By Kevin Armstrong
It appears to signal the end of the scandal involving former booster Nevin Shapiro. The Miami football team loses a total of nine scholarships while the men’s basketball team will lose three. The school will also serve three years of probation.
Miami will be allowed to play in a bowl game for the first time since 2010.
The long, winding and tainted investigation of the University of Miami’s football and basketball programs ended Tuesday morning when the NCAA punished the programs with three years of probation and the loss of several scholarships.
The NCAA concluded that the Hurricanes “lacked institutional control,” citing failures to monitor a major booster, players and coaches. Previously, the school had banned itself from participating in bowl games in 2011 and 2012 after a decade of undetected violations. The football team, now ranked in the top 10 nationally, will not face additional bowl bans.
In November 2009, Miami notified NCAA of an internal investigation into potential violations.
Nevin Shapiro, a former booster and convicted felon alleged to have provided student athletes with money and other benefits, was at the center of the investigation, but there were several setps taken by the NCAA that called into question the NCAA’s ethics. In January, NCAA president Mark Emmert acknowledged that NCAA enforcement staff members improperly obtained information from a criminal lawyer representing Shapiro. Emmert called the revelation “shocking” and promised a review of the actions.
“When determining the facts of the case and appropriate penalties, the committee only considered information obtained appropriately during the investigative process and presented at the hearing,” the NCAA report said. “The case involved numerous, serious violations of NCAA rules, many of which were not disputed by the university. Overall, it involved 18 general allegations of misconduct with 79 issues within those allegations.”