Oklahoma contests the NCAA’s charge it failed to adequately monitor its football players’ employment at a Norman car dealership. It is the only source of contention in the school’s response to the allegations filed by college athletics’ governing body in February.

The Transcript obtained OU’s response along with other documents through an open records request.

“We strongly disagree with this charge and assert that the University met, if not exceeded, industry standards regarding our student-athlete monitoring,” OU president David Boren wrote in a letter dated March 7 to the NCAA Committee on Infractions. “There were no other reasonable additional steps we could have taken that would have prevented these violations or detected them any sooner.

“The employment standard the allegation attempts to establish goes beyond current industry expectations and would add an impractical component to an already involved monitoring process for all Division I schools.”

The NCAA’s allegations were part of a five-month investigation after OU self-reported violations and dismissed former quarterback Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn in August for accepting pay for hours not worked at Big Red Sports and Imports from February 2005 through March 2006.

A third player, who The Transcript has learned was former walk-on wide receiver Jermaine Hardison, also accepted extra pay.

Bomar and Quinn were dismissed from the team last August when University officials learned of their involvement in the scheme. Their dismissals came less than two days after OU learned of the violations.

Both were forced to pay more than $7,000 in extra benefits to charity and were not allowed to play for their new schools this past season. Both will be eligible to play next season.

Hardison was dismissed from the team in August due to a violation of team rules that didn’t involve his work at a car dealership.

The amount he received was redacted from the document. Hardison also did not cooperate with the investigation after he left school in August. Neither has former Big Red Sports and Imports manager Brad McRae. OU contends he was the one who condoned the players clocking in without working.

OU does not contend the players broke the rules. What it contends is there’s something it could have done about it.

All three players had signed forms stating they understood what the rules were regarding extra benefits and broke the rules anyway.

“The University’s employment monitoring system is not designed to stop student-athletes who willfully and intentionally lie and conceal employment information,” OU’s response read, “particularly with the assistance of management, in an effort to deceive the employer’s payroll system and the University’s employment monitoring system.

“To the University’s knowledge, there is no NCAA institution that has such a system.”

OU will get to make a verbal argument April 14 when it appears before the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions in Indianapolis.

The process is the same as the one the school went through last April after an investigation discovered hundreds of improper phone calls to recruits by former men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson’s staff.

The NCAA accepted self-imposed scholarship reductions and recruiting restrictions as adequate punishment in that case.

The football program did not re-award or re-allocate the scholarships vacated by Bomar and Quinn this past season. It also will reduce the number of football coaches who can recruit off campus by one during the fall 2007 evaluation period.

But OU believes the NCAA’s charge of failure to adequately monitor players would create an impossible standard for it and other schools to live up to.

“If a new standard is set here that requires the design of an employment monitoring system that will stop student-athletes, who are aided by employer management, from performing intentional and willful acts that they know are wrong, the University fails and will continue to fail as such an employment monitoring system cannot be designed or operated,” OU’s response stated.

“However, if the (infractions committee) determines that the standard for institutions should be an effective, reasonable and functioning system that monitors student-athlete employment, then the failure to monitor allegation should not be found.”

John Shinn

366-3536

jshinn@normantranscript.com