NCAA Shows Cal Poly Who is Boss

The Cal Poly athletics department is facing major sanctions at the hands of the NCAA — including having to vacate wins and postseason participation over a three-and-a-half year period — for providing improper stipends to help students pay for textbooks.

The university will also be placed on probation for two years and pay a self-imposed $5,000 fine.

Among the wins that could be vacated? The 2014 Big West men’s basketball championship that sent the Mustangs to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. That berth falls within the timeline of when violations occurred, meaning it could be scrubbed from the record books.

The NCAA found that the $800 stipends given to athletes was not equal to the actual cost of course-related books purchased and that Cal Poly failed to monitor its book stipend program.

Cal Poly maintains that the violation was an inadvertent error, saying in a news release Thursday that it self-reported to the NCAA when the error was discovered by the Cal Poly Athletics Compliance staff. The university said it submitted a report to the NCAA in August 2017 detailing the facts and self-imposed penalties.

“Cal Poly has cooperated in every way with the NCAA throughout this process that began in 2015,” Cal Poly Athletic Director Don Oberhelman said in the release. “There was never an intent to violate NCAA rules, and when we discovered the issue, we self-reported it to the NCAA.”

The baseball team’s NCAA playoff appearances from 2013 and 2014 could be vacated thanks to the ruling.

The committee said Cal Poly “lacked a fundamental understanding of NCAA rules about book stipends. ... The university mistakenly treated the book stipend in the same manner as room and board stipends, which are used by student-athletes as they see fit to cover off-campus living expenses. Instead, NCAA rules require book stipends equal the exact cost of the books required for coursework.”

The committee did not believe the university broke the long-standing rule on purpose but said, “There is no ambiguity in the wording of the legislation and thus no room for misinterpretation. Cal Poly simply failed to abide by this rule.”

Other notable postseason appearances by Cal Poly teams that could be wiped away include:

▪ The football team’s 2012 FCS second-round playoff appearance.

▪ The women’s basketball team’s NCAA tournament berth in 2013 and NIT appearance in 2014.

▪ The men’s soccer team’s 2015 NCAA tournament appearance.

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trojanfan12 said:

Giving them too much money for books as if they're students first?

Clearly, they've lost control of the department.

The entire Athletic Department needs to be shut down before these kids start showing up to class.

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theboardref said:

And to think all they had to do is have fake classes like UNC and they wouldn’t have even had to pay for their books.

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Srini said:

That's pretty much par for the course for those win-at-all-costs sports factories like Cal Poly.

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jjc2009 said:

They have no problem showing the Cleveland State’s of the world who’s boss but the big boys get to do what they want.

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