1st DCA upholds trial court’s ruling in Florida State public records case

A unanimous three-judge panel ruled records in Florida State University’s fight with the National Collegiate Athletic Association should be made public.

The opinion, written by 1st District Court of Appeal Judge Philip Padovano, upholds a lower court’s decision. The ruling rejects NCAA arguments that the documents are not public records, that student-privacy laws preclude their release and that requiring their release violates the NCAA’s constitutional rights.

“The right to inspect a public record in Florida is not one that is merely established by legislation, it is a right demanded by the people,” Padovano’s opinion reads. Judges Peter Webster and Nikki Anne Clark concurred in the decision.

Media organizations filed suit in June to force release of the documents. They were made available to FSU attorneys on a secure, copy-protected Web site. The lower court, and now the appeal court, ruled that the documents became public record when agents of the university viewed them in conjunction with official business.

Earlier court comments indicate the NCAA will seek to appeal the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court.

A 350-page transcript of an October 2008 hearing of the NCAA’s committee on infractions remains secret. Its release, ordered by Circuit Judge John Cooper’s previous ruling, was blocked by a stay for the duration of the appeal. The 1st DCA judges have not yet ruled on the stay that remains in place.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum wrote the NCAA earlier in the year saying the documents were public records and ordering them released. McCollum’s office has since filed briefs in the lawsuit favoring release.

“The 1st District’s decision emphasizes the importance of applying the public records laws to new and evolving technologies and serves to enhance our state’s reputation as a leader on Sunshine issues,” McCollum said in a release.

Padovano’s opinion emphatically shot down the NCAA’s multiple defenses.

Public records are not defined by their means of transmission, Padovano wrote.

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Court rules that Delaware gambling system violates ban

PHILADELPHIA — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that sports betting in Delaware would violate a 1992 federal ban on such wagering, essentially halting the state’s plans to start taking bets next month.

The plan was opposed by the professional sports leagues and the NCAA, which claimed it violated the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, would harm their reputations and expose young people to gambling.

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell had pushed for sports betting as a way to help resolve an unprecedented shortfall in state tax revenues and balance the state budget. Attorneys who argued the case for the state appeared stunned by the ruling.

“We’re very disappointed with today’s ruling,” said Michael Barlow, the governor’s legal counsel.

Delaware was one of four states exempted from the federal ban on sports betting because it once ran an NFL sports lottery in 1976 that required parlay, or multiple bets, on at least three games.

The 1992 law restricts sports betting to the four states that met a deadline to sign up for it: Nevada, where Las Vegas sports books determine the odds for sporting events across the country; Delaware; Montana; and Oregon.

But the leagues argued that the exemption does not allow Delaware to offer bets on single games, or on sports other than professional football.

Speaking for the court, Judge Theodore McKee said Monday that the betting plan as currently envisioned violates the federal ban. The court was expected to issue a formal order later Monday, followed by a written opinion later.

Barlow said Markell administration officials would have to discuss whether to proceed next month with parlay bets on NFL games, which the leagues concede are legal. Administration officials also will meet with their lawyers to decide whether to appeal the ruling to the full appeals court, or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court heard almost two hours of argument from attorneys regarding the denial of an injunction that would have prevented the betting from beginning with the start of football season in September.

But instead of ruling on the injunction, the appeals court turned directly to the league’s claim that sports betting would violate the federal ban.

“We were hoping the court would rule on the merits,” said Kenneth Nachbar, an attorney representing the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA and Major League Baseball.

During Monday’s arguments, the judge questioned what would happen if the state began sports betting in September, then had it declared illegal by the district court several months later. Individual bettors would have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars on what essentially was an illegal state scheme, he said.

“What happens if you’re wrong?” McKee asked Andre Bouchard, an attorney representing the state.

“Caveat emptor,” Bouchard replied, citing the Latin admonition of “buyer beware.”

Article located here.

Judge rules that the records in the Florida State Cheating Incident are Public

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -A top official at the NCAA said a court ruling Thursday that documents dealing with cheating at Florida State are public records sets a precedent that will “rip the heart out of the NCAA” and its efforts to ensure competition is fair and equal.

David Berst, the NCAA’s vice president for Division I, said few witnesses other than school officials and employees would be willing to tell what they know about cheating, whether in recruiting, academics or other areas, without the promise of confidentiality.

“We could see copycat efforts in other states,” Berst said. “Yes, I believe that would rip the heart out of the NCAA.”

His comments from the witness stand came soon after Circuit Judge John Cooper rejected the NCAA’s claim that the documents in the Florida State case are not public.

The Associated Press and other media outlets had sued to get the records on the college athletics governing body’s plan to strip coaches and athletes of wins in 10 sports.

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That includes football coach Bobby Bowden, who could lose 14 victories. Bowden’s chances of overtaking Penn State’s Joe Paterno as major college football’s winningest coach would dim if the NCAA rejects an appeal of that penalty. Paterno has 383 victories – one more than Bowden.

Florida law says records are public if they are “received” by a state agency. The NCAA claimed the Florida State documents were not because the school never physically possessed the documents in paper or electronic form.

Instead, the NCAA posted them on a secure read-only Web site that could be accessed by the law firm Florida State had hired for its appeal. School officials also could have gone to NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis to take a look at the documents.

Cooper rejected the argument.

After Berst’s testimony, he rejected the NCAA’s claim that even if the documents are public records they should not be released because that would violate free association, contract and interstate commerce rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The judge also found that making the documents public would violate neither state nor federal laws guarding the confidentially of student academic records. He made that ruling after privately reading copies of two documents being sought that had student names blacked out.

Media lawyer Carol Jean LoCicero in arguing to obtain the Florida State records cited a 1990 appellate court ruling that St. Petersburg and the Chicago White Sox violated the public records law through a scheme to hide documents on the team’s possible move to Florida. The papers were sent to a local law firm where they could be viewed by city officials and attorneys.

That was little different from what the NCAA and Florida State did, LoCicero said.

“Everything was done except touch a piece of paper,” she said. “You don’t have to touch a piece of paper to receive a document.”

Cooper agreed, ruling that viewing the NCAA documents on a computer screen was the same as receiving them.

Article located here.

The case referred to in the article involving the Chicago White Sox is Times Publishing Company, Inc. v. City of Saint Petersburg, which can be found at 558 So. 2d 487.

NCAA: Memphis required to vacate wins and placed on probation

The NCAA Committee on Infractions will release its findings regarding Memphis on Thursday morning and the word “vacate” is included in the report, several sources told ESPN.com.

In May, the NCAA accused Memphis of several major infractions during its 2007-08 season under coach John Calipari, including a fraudulent SAT score by a player, later revealed to be Derrick Rose, and more than $2,000 in free travel for Rose’s brother, Reggie.

The potential penalties include vacating the Tigers’ Final Four run and NCAA-record 38-win season, a possibility that seems likely now, according to the sources.

Late Wednesday night, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, citing an unnamed source, said the school will have to vacate the regular-season wins and its 2008 Final Four appearance.

A source said the current Memphis program will not be penalized and will escape a postseason ban or loss of scholarships.

The NCAA planned a news conference in Indianapolis at 3 p.m. ET Thursday, and Dr. Shirley Raines, president of Memphis, told The Associated Press the school will hold its own media conference shortly afterward.

Memphis originally received the notice of allegations on Jan. 16 and appeared before the committee in June. The main academic allegation against Rose is that someone stood in for him during the SAT, even though the NCAA Eligibility Center later cleared Rose to play.

Calipari, Memphis’ coach at the time of the alleged infractions who is now the head coach of Kentucky, told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz on Wednesday that he wasn’t aware the report would be released Thursday.

Calipari, appearing at the Kentucky State Fair on Thursday, had no comment because the report had not been officially released, but did say he would be “disappointed” if Memphis was stripped of its trip to the Final Four.

“We don’t know anything, because I’m not going to comment because I have to wait on the finding,” Calipari said. “I would be disappointed if that’s what they chose to do.”

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, appearing with Calipari on Thursday, said he isn’t concerned about the troubles at Memphis following Calipari to the Wildcats.

“I’m not worried about it because they have never said Coach Cal did anything wrong at all,” Beshear said. “I think he’s a very upstanding guy. I think that’s his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here. I really don’t foresee any problems.”

Article continued here.

My thoughts: I’ve always thought Coach Calipari was dirty, and it appears that the NCAA is about tell us again that he is. He has now taken 2 teams to the Final Four (UMass and Memphis) and both have gotten stripped from the record books (if this report is true).  This just stinks to high heaven, and you figure that the University would do a better job of following the rules, but we all know this goes on at many major universities, especially ones with good sports programs. I hope Kentucky knows what they’ve gotten into because they just hired a coach who has now been stripped of wins in both places he coached prior to taking over their program and signing a very lucrative contract.

UPDATE: Memphis was required to vacate all 38 wins from the 07-08 season and was placed on 3 years’ probation as a result of their violations. In addition to the lost season, Memphis also must return the money it received from the NCAA tournament to Conference USA and will be prevented from receiving future shares doled out in the conference’s revenue-sharing program — a total loss estimated at $530,000 on top of the $85,000 already paid by the school. If Memphis loses its appeal, Johnson said approximately $300,000 in bonus money Calipari earned from that season would be paid back.

Paul Dee, the chairman for the COI, said in a teleconference that even though Memphis was not aware of Rose’s questionable test score until midway through his freshman year, once the score was invalidated by Educational Testing Service, Rose no longer met the initial eligibility standards.

“This is a situation of strict liability,” Dee said. “If he is ineligible and does not meet initial requirements, the penalties are related back to that time and a determination is then made: Did he play in any contests after the fact? In this case, he did.”

Article continued here.

Former College QB takes on the NCAA and EA Sports

More than 18 months after taking his final snap as a Nebraska quarterback, Sam Keller is choosing to challenge more formidable opponents: The NCAA and EA Sports.

Keller has filed a lawsuit against the two entities for, “blatant and unlawful use of [NCAA] student likenesses” in a number of EA Sports’ college football games during his time at Arizona State and Nebraska without paying him for it. The “NCAA 08” game, for example, lists Keller at his approximate height and weight.

“With rare exception, virtually every real-life Division I football or basketball player in the NCAA has a corresponding player in Electronic Arts’ games with the same jersey number, and virtually identical height, weight, build and home state,” the lawsuit said. “In addition Electronic Arts often matches the player’s, skin tone, hair color, and often even a player’s hair style.”

Player ratings tend to be tied the presumed skills of an athlete before the beginning of the season.

The lawsuit also contends that the NCAA looks the other way when gamers download rosters names from the Internet. On the most recent Playstation 3 version of the college football game, EA provides an option to download rosters created by other users.

Here’s a copy of the lawsuit. You have to admit…it’s compelling.

Article located here.

Six ex-Toledo players charged with point shaving

University of Toledo officials have known for two years the bad news was coming. It finally struck Wednesday when six former players — three each from Toledo’s basketball and football programs, as well as two Detroit-area businessmen — were charged with conspiracy to commit sports bribery in an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

The 20-count indictment charges that between December 2004 and December 2006, Ghazi “Gary” Manni, 52, and Mitchell Karam, 76, paid money and other things of value to the athletes in order to influence, or attempt to influence, the final score of both football and basketball games. Though the money paid players was at times as little as $500, this is believed to be the first major gambling case involving two sports on a college campus.

Nothing in the indictment, however, details Manni and Karam placing wagers on football games. Instead, the indictment lists 17 specific games in which they placed bets on Toledo basketball contests, including the amounts wagered. The indictment also details 133 phone calls between Manni and those charged in the case.

Charged in the indictment, in addition to Manni and Karam, were Harvey “Scooter” McDougle Jr., 24, a former running back from Cleveland; Adam Cuomo, 31, a former running back from Hagersville, Ontario, Canada; Quinton Broussard, 25, a former running back from Carrollton, Texas; Keith Triplett, 29, a former basketball player from Toledo; Anton Currie, 25, a former basketball player from Okemos, Mich; and Kashif Payne, 24, a former basketball player from Chester, Pa.

“Today’s charges shine a light into the dark corner of illegal sports bookmaking and reveals the unfortunate consequences that the influence of money from betting can have on the integrity of both athletes and athletic contests,” said U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg in announcing the indictment.

Article located here.

NCAA makes NBA Draft window shorter

College basketball players who declare early for the NBA draft will still get to work out for teams.

They’ll just have to do everything much sooner next season.

On Thursday, the NCAA’s board of directors approved a measure requiring players to withdraw from the draft by May 8 instead of the current June 15, a move that was supported by several key constituencies for different reasons.

College coaches wanted the change to give them additional time to restructure their teams. School presidents were concerned about potentially serious academic ramifications, and one NBA official thinks the extra time isn’t entirely necessary anyway.

“Honestly, if a kid doesn’t know where his stock is by that time, he needs to go back to school,” Denver Nuggets vice president of player personnel Rex Chapman said.

This change creates some unique challenges for compliance, too.

The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement requires the list of players pulling out of the draft to be released in mid-June. That won’t change until the league reaches a new CBA with the players association after the 2010-11 season.

But if a player decides to pull out of the draft, Division I vice president David Berst said he must still notify the NCAA by May 8. The legislation does not establish how it will be done.

“Rest assured it will be communicated,” Berst said during a conference call. “The manner by which it is communicated still has to be determined. They’ll have to opt out of the draft to our satisfaction and that remains to be interpreted to some degree.”

Berst said the NBA is assisting with the change.

The league agreed to move up the date for individual workouts from early June to April 30, giving college players a little more than a week to improve their draft stock. The workout dates are not part of the CBA.

Rest of article here.

New FIU Coach Isiah Thomas to donate first year salary to FIU Athletics

Here’s a sign of how badly Isiah Thomas wanted to return to coaching: He’s working for free at Florida International.

At his introductory news conference at FIU on Wednesday, Thomas said his salary the first year from the Golden Panthers will be donated back to the school’s athletic department.

Thomas was fired by the New York Knicks last year. The team still owes him around $12 million for the final two years of his deal there.

FIU athletic director Pete Garcia said that when Thomas learned about layoffs and budget cuts, he told the university president that the school should keep his salary.

Thomas arrived outside FIU’s basketball arena at 10:25 a.m. Wednesday, riding passenger in a sleek black Mercedes. Even before he could get out of the car, three well-wishers couldn’t wait to greet him.

“Hey! There he is!” shouted one of the men, all of whom got handshakes from Thomas before the car pulled into a parking space.

Thomas said he took the FIU job because he enjoys challenges. He said he talked to Bob Knight, his former coach at Indiana, and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, about what it took to build college programs.

“I like rolling up my sleeves. I like taking some from the bottom and building it to the top. There’s a lot of risk in that and there is also a lot of reward in that. But that’s how I grew up. I want to take FIU to the next level and I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work, but I’m willing to pay the price to do that.”

His arrival was celebrated in Miami, much in the way his departure was in New York.

During his time with the Knicks, Thomas endured legal and personal troubles off the court, and more losses than wins on it. His Knicks were 23-59 a season ago, prompting a firing many fans had long awaited. The Knicks never won a playoff game in his tenure as president or coach, and many of his moves — like acquiring Stephon Marbury — didn’t work out as planned.

Rest of the article here.

NCAA to combine USC probes

The NCAA has combined its investigations of two former USC star athletes into a single probe of the Trojans’ athletic program, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In separate investigations, the NCAA has been looking into allegations that Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush and NBA lottery pick O.J. Mayo both received improper benefits while at USC.

The attorneys for Louis Johnson, a former associate of Mayo, said that in a meeting with a Pacific 10 Conference executive, they were told that the NCAA had combined the two probes into a larger investigation of whether USC had shown a lack of institutional control, according to the Times.

“It makes sense,” attorney Anthony V. Salerno said, according to the Times. “The NCAA looks at the program as a whole, and you may be talking about systemic problems in these cases of payments by agents. Yes, these were different teams and coaches. Rather than do it piecemeal, look at the institution.”

Salerno and David Murphy represent Johnson, a former associate of Mayo and Rodney Guillory, who Johnson says received more than $200,000 in cash and gifts from a representative of the BDA Sports Management agency and passed along some of those gifts to Mayo.

Bush is alleged to have accepted thousands of dollars in benefits for himself and his family in the form of rent owed on a home owned by a would-be sports marketer.

Both athletes have said they did nothing wrong.

The NCAA and a Pac-10 investigator declined to comment, while Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hanson could not be reached for comment, the Times reported.

USC basketball coach Tim Floyd said he hasn’t talked to the NCAA since May and has “never, ever heard” that the investigations were being combined, the Times reported. Football coach Pete Carroll could not be reached for comment, according to the report.

Article located here.

Richard Hamilton pursuing charges against ex-UConn manager

Richard Hamilton says he is pursuing legal action against the former Connecticut men’s basketball team manager who is embroiled in an alleged recruiting scandal at the university.

Hamilton, a star swingman at UConn in the 1990s, did not offer specifics of charges in his interview this week with the Hartford Courant. The veteran Detroit Piston contends that Josh Nochimson stole as much as $1 million from him beginning in 2003 or 2004 and ending in 2008 through unauthorized use of an American Express card.

Nochimson was a student manager at UConn who later followed Hamilton to the NBA as his personal assistant and then became the star player’s business manager.

“It’s crazy because when I left for the NBA, he was coming with me just to learn the business, learn how to be a manager for athletes or whatever,” Hamilton told the Courant. “I didn’t pay him anything. I was like, ‘OK, you can come along.’ It was like an internship and that was it … and I saw how good he was at being a manager, helping me around the house, getting my stuff together, making sure … you know, he was like my personal assistant.

“I saw how good he was and then I started compensating him to be that.”

It wasn’t until later that Hamilton said he noticed Nochimson was using his credit card in unauthorized ways.

“The only thing he had access to, but he really didn’t have access to, was my American Express card, which I just use to pay my bills,” Hamilton told the Courant. “So, really, I never looked over it. I knew every month … I knew my phone bills, my utilities and all the stuff I could pay on my American Express. I didn’t use it for anything else, so there was really no need for me to check it.

 

Rest of the article located here.

Congress to probe BCS antitrust issues

Article located at: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4015667

Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series.

The current system “leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year,” the Senate Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights said in a statement Wednesday announcing the hearings.

Under the BCS, some conferences get automatic bids to participate in series, while others do not.

Obama and some members of Congress favor a playoff-type system to determine the national champion. The BCS features a championship game between the two top teams in the BCS standings, based on two polls and six computer ratings.

Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee’s top Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season.

The title game pitted No. 1 Florida (12-1) against No. 2 Oklahoma (12-1); Florida won 24-14 and claimed the title.

The subcommittee’s statement said Hatch would introduce legislation “to rectify this situation.” No details were offered and Hatch’s office declined to provide any.

Hatch said in a statement that the BCS system “has proven itself to be inadequate, not only for those of us who are fans of college football, but for anyone who believes that competition and fair play should have a role in collegiate sports.”

In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a football game a “national championship” unless the game culminates from a playoff system.

UConn Basketball in potential hot water

Connecticut allegedly committed NCAA rules violations in its recruitment of former guard Nate Miles, Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday.

The Web site reported that, according to multiple sources, Miles, a 6-foot-7 guard from Toledo, Ohio, was provided with lodging, transportation, restaurant meals and representation between 2006 and 2008 by Josh Nochimson, a former UConn student manager who had become a professional sports agent who once represented ex-Huskies star Richard Hamilton. Miles was expelled in fall 2008 and never played for UConn.

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said he and the university are looking into a Yahoo! Sports report, but added Miles is not at UConn and his team remains focused on the NCAA tournament.

According to the report, one of UConn’s assistant coaches knew about the relationship between Nochimson and Miles as early as fall 2006, and that phone records show UConn coaches made thousands of phone calls and text messages to Nochimson during the next two years.

Miles could not be reached for comment. A cell phone number used by The Associated Press to contact him in the past was answered Wednesday by his uncle, Thomas Pettigrew of Toledo, Ohio, who said the NCAA needs to do more to prevent recruiting violations.

“I just think he got mixed up with the wrong people,” Pettigrew said. “There was a whole bunch of adults who should have been doing their job instead of doing what they did.

“That’s how society is. They chew you up and spit you out. If they can use you, they use you. I think he whole situation is funny, because I’m sure there are people who are supposed to be looking over that.”

Pettigrew added, “No matter what anybody says about him, my nephew is a great basketball player and a good person.”

Link to Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4014188