When the powerful NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee took the rare step of remanding Boise State’s sanctions to the Committee on Infractions in 2012 for reconsideration, the Broncos were excited.
With the IAC declaring the penalties “excessive such that it constituted an abuse of discretion,” Boise State felt it had the NCAA’s version of the Supreme Court behind it and would shortly be getting some football scholarships back.
But three and a half months later and the issue rendered almost moot by the calendar, the lower-tiered COI adamantly refused to alter its decision, leaving the Broncos flabbergasted.
BSU President Bob Kustra blasted it as “…the lack of a meaningful review.”
As the University of Hawaii wades into its 32nd month in the infractions process and toward the tipoff of another season, attorneys with experience dealing with the NCAA cite the Boise State case as an example of the NCAA’s unpredictability.
Friday, following a decision by the IAC, the NCAA announced the COI “must reconsider the penalties it prescribed to (UH), including the men’s basketball postseason ban, scholarship reductions and fine…”
The act of remanding the case was remarkable in itself, say attorneys familiar with NCAA proceedings. “Very rare,” said Steve Evrard, a former NCAA enforcement staffer and attorney with Bond, Schoeneck &King in Kansas, which has represented UH in the past.
“Based on my knowledge, the (IAC) has remanded a decision from the (COI) on two occasions in the prior 10 years,” Michael Buckner, president of the Buckner Law Firm in Pompano Beach, Fla., said in an email.
An NCAA spokeswoman said she did not have statistics on how many cases have been remanded and declined comment on the case because it was “on-going.”
Overturning a postseason ban by any avenue has come with long odds. An analysis of 212 Division I major infractions cases between 1994 and 2013 by Temple University’s Sports Industry Research Center showed, 50 cases were appealed. Of them, 17 received some type of alteration of the original penalty received from the COI, but only four involving a clear reduction or elimination of postseason bans, a spokesman said.
People briefed in the UH case say they have “definitely been encouraged” by the IAC’s remand of the sanctions and buoyed by the IAC finding “there is no indication that the university encouraged the (improper) behavior or failed to warn the coaches that such behavior would not be acceptable.”
In sending it back to the COI, the panel was told to “determine which infraction structure is less stringent and review the postseason ban, scholarship reductions and financial penalty under that infractions structure,” the NCAA said.
In its filings, UH has maintained the COI has abused its discretion in imposing a postseason ban and also argued that penalties were imposed under an earlier and incorrect structure.
In the meantime, an NCAA spokeswoman said there is no ballpark estimate of when a decision might come
History tells us that when the NCAA gets around to finally wrapping a bow on the case is as unpredictable as the verdict.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
