Enforcement Power of NCAA to Be Topic for State Legislature : Government: California joins others in considering bills to require due process in college sports investigations.

As political issues go, the NCAA’s enforcement procedure would not appear to be a major concern in California.

But when the California Senate Committee on Business and Professions meets Monday, it will consider legislation that would prohibit the NCAA from imposing sanctions on California schools unless some standards of legal due process are met.

Similar bills have been introduced in eight other states in the last year, and federal legislation along the same lines was introduced May 1 in the House of Representatives by Ed Towns (D-N.Y.).

Six states that have considered such legislation--Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada and South Carolina--have done so in the wake of highly publicized NCAA investigations at major universities in those states.

California is different. Its recent track record with the NCAA is relatively clean.

Most of the state’s 48 NCAA schools have managed to steer clear of major penalties in recent years, and the last California case heard by the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions--involving University of the Pacific basketball--resulted in minor sanctions and small headlines.

“The fact that there has not been a problem here--at least not a major problem--makes the debate just that much purer,” the bill’s author, Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), said.

However, the bill is sponsored by an organization, the Federation for Intercollegiate Fairness and Equity (FIFE), promoting the interests of several college coaches from outside California who have been among the NCAA’s harshest critics.

The organization’s list of national committee members includes Louisiana State basketball Coach Dale Brown, Missouri basketball Coach Norm Stewart, Michigan State football Coach George Perles and Nevada Las Vegas basketball Coach Jerry Tarkanian--all of whom head programs that have been linked to impropriety by the NCAA or in published reports.

Rob Saroyan of Sacramento, FIFE’s California representative, described FIFE as a nonprofit organization “consisting of former athletes and rabid fans who have said, ‘(NCAA enforcement procedure in its current form) is a fundamental wrong that needs to be rectified.’ ”

Added Saroyan: “This is not isolating on the UNLVs and Michigan States of the world. This is getting support from a wide variety of folks.”

FIFE’s fund-raising efforts have, however, in large measure involved Tarkanian, who has engaged in a long-running feud with the NCAA.

A $500-per-plate Tarkanian “roast” benefiting FIFE was staged in Las Vegas April 22, and a $250-per-person reception honoring former UNLV star Larry Johnson and also benefiting FIFE was held three days later in Dallas, Johnson’s home town.

The reception honoring Johnson was organized by a sports agent firm owned in part by Dallas real estate broker Sherwood Blount, a Southern Methodist booster who has been dissociated from the school’s athletic program for life because of his role in rules violations that led the NCAA to impose the so-called “death penalty” on the SMU football program.

In a resolution last August urging Congress to enact NCAA due process legislation, the California Legislature called Tarkanian “one of the finest basketball coaches in the nation” and cited his dealings with the NCAA as “one example of where the absence of due process has resulted in an unfair result.”

Tarkanian took the NCAA to court in 1977 when the Committee on Infractions ordered UNLV to suspend him for his role in rules violations. His case, based on the question of whether the NCAA should be considered a governmental body whose actions must meet constitutional due process requirements, went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled, 5-4, in the NCAA’s favor in 1988.

The Tarkanian resolution in the California Legislature was introduced by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), but its passage, according to several people who followed the matter, was due more to the efforts of then-Gov. George Deukmejian, a friend of Tarkanian’s.

Hill said he agreed to carry the current due process legislation, introduced in March, after it was presented to him by a Doug Widtfeldt, FIFE’s California lobbyist. A former USC basketball player, Widtfeldt was a star at La Mirada High in Hill’s district.

But Hill, a UCLA alumnus who holds season tickets to Bruin football games, discounted Tarkanian’s influence as “an easy handle,” and said that questions about the NCAA enforcement process should cut across school ties.

“I don’t want there to be shady things going on in college athletics. I think (the NCAA) ought to have the right to investigate,” he said. “But I think there ought to be a set of parameters, because the power of the NCAA, the impact it can have on an institution or an individual’s career, is incredible. It’s not just monetary. It’s your reputation, all sorts of things. This quasi-public institution--whatever you call it--has got a lot of power.”

The key provisions in Hill’s bill--”basic bits of due process,” he calls them--would require:

--The parties to an NCAA proceeding to have the right to confront all witnesses against them.

--The individual presiding over an NCAA proceeding to be impartial.

--The findings in a proceeding be supported by a preponderance of the evidence.

The legislation also contains a provision that would entitle aggrieved parties in NCAA infractions cases to judicial review in Superior Court “in the same manner that decisions of state agencies are reviewed.”

Under the NCAA’s current guidelines, a school charged with rules violations receives a letter of official inquiry listing the charges. The school has 60 to 90 days to respond.

The matter then goes to the Committee on Infractions, a six-member panel of college professors and administrators that determines the validity of the charges and assesses penalties, if necessary.

NCAA rules do not allow for cross-examination of witnesses in front of the infractions committee--a major failing in the eyes of the NCAA’s critics. NCAA officials argue, however, that, without subpoena power, requiring such cross-examination would be impractical, if not impossible.

“It’s going to be very difficult to get people to submit to cross-examination unless you have the right to subpoena them,” NCAA Executive Director Dick Schultz said in a recent interview. “However--something our opponents always fail to point out--we give (the parties to an infractions case) plenty of opportunity to respond.

“They know who we’ve interviewed. They have copies of those interviews. They have the opportunity to interview the same people. There are no deep, dark secrets. They know who their accusers are, and they have the right to interview them and get their own testimony. . . .

“There’s ample notice given (before a case is heard by the infractions committee). And if the university can’t comply in that period of time, it’s given an extension. My golly, the Missouri (basketball) case . . . I don’t know how many extensions the infractions committee gave Missouri. The case went on and on and on, and that was because Missouri kept asking for more time.”

Schultz acknowledges, however, that the NCAA’s enforcement procedure may need refinement, a notion he raised in his introductory speech at the NCAA’s annual convention in January.

To that end, the NCAA recently formed a special 10-member committee to review the issue.

The committee is chaired by Brigham Young University President Rex Lee, a former U.S. solicitor general, and includes four current or former judges, among them former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. It is expected to make preliminary recommendations this summer.

One significant adjustment in NCAA enforcement procedure has already been made. Last month, the infractions committee for the first time authorized NCAA investigators to tape interviews with sources.

“We all agree that what’s in place needs review regularly,” said David Price, associate commissioner of the Pacific 10 Conference and the conference’s chief compliance officer. “We are all looking at what the NCAA committee comes up with. But we believe the (NCAA) members should change the system, not the government.”

Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen has sent letters to all members of the Legislature expressing the conference’s opposition to Hill’s bill.

The University of California and California State University systems also have indicated that they have reservations about the bill.

“The first-blush reaction of our people is it’s not necessary,” said Scott Plotkin, director of governmental affairs for the Cal State University system. “We feel we’ve been treated fairly (by the NCAA) and see no need for legislation where you could have 50 different sets of rules for due process, in some cases creating inconsistencies within the same conference.”

FIFE’s Saroyan says that some college administrators and others with ties to the NCAA support the legislation but will not do so publicly “for fear of reprisal.”

In any event, it appears the bill won’t have a chance to be adopted this year. The Senate Committee on Business and Professions is expected to refer the bill to its sports subcommittee, which would hold hearings in the fall.

Hill says he would love to see the NCAA deal with the situation internally, but he is skeptical.

“This has been an ongoing issue for 10 years,” he said. “The NCAA has been saying all along, ‘We’ll take care of it. Let us work on it. We understand it.’ My perception is they’re stalling. I don’t think they see it as a serious issue. They’re trying to come up with a political response of their own.

“Let them do whatever the hell they want to, and if my bill can move that process along, I think that’s terrific. I hope (former) Chief Justice Burger (in his role on the NCAA committee) comes out with some minimal level of due process. If (the NCAA) really does make a sincere effort in that direction, I would be happy to drop my bill.

“But I’ll guarantee you, were it not for states putting pressure on the NCAA, it wouldn’t have dealt with this issue at all.”

Taking on the NCAA States that have considered legislation requiring NCAA enforcement procedure to conform to due process of law and the status of the legislation: California: Introduced in Senate in march. Will be considered Monday (May 13) for first time by Senate Committee on Business and Professions.

Nevada: Signed into law in April.

Nebraska: Signed into law in 1990.

Kansas: Approved by Senate in April. Will be considered by House in 1992.

Iowa: Introduced in House in March. Died in House Committee.

Missouri: Added as an amendment to a House bill during 1990 legislative session. Died in Senate Committee.

Illinois: Approved by House Tuesday (May 7). Still must be considered by Senate.

South Carolina: Introduced in Senate in January. Still under Senate committee consideration.

Florida: Passed both houses of Legislature in April and sent to Gov. Lawton Chiles, who has yet to act on the bill.

Source: NCAA, individual states Los Angeles Times