Class, thy name is Univ. of Nevada golf program

We take you now to the Univ. of Nevada, where the athletic department has been put on three year’s probation by the NCAA. How did this happen? In the usual way: By the women’s soccer coach trying to out the golf coach for sports gambling in casinos. Rich Merritt, the golf coach, resigned in 2008, but was found in an NCAA investigation to have committed major rules violations, among them paying for athletes’ hotel rooms and buying them beer. And of course this:

He also broke the rules by paying one woman golfer $25 to complete two “crass acts” on a dare, one “involving the regurgitation of food and the other, spitting,” the NCAA said.

USA Today:

In addition to putting the school on probation through March 2013, each golf team loses the equivalent of half a scholarship for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. The NCAA also publicly reprimanded and censured the school. Any new violations while on probation likely would bring stiffer sanctions.

Nevada officials had been most concerned about allegations leveled by a former women’s soccer coach at the school that Merritt had bet on sports in Nevada casinos in violation of NCAA rules.

The NCCA’s Committee on Infractions said in its report that it found no proof of that but noted investigators spoke to several people who “expressed their belief that the former head coach wagered on sporting events.”

The soccer coach, Terri Patrow, was fired in 2007 for unspecified reasons, and has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the university. She told the school that she thought Merritt was gambling on sports in casinos, but no proof of that could be found, mainly because Merritt refused to cooperate with the NCAA investigation by surrendering his credit card records. But in the course of the investigation they turned up quite a few other violations.
It’s quite a little drama that’s playing out at Nevada. Read more about it here, on Patrow’s blog. Oh yes, she has a blog, where there’s plenty more whistle-blowing going on. Fun!
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Terri Patrow Blog
Rules violations put Nevada’s golf program on probation [USA Today]