Lack of control could be an issue for UW

By Bud Withers
Seattle Times staff reporter

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It's not yet at the top of the list of concerns at the University of Washington, but it may be a key issue in the recent wave of improprieties at UW — especially when probation or other major penalties could be involved:

Could the NCAA find the school guilty of a lack of institutional control if it determines a pattern of laxity existed in the gambling and drug cases in the athletic department?

Institutional control is a hard-to-define concept, and it's possible the UW cases could tax the NCAA infractions committee when it tries to determine whether adequate controls were in place. Lack of institutional control is considered a major NCAA violation.

Neither the gambling nor the drug case — in which former team physician William Scheyer allegedly dispensed a variety of drugs improperly — fits neatly into a template of precedent cases.

Dick Dunn, a UW English professor who was the school's faculty athletic representative from 1984-93, and a former member of the NCAA's committee on infractions, said he "sat in on 80 cases," and doesn't recall anything like the Scheyer case.

As for whether a ruling in this case could break new ground, Dunn said, "It may well be." But he wouldn't speculate on whether the Huskies might be at risk of violating NCAA institutional-control policy.

Oklahoma professor David Swank, a former chairman of the NCAA infractions committee, provided a common example of lack of institutional control.

"For example, a head coach has a responsibility to be in control of his program," Swank said. "A failure of a coach to have oversight would be lack of institutional control.

"Likewise, if the athletic director is not paying attention to what the head coaches are doing, that would be lack of institutional control. Generally, you're looking at people that have some type of oversight responsibility for a particular program."

What makes the UW cases different is that it's unclear to what extent any sport benefited from the improprieties.

Several years ago, the infractions committee developed a position paper on guidelines for defining institutional control. An NCAA spokesperson said it's usually found when "there's a process that's missing or flawed — or the compliance program is not effective, or there are people that go around it, or it's not working."

The investigation of gambling began with the revelation that former UW football coach Rick Neuheisel had bet significant amounts for the past two years in an NCAA-tournament basketball pool. UW compliance officer Dana Richardson issued memos in 1999 and 2003 stating erroneously that the NCAA allowed gambling by department members off-campus but not with others in the department. In fact, the NCAA prohibits all gambling on college sports.

In the Scheyer case, UW trainers, the head physician and a few athletes have said they thought Scheyer was unusually loose with pills and procedure when administering drugs. By at least 2001, state investigators say a trainer and at least two athletic-department doctors complained to higher-ups about Scheyer.

Athletic director Barbara Hedges was believed to be one of those higher-ups, said Norm Arkans, the university vice president for external affairs, as was softball coach Teresa Wilson. Hedges did not completely remove Scheyer from working with the softball team until last month, however.

A key question, then: Who polices compliance officers and doctors? Institutional control rests with the athletic director and, ultimately, the university president.

Frank Uryasz, director of the agency that administers the NCAA's drug-testing program, says there should have been checks in place against Scheyer's behavior.

"I was thinking from a policy point of view," said Uryasz, director of the National Center for Drug-Free Sport. "You have this physician who really isn't part of the sports-medicine program in the athletic department, and he is a consultant to one team.

"Those kinds of arrangements are always fraught with danger, even outside of sports medicine — these people who have no clear line of authority, no process for evaluation. Anytime someone is operating outside those processes, it's problematic. At most universities, the antenna would go up."

Added Swank: "Somebody ought to be bringing that to the head coach and the trainers if there's a loose cannon there."

That's a popular viewpoint. Gary Green, a team physician at Pepperdine, a UCLA professor of sports medicine and former chairman of the NCAA drug-testing and drug-education committee, says the nature of sports medicine is that usually there are several overseers of care and thus more eyes to detect potential abuses.

"In a sports-medicine setting, it's not the doctor that captains the ship and no one else is there," Green said. "Especially in a major university, you really have to interact with everyone. It's not like you're in an office with a one-on-one relationship. In most Division I training rooms, you have a physician, a physical therapist, a trainer, maybe a student-trainer.

"There should be record-keeping. It's even more important in the training room, where maybe you have several different doctors on different days, and you want to make sure you're not duplicating. Record-keeping is actually very, very important."

One ex-trainer at UW told The Times there was a reluctance to press the case against Scheyer because his daughter was married to the son of David Cohn, a former booster and UW regent (1985-95) who died last month. That could be problematic regarding institutional control. The NCAA position paper on the subject says, "There is a lack of institutional control if individuals are afraid to report violations because they have reason to fear that if they make such a report there will be negative consequences."

The gambling issue is similarly dicey. Both football coach Keith Gilbertson and the training staff have admitted participating in small-amount basketball pools, and the Pac-10 and NCAA have been investigating whether a culture of gambling existed as a result of the faulty memos.

"Gambling sort of raises its ugly head as soon as you say the word, when you're gambling on collegiate sports," said Swank. "It's sort of like Pete Rose and gambling on professional sports."

Swank says a single "dumb mistake" by a compliance officer making an incorrect interpretation probably wouldn't constitute a violation of institutional-control principle. But he didn't risk a guess on a case in which the same interpretation was made again four years later. "Probably, the compliance officer should have contacted the NCAA," he said.

State records show that UW faculty rep Rob Aronson approved Richardson's interpretation. That could weaken the department's defense.

In 1993, Washington admitted a lack of institutional control over its handling of recruiting funds for on-campus visits. No effective system to monitor the abuse was in place, the school acknowledged.

Found guilty of 15 NCAA violations — including lack of institutional control, improper conduct and inducement with recruits, pay by boosters for summer work not done — the Huskies were given a two-year probation that included a two-year bowl ban, one year without TV revenue and a loss of 10 scholarships.

While the university is undergoing a self examination before reporting its findings to the Pac-10 and NCAA, the Scheyer case took a more serious turn yesterday when it was confirmed that a joint criminal investigation would be conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the State Patrol's drug-investigation units.

The wide-ranging investigation also will examine the conduct of trainers, coaches and athletes who worked with Scheyer in the university's athletic department, a senior law enforcement official told The Times, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com. Staff reporter Steve Miletich contributed to this article.

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