Ball State gets 2 years probation for rules violations

INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA put Ball State on probation for two years and cut three football scholarships for misusing a textbook loan program.\nThe penalties announced Tuesday by the NCAA Committee on Infractions also included a reduction of money available for men’s tennis scholarships and a restriction on the number of hours per week allowed for softball practice.\nThe infractions involved 89 athletes in 10 sports from the 2003 spring semester to the end of the 2004-05 school year. A separate investigation is still under way involving former men’s basketball coach Ronny Thompson, who resigned in July amid accusations that he and his assistants broke NCAA rules by attending voluntary offseason workouts in 2006 and 2007 and then lying about their involvement.\nThe athletes in the textbook investigation, who were not identified, obtained $26,944 in books for classes in which they were not enrolled. In some cases, they obtained more than one copy of the same book, which they gave to others.\nThe university, which began its own investigation more than two years ago, accepted the NCAA findings without a formal hearing before the infractions committee. The probation will run through Oct. 15, 2009.\n“While it is always difficult when penalties are involved, we accept them as appropriate and a valuable lesson,” Ball State athletic director Tom Collins said. \nThe NCAA said the extra benefits to the athletes through the book program resulted in Ball State exceeding limitations on financial aid in football and men’s tennis for 2004-05.\nAt the time, the university’s bookstore had a computerized system that placed $1,000 per semester in each athlete’s account, but there was no system to check the class schedules to make sure the books corresponded with the classes the athletes were taking.\nThose whose schedules did not require $1,000 worth of textbooks were able to use the balance to obtain books for friends and other athletes who were not on scholarship, the NCAA found.\nThe university was reimbursed for the value of the books and “all books involved were accounted for,” Collins said.\nThe NCAA also found that from 1999 through 2006 the softball program failed to count athletes’ work at camps, clinics and program fundraising events as athletically related activities. The program therefore exceeded daily and weekly practice hour limitations, failed to give athletes a required day off each week from athletically related activities and conducted individual skill instruction sessions in violation of NCAA rules.\nThe NCAA said the university’s compliance staff became aware of the violations but failed to act on the information or report it.