will be hit with scholarship reductions during the 2018-19 academic year in the 10 sports where the violations occurred in addition to recruiting restrictions in those impacted sports, including a seven-week ban on visits and communications.
The institution improperly certified as eligible for practice and/or competition 94 student athletes on 129 instances in 10 sports. The institution then allowed all 94 to compete and impermissibly receive related expenses. Over the same period, Morgan State improperly awarded financial aid to student athletes in nine sports.
The 20-page report indicated that the violations were a result “by a lack of rules education on campus, lack of athletics department resources and frequent staff turnover, which contributed to the lack of institutional control and failure to monitor.”
Morgan State agreed that it did not provide the athletics compliance and academic advising departments with the support and resources necessary to control the certification and financial aid processes, the report said.
“The individuals holding these responsibilities also had other duties, leaving the institution short of personnel to perform the certification functions.”
The NCAA found that Morgan State did not adequately educate the financial aid personnel, and the athletics department did not have a system of checks and balances to ensure that athletics compliance and advising personnel correctly performed their certification duties.
“The department of athletics was also hampered by significant turnover of personnel, which did not allow for consistent monitoring and control of the department and its functions,” said the report.
The rest of the lengthy report can be found here.
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