UM’s hockey NCAA title probably OK

Two questions spring immediately to mind in the wake of this week’s revelation that the University of Maine has been “misinterpreting” an NCAA eligibility rule for the last decade or so:

1. Could this jeopardize Maine’s 1993 NCAA hockey title?

2. Does this latest fiasco, coming in the wake of last year’s eight student-athletes being found ineligible, officially qualify Maine as the dumbest NCAA member ever in the organization’s 88-year history?

The short answers are: Possibly, but doubtful. And no. At least one other institution has been found to have a similar learning disability when it comes to NCAA eligibility rules.

Looking at the hockey question first, NCAA rules do allow for the retroactive stripping of any records or titles amassed by a team that had ineligible players on it.

But don’t start peeling off those ’93 champion bumper stickers. At least not for awhile.

First, no one knows yet if any of the hockey players on that team were ineligible. Maine officials say they’re not even looking for problems with past teams.

“We’re dealing with appeals for the current athletes,” explained Tammy Light, UM’s acting compliance coordinator. “We’re not involved with looking at the championship hockey team. The (NCAA) enforcement office will deal with that.”

A call to NCAA Enforcement Director Rich Hilliard yielded this explanation of what his office would have to find for Maine’s title to be taken away:

“The threshold for that question is, did ineligible student-athletes participate in an NCAA championship event and, if so, did the institution know or should it have known about the ineligible parties… That’s the tough part of the threshold to determine,” Hilliard said.

The good news is Hilliard said he knows of no NCAA institution ever having been stripped of a national title.

The bad news is it’s apt to take until next spring for the NCAA enforcement office to announce if the ’93 UM hockey team was clean or not and what, if any penalties might result.

It’s hard to imagine the NCAA making the case that Maine knew anything about eligibility based on recent history. Maine could use stupidity as a defense, except such massive failure could also be seen as lack of institutional control, a big NCAA no-no.

Which leads us to question 2, just how dumb is Maine compared to the other 600 or so NCAA members?

Evidently not as dumb as San Francisco State University. The NCAA Division II institution recently weathered a case similar to what Maine may be facing.

The NCAA found that 27 San Francisco State student-athletes in eight different sports had competed while ineligible between 1990 and 1992.

Several of those athletes were ineligible because they did not take the 24 credit hours countable toward their major course of study per year as required by the NCAA. That’s the same rule Maine says it misinterpreted, probably resulting in several past and present UM student-athletes competing while ineligible.

San Francisco State officials claimed the infractions were inadvertent and unintentional, as Maine has done.

The major difference in the cases is SF State failed to act on an analysis by NCAA legislative services in 1991 advising the school to clean up its eligibility act. This wins SF State the NCAA dumbest award. Maine has cooperated with the NCAA.

Officials at SF State admitted their errors constituted major violations. They threw themselves on the mercy of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, which judges these matters.

Here’s some of what the Committee on Infractions dished out:

No postseason competition for one year for all SF State sports in which ineligible student-athletes competed.

Three years probation.

Vacation of team records in those sports in which ineligible student-athletes competed after SF State was warned to fix its compliance in ’91. In theory, this wouldn’t apply to Maine because it got no such warning.

How much, if any, of SF State’s case does translate to Maine’s situation?

Only time, and the ongoing investigation of the NCAA enforcement office, will tell.