On Wednesday, Jon Wilner of The San Jose Mercury News broke the story of how the Stanford Football and Softball programs were hit with a Level II rules violation penalty levied by the NCAA.
The violations for the Football program were impermissible benefits given to a former player in the form of free movie tickets, meals, and a $3,00 loan to purchase a bike. Former WR Devon Cajuste was found to have received these benefits and apologized profusely when asked about it this week.
Cajuste would state:
“I am the student-athlete involved in the violation. I unknowingly took the impermissible benefits from my summer landlord. I look forward to moving on from this incident, and to supporting my alma mater for years to come.”
Of note, Cajuste did pay the loan back in full.
NCAA officials have all said that Head Coach David Shaw was very open and candid, and did not hide a thing during the investigation.
The Softball program was cited to be in violation of the participation rule of no more than 20 hours a week in athletic related activities for student-athletes. This rule can be found here: http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/20-Hour-Rule-Document.pdf
This was a known violation that led to the ouster of former Softball Coach John Rittman as the rules violation occurred from 2010-2014.
These rules violations have led to a public reprimand by the NCAA and a $5,000 fine. There are no other sanctions levied by the NCAA, although the Stanford Athletic department will be creating a few self-imposed penalties
Stanford Athletic Director Bernard Muir was very disappointed in the outcome of the events; and has stated that he “cares about winning championships, but also winning the right way.”
Comments
Very Disappointing
I don’t know the details of how or why these unprecedented violations happened. I hope Bernard Muir and the university administrators know that they need to do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t happen again. It really surprises me because I always assumed that anyone affiliated with the athletic department would know that the first thing about Stanford Athletics is to follow the rules. I’m very disappointed in Devon Cajuste.
By SN94703 on 09.16.16 4:26am
Agree on the feelings about Cajuste.
As an athlete at Stanford you know the rules. He decided not to follow them. I’m sure most of us have heard the story about Tiger getting in trouble for having lunch with Arnold Palmer and Arnie picked up the tab. If true or fictitious, this example is reviewed with all athletes. The loan was absolutely ridiculous. Are you telling me he didn’t have access to a family credit card? That’s what probably raised things to a Level II.
Decades ago I feel the move to secure summer housing around campus made sense. Finding a three month lease around campus was, and is, just about impossible. Someone in the compliance group should have asked the question "what could go wrong?" a long time ago though. All it took was just opening up more on campus housing. From an administrative standpoint, it sounds like this embarrassingly slipped through the cracks.
Either way, our players know better.
By Cardinal-in-TX on 09.16.16 4:03pm