NCAA introduces new penalty guides

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

Nearly a year after promising to impose harsher sanctions on the most egregious rule-breakers, NCAA leaders endorsed a proposal Thursday that would make schools subject to the same crippling penalties just handed to Penn State.

The measure includes postseason bans of up to four years, fines that could stretch into the millions and suspensions for head coaches. A final vote on the sweeping overhaul will not occur before the board of directors’ October meeting.

“Coaches come to me and say, ‘I feel like a chump. I’m trying to do things the right way and I have peers who laugh at me because I don’t play the game and bend the rules the way they do,”’ board chairman Ed Ray said in a statement released by the NCAA. “That’s got to stop ... Most coaches are terrific people who love their student-athletes, try to do it the right way, try to have the right values and succeed. They’re very frustrated. This has got to stop. I think most coaches are saying it’s about time. We want a level playing field.”

The plan calls for changing the current two-tiered penalty structure of major and secondary violations to a four-tiered concept, increasing the size of the infractions committee from 10 up to 24 in an effort to speed up the enforcement process and holding coaches individually accountable for any violations that occur in their program.

But it’s the penalties that will make school leaders take notice.

A program found to have made a “serious breach of conduct” with aggravating circumstances could face postseason bans of two to four years. In addition, the program may have to return money from specific events or a series of events or the amount of gross revenue generated by the sport during the years in which sanctions occurred — fines that could cost a school millions of dollars.

The board also reiterated its support to provide athletes an annual stipend of up to $2,000 to cover the so-called full cost of attendance but did not vote on the measure. The stipend originally was approved last fall, but was halted in December because too many schools were opposed to it.