By Ryan Tarletsky and Stephen McNett
Throughout the past 10 to 15 years, college athletics have been under heavy scrutiny. With countless reports of recruiting violations, eligibility scams and improper benefits, the negative reports masked any positives coming from the collegiate world of sports.
These scandals included such incidents as the University of Southern California football team’s providing improper benefits for its players and the Memphis University basketball team’s allowing players to be eligible without meeting University academic requirements to even become accepted into the school. These problems reiterate the negative stereotype that coaches, players and any school will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means cheating.
For the first time in recent memory, Friends University has had the public eye trained on it. This fall, after winning their opening game, the Falcons were forced to forfeit their victory over the University of St. Mary after a player who was ineligible played. In a sense of guilt by association, the Falcon football team was immediately deemed cheaters by those outside the University.
Cheating could not be further from the truth. Almost everyone involved explained that the situation was almost contradictory. The details of exactly what took place are quite complicated but easily avoidable. All agreed that there was a huge miscommunication error between all parties.
“Eligibility starts with the players taking care of business,” said Assistant Athletic Director Robin Johnson. “Then it goes through the registrar’s office and to the coach and athletic director.”
As a highly regarded school for both academics first, then athletics, it is always important to keep up the reputation and just what it means to be a student athlete at Friends. But in many cases, eligibility issues stem from more than just grades.
“There can be some confusing things that students don’t think about,” said Johnson. “You have to make sure you are enrolled in at least 12 credit hours per semester, and you must ensure that you pass 24 credit hours in a school year.”
Johnson mentioned that many times student athletes may fail to realize that a class they are taking requires a C grade or higher, and they may then fall below the required hours. In some cases, like the incident this fall, students may not realize they are below the required 12 hours and fail to register through the school and be cleared by the NAIA before taking part in playing.
Heidi Hoskinson, the University’s registrar, oversees the 407 student athletes’ grades, credit hours and degree-applicable classes.
“Once the initial NAIA eligibility screening takes place, we sign off on the student’s academic forms after we decide that they are accurate and then send it off to be approved by the athletic office,” said Hoskinson.
When asked about the eligibility issue this fall that cost the Falcons their opening victory, Hoskinson said it was an error somewhere in communication.
“It is the student’s responsibility to make sure they do what they have to do to indeed get registered for their required amount of hours,” said Hoskinson. “But it is also the coach’s responsibility to make sure that their active roster is eligible.”
What may be common belief among those outside the Friends circle is that the football team and coaches knew about this issue and tried to hide the issue. The fact of the matter is that it was a communication error. Both parties, the student and coaches, felt that the issue had been handled. But after the information came back that the student had not properly registered for the specific amount of needed credit hours, the athletic department took care of the issue. But what may surprise critics is that Friends reported its own violation to the NAIA.
After the NAIA decreed that Friends had broken an eligibility rule, the NAIA decided to have the Falcons forfeit their victory and to suspend the player for two games. In an in-house decision, Head Coach Monty Lewis claimed responsibility and decided to serve a one-game suspension against a top 25 team in Southern Nazarene University.
“The responsibility was mine,” said Lewis. “I should have double, triple, quadruple checked my list. It really was a nightmare for us.”
Although eligibility is a shouldered responsibility throughout many branches of the University, Lewis claimed the blame for the incident. Agreeing that the issue could have been avoided quite easily, Lewis admitted it was disappointing that the situation went unnoticed until it resulted in a violation.
“I have never had anything like this happen in my 26 years of coaching,” said Lewis. “But it’s a learning lesson, and in my mind there is no true learning until there is a change in behavior, and it has changed ours, including everyone in the entire eligibility process.”
Lewis compared the incident to a term in purgatory, admitting and acknowledging a mistake but better yet, admitting to needing a change in the way things are done involving the process of ensuring all active players get eligible and stay eligible.
The human factor in this would continue to point toward to intent of the situation. Was this simply another cheater who got caught?
“Those rumors were wounding,” Lewis replied. “These were clerical errors but avoidable errors, but there was no malicious intent. I love to win too much to play an ineligible kid, because nothing goes unseen.”
Lewis added that he is more than thankful that Hoskinson is doing behind-the-scenes work with all coaches in an attempt to prevent further mistakes this year and in the future of Friends Athletics.
It should be a relief to those close to Friends but uninformed about the situation that Friends does not intend to simply throw a Band-Aid on the whole thing but is doing its best to correct it and prevent it from happening again.
The public eye will always have stereotypes and will always jump to conclusions. But with the incident this fall that left Friends with a black eye, the work behind the scenes to correct it will ultimately turn the issue in to a minute blemish in the history of Falcon Athletics.