Recently the students and faculty of Samford University received an email explaining that our athletic program is under a Level II violation from the NCAA for the ineligibility of 33 students within 8 different sports. These violations occurred from the fall of 2010 until the Spring of 2015 but the violation wasn't reported by the NCAA to the public until April 12th of 2016.
As a student at Samford University, this concerns me. It's no secret that the school you're at will have students that receive special treatment. This situation wasn't necessarily the students making the mistake but instead, it was the coaches and advisers. The 33 students that were involved were athletes that were involved in men's tennis, baseball, football, softball, men's track, men's cross country, soccer, and men’s basketball.
Most of the violations involved the improper academic certification for competition of 33 student-athletes, primarily transfer students, beginning in 2010 and extending through the spring of 2014. Simply, this means that students weren't passing classes, weren't taking the correct classes, or did not have a high enough GPA in order to be eligible to play.
Samford's President, Andrew Westmoreland, stated that "Through the investigation and our own internal review, it is clear that none of the staff members had any fraudulent intent, nor were they seeking to create a competitive advantage for any of our teams."
The Sr. Associate Athletics Director, Michelle Durban says, "When you have an auditor come in that their specific job is to look at one thing then that's where we had some mistakes that were being made." Samford worked along with the NCAA over a two-year process to finish the audit and then an investigation before it was announced to the public in April.
What happens next? Samford received a $5,000 fine and will receive a three-year probation along with vacating the wins and any conference championships within the sports that had the violations. The good news is that there are no scholarship reductions, post-season bands, or recruiting restrictions. This means that there will still be football games where you can tailgate, baseball games to cheer at, and many other sports to cheer on our bulldogs.