In conclusion, while arguably a salutary decision, Ms. Ulasewicz’s choice to donate a kidney to her stricken twin is nonetheless, within the meaning of NCAA Redshirt Rule 109.145, an "elective surgical procedure," and therefore cannot, under any circumstances, qualify her for an additional year of eligibility. Were we to waive our own rule, one can only imagine the number of imitators to whom we would open the door. The presidents of America’s colleges and universities have entrusted this panel with the sacred duty of maintaining, in this case, the competitive balance of the Great Plains Athletic Conference’s field hockey schedule. This duty is sacrosanct, and will not yield before such ephemeral considerations as optional (albeit life-saving) surgery.

Accordingly, Ms. Ulasewicz’s petition for a fifth year of eligibility is DENIED. Moreover, because the petitioner continued to practice with the team during the pendency of this petition, Nebraska Wesleyan University is hereby BARRED from conference play in field hockey for the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 seasons. Finally, because Coach Szymanski, as described above, admitted to providing a player under her charge (to wit: Wanda Ulasewicz) with gifts and gratuities (to wit: a bouquet of flowers, a prayer card, and two Clark candy bars) prior to and immediately after the surgical procedure described above, Nebraska Wesleyan University is hereby ordered retroactively to FORFEIT all interscholastic contests in which Coach Szymanski has participated during her 14-year career, including the 1989, 1993 and 1994 conference championships and the 1994 NCAA Division III field hockey championship, which shall hereafter be VACATED.

These penalties may be harsh. But the era of this panel’s blithely excusing violation of its own foundational rules has clearly ended. Let the word go forth from this time and place: Those who contravene the letter, the spirit, or the unpublished commentaries underlying any NCAA rule or regulation shall be called before this just and merciless tribunal. In these trying times, justice can be administered in no other way.

______________________________________________________________________________

Matter No. 99-10117

______________________________________________________________________________

We are next called upon to revisit one of the more sordid outposts on the college basketball map, the University of Tennessee’s men’s program, under the continued direction of coach Chuck "The Professor" Maxfield. This is certainly not the first time that Tennessee, or Coach Maxfield himself, has come to the attention of this panel. See In the Matter of Badlands Junior College, Matter No. 73-117, affirmed, Estate of Badlands Junior College v. NCAA, 613 F.2d 875 (Dist. South Dakota 1975) (where this panel found that purported "junior college" was actually just a professional basketball team with a gymnasium and a post office box in Custer, South Dakota). See also In the Matter of the University of Tennessee Men’s Basketball Program, 96-1077 (addressing allegations of pervasive academic, disciplinary, and psychosexual problems within the Tennessee program). Each time that this program, and Coach Maxfield himself, have come before us, we have stopped short of addressing the fundamental question of whether there exists a lack of institutional control in Knoxville, underlying the repeated and severe breakdowns that seem to recur within the program. This time, we have no choice but to reach that question.

The specific allegations leveled against the program this time emanate from a variety of former players, who now contend (from the safe haven of expired eligibility and promised immunity from prosecution) that they received money, gifts, and other illegal inducements from the coaching staff and other "friends of the program" during their time at Tennessee; that they were not expected to, and indeed did not, perform any meaningful academic work while enrolled at Tennessee, a circumstance that apparently had no adverse effect upon their athletic eligibility; and that they regularly circumvented the NCAA-administered drug testing program, through either the complicity or the wholesale ambivalence of the Tennessee coaching staff and university officials. Because we are estopped from revisiting offenses committed during previous Tennessee investigatory proceedings, we will address each of these allegations as they relate to conduct affecting the period from 1997 through 2000.

Credibility of the Accusers. Before sifting through the specifics of each alleged transgression, it is worth noting the source of the original allegations. As the Final Report of the President’s Investigative Task Force helpfully details, the overall credibility of the principal accusers in this case, Funke Moses and Saddam Smith, is highly suspect. Both made their initial accusations on a tabloid television show, whose producers, according to former player Cesar Fernandez, induced them to appear on the program by promising them a fixed payment "for each bad thing we said about Coach [Maxfield] -- double if it was sex stuff." Many of the allegations were substantially corroborated, and in some cases amplified, in an eight-part investigative series published later that summer in the Nashville Sentinel. Again, the objectivity of that particular publication is open to question, in that it has traditionally printed University of Tennessee basketball game stories on its "Crime News" page and regularly refers to Coach Maxfield by such sobriquets as "The Warden" and "The Beast." Making matters worse, most of the corroborative sources quoted in the Sentinel series are now either dead, awaiting execution, or fighting extradition, and therefore could not be interviewed by this panel or by its investigators. Moreover, Messrs. Moses and Smith have been substantially unavailable to this panel: Mr. Smith because he has taken a vow of silence while imprisoned and awaiting trial on cocaine trafficking charges; Mr. Moses because authorities have tentatively identified a partially decomposed body found hanging from a rim in an abandoned Clarksburg elementary school gymnasium as his mortal remains.

The respondent, the University of Tennessee, was absolutely correct in pointing out each of these evidentiary shortfalls to this panel. Indeed, given the apparent evaporation of corroborative evidence in this case, the respondent would have us stop here, validate the university’s own self-imposed sanctions, and close this investigatory docket. Indeed, under the prior procedural constraints imposed upon this panel, such may have been the inevitable result.

However, the respondent is apparently unaware of this panel’s expanded investigatory powers pursuant to Infractions Rule 17-7(c). Passed in the wake of In re University of Cincinnati Basketball Program, ("Huggins VII"), Matter No. 99-277, Rule 17-7(c) empowers this panel, where it finds "probable cause to believe that institutional obstruction has hampered traditional investigatory tools," to apply to the Executive Director of the NCAA and to the Attorney General of the State of Kansas for leave to insert an undercover informant into the program in question, for the purposes of "fact-gathering and the testing of hypotheses already formed by the panel." Given the long history of allegations leveled against the University of Tennessee, and the improbable propensity of inculpatory witnesses to recant, disappear or die, this panel took the extraordinary step in this case of seeking, and obtaining, leave to insert an undercover informant into the University of Tennessee program.

Enter Sean Murphy. Born in Walpole, New Hampshire, and raised in Hadley, Massachusetts, Mr. Murphy, who stands a svelte 6'7", starred in intramural volleyball prior to his graduation from Holy Name Academy in South Hadley in 1987. He thereafter worked in a variety of odd jobs until 1996, when he took a position in support services for the NCAA in its home office of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Because of his lanky frame, he was instrumental in moving office equipment during the NCAA’s relocation to Indianapolis in 1998. Thereafter, he indicated in a semi-annual performance review that he felt he was ready for "new challenges." That same month, the above-titled docket was opened, and permission was granted to install an informant within the Tennessee basketball program. The synergy was just too perfect.

Pursuant to his community service obligations earlier imposed by this panel (See In re University of Massachusetts ("UMass XIV"), Matter No. 98-912), Memphis University basketball coach John Calipari, at the behest of this panel, placed a telephone call to Tennessee assistant coach Dana Kirk, noting that a former ballboy for one of Calipari’s formidable UMass teams had recently graduated from high school, that Calipari was barred from recruiting him "because of some fucked-up NCAA rule," and that Tennessee "should take a look." Displaying unusual hospitality for a rival in-state coach, Calipari promised to forward videotape of his "former ballboy’s" high school exploits. Thereafter, Calipari sent Kirk some grainy, black-and-white film of a high school basketball game, telling him to watch "the tall, skinny white kid." (In actuality, the film that Calipari sent to Kirk depicted a young Sean Bradley scoring 73 points in a Utah church league game.) To make a long story short, Kirk was impressed by the tape, referred it to Coach Maxfield, and two weeks later, Sean Murphy entered Coach Maxfield’s office, shook hands with the fabled mentor, and said, "Good morning, sir. My name is Rick Buntis." To which Coach Maxfield replied, "Welcome to Tennessee, Buntis. You look taller on TV."

Since that time, Buntis has been installed as a reserve basketball player for the University of Tennessee, a position he has acquitted quite well given his previous unfamiliarity with the sport. In fact, due to accelerated attrition arising from the departure, incarceration, or death of various teammates, Buntis has risen to the position of starting forward on the Tennessee team, an eventuality which this panel could not have foreseen when it contracted with Murphy/Buntis (hereafter "Buntis") to undertake this difficult assignment. Nonetheless, from this vantage point, Buntis has had unique access to the inner workings of the Tennessee basketball program. His reports, together with those of a long-standing mole within the Tennessee program (hereafter, "Mrs. JCF"), have formed the backbone of this panel’s fact-finding with regard to the charged offenses.

Standardized Testing Irregularities. Among the most serious accusations leveled against the program by the panelists on the "Springer" show was that admissions and eligibility standards at the University of Tennessee were lax for varsity basketball players, creating an academic environment where, in the words of former player Speedy Williams, "We didn’t gotta do shit." This panel, like the Nashville Sentinel probe and the university’s internal investigation, initially had problems finding witnesses who could corroborate this allegation.

Prima facie evidence, however, strongly suggested that something was awry in the Tennessee admissions office. During the period under review in this case, six student-athletes have been offered scholarships to the University of Tennessee, pending academic qualification, notwithstanding the fact that they had failed to complete the requisite high school, GED, or prison aptitude curriculum at their previous institution of higher learning. While such students are not per se ineligible to participate in interscholastic athletics, the NCAA’s Proposition 48 requires them, on a sliding scale, to attain a score of at least 900 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test ("SAT") or a score of 28 or higher on the rival American College Test ("ACT"). In the 14 years that Proposition 48 has been in effect, 2,633 student-athletes who had failed to complete secondary school (hereafter, "F students") sought admission to member schools by taking one or more of the approved standardized tests. According to NCAA Infractions Committee records, only 27 of these applicants (or 1.02 percent) scored high enough on the tests to garner admission. In the past several years alone, six Tennessee applicants successfully attained the required score, accounting for nearly one-quarter of all successful applicants -- a divergence from the statistical norm that Jafez el-Aquaahar, professor of quantitative analysis at California Polytechnical Institute, equates with "flipping tails 500 times in a row -- with a two-headed coin." Because all six applicants took their standardized tests at the same site, in Eddyville, Tennessee, this panel hypothesized that certain irregularities were taking place at that location.

Because of our heightened suspicions, this panel (through the intercession of Buntis’s handler, Sedrick Veazey) directed Buntis to sit for a standardized test at the Eddyville site. In preparation for the exam, Buntis three times sat for the SAT at other sites in Massachusetts and Indiana; each time he attained a combined score of between 1250 and 1370. As he documented in his report to this panel, his sitting in Eddyville proceeded accordingly:

"Really, nothing out of the ordinary happened. The proctor, Mr. Wilson, was a wicked nice guy. He let us wear Walkmen during the test, and kept offering to get us stuff if we needed it: pencils, erasers, Cokes, dictionaries, calculators -- that kind of stuff. He didn’t really time us, like the proctors in the other sites did. He just kind of said, you know, when you’re done, drop it off on my desk. I was the last one to finish. (Johnny Rat Jones, who was sitting next to me, handed his in after ten minutes.) Actually, there was one weird thing. There were people taking the SAT and people taking the ACT in the same room, but when you handed them in, Mr. Wilson put all the test sheets in one, big pile. Then, when it was over, he put all the tests, one by one, in this little machine -- he said it was a scanner, but it made a whirring noise, sort of like a can opener. Then, when he went out to his car, he wasn’t carrying anything. No tests, no folder, no briefcase. It was kind of weird."

Four weeks after sitting for the SAT in Eddyville, Buntis received word from the Educational Testing Service that he had received a "passing" score of 30 on the ACT. Each of the other 14 prospective student-athletes present at the Eddyville testing site, as it turns out, also attained scores of 30 on the ACT that day, irrespective of which standardized test they actually took.

Conclusion. The implication of this episode is painfully clear. The proctor at the Eddyville site, Puntis Wilson, a convicted forger on work-release from the Eddy County Jail, was woefully negligent (at best) or criminally complicit (at worst) for his role in falsifying standardized testing scores of Tennessee student-athletes. He has since been reassigned by the Eddy County probation office, and the Eddyville test site (together with the entire hamlet of Eddyville) was demolished, apparently by a tornado. This panel has found no conclusive evidence linking Wilson’s actions to the Tennessee program itself.

However, this episode raises a red flag with respect to the uncanny ability of otherwise ineligible Tennessee players to attain eligibility via standardized testing. Accordingly, this panel hereby institutes a zero-tolerance policy with respect to incoming F students who seek to play basketball at the University of Tennessee over the ensuing three years. To wit:

* Any F student preliminarily admitted to the University of Tennessee may hereafter obtain athletic eligibility ONLY by sitting for the SAT and by achieving a score of 900 or better.

* Such student shall sit for the SAT at the home office of the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. Such examination shall be personally proctored by the ETS director of security, Adlai Rudd. Such examination shall be personally hand-scored by the new director of the ETS, Albert Gore.

* Any attempt, on the part of the University of Tennessee or any of its affiliates, friends, or fellow-travelers, to circumvent this policy, shall expose the University to further disciplinary action, without further proceedings and without further notice.

* This zero-tolerance policy shall be enforced as follows: Upon successfully recruiting (and preliminarily admitting) an F student, Tennessee shall be awarded two six-sided dice rolls, which may be used ONLY for the purpose of determining that student’s performance on the SAT. (This roll may not be supplemented or substituted by any other power roll or extra roll that the University may have in store at such time.) The following dice rolls shall have the following consequences:

2-6 player "passes" SAT and gains admission/eligibility;

Academic Irregularities. The accusations of academic fraud leveled against the University of Tennessee ran the gamut, from falsified grading to outright intimidation of instructors and graders. This panel, however, shares the frustration of the President’s Investigative Task Force with regard to the unavailability of corroborative witnesses. When Professor Charles Vance, one of Coach Maxfield’s most persistent accusers, was found dead of what the State Coroner’s Office termed a "fishing accident," the evidentiary well nearly ran dry.

The most this panel was able to accomplish was to "spot-check" the University’s adherence to its academic principles by instructing Buntis, posing as a Tennessee underclassmen, to report on his experiences. Here, the record is inconclusive, but does point up some troubling practices that warrant further scrutiny.

According to Buntis, he followed the suggestion of assistant coach Kevin Mackey and declared his major as "Communications." On the academic registration form, Buntis checked "Yes" next to the question: "Are you a member of the varsity football or basketball teams?" Thereafter, Buntis noted that a "captain’s practice" had been called for the same day and time as the university’s Student Registration Day, but was informed by teammates not to worry about it; that "Coach has it all worked out."

Weeks passed, and Buntis received neither course enrollment information nor any other official communication from the University. Then, in late October, he received the following mid-term grade report from the Registrar’s Office:

Buntis, Richard (*bsktbl*)

Concentration: Communications

Mid-Term Academic Report:

English 114: The Word-Poems of Billy Packer B+

Physical Science (LAB) 71:

The Ergonomic Transivity of the

Nike Air 6000, A Clinical Trial A-

Biological Science (LAB) 33:

The Mating Rituals of the

Sigma Theta Chi Sorority Inc.

[Illegible] B+

Student is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eligible

Buntis approached Coach Maxfield and said that he had "questions about my grades." At that point, Coach Maxfield placed both hands firmly over his own ears and began shouting, "Basketball is for Youth, but Education is for a Lifetime," until Snoop Doggy Dogg, the program’s academic coordinator, came into Coach Maxfield’s office and escorted Buntis down the hall to the academic office/game room, where Dogg reviewed the grade report with Buntis. Dogg dismissed Buntis’s protestations that he hadn’t actually attended any of the listed classes, and responded that Buntis’s record was well above average. Dogg did chide Buntis, however, for "not spending enough time with the ladies."

At the end of the semester in January, Buntis was informed that he had received grades of B and B- in his two lab science courses, which did not require final examinations. He thereafter was administered oral "exams" by assistant coach Mackey in English 114 and "Illegible", both of which he apparently passed. He later received a Final Grade Report from the University stating that his GPA for the semester was 2.85.

Obviously, to the extent that Buntis’s experience is even remotely representative of the academic regimen for Tennessee student-athletes, there are academic problems of a staggering magnitude within that program. However, based on the thin record before us, we cannot (yet) draw such a conclusion. While Dogg -- a person no longer affiliated with the program -- obviously transgressed numerous NCAA rules, and while Coach Mackey’s actions cut perilously close to the line, neither man’s conduct can be definitively traced to Coach Maxfield. There is strong evidence, however, that this is due, at least in part, to Coach Maxfield’s wilful ignorance pertaining to all academic matters.

Several years ago, the Southeastern Conference enacted an Academic Code of Conduct, containing detailed standards for athletic eligibility and precise repercussions for transgressions of such rules. The President of the University of Tennessee, Melvin Schpelner, was a signatory to that Code of Conduct, but this panel could find no evidence that the University of Tennessee basketball program has ever taken any steps to enforce its provisions.

Conclusions. In light of the lax enforcement (at best) or affirmative disregard (at worst) of NCAA academic standards by the University of Tennessee, this panel hereby institutes a zero-tolerance policy with respect to academic eligibility for the men’s basketball program for a period covering the next three years. Regardless of any standards for athletic eligibility imposed by the University or the Southeastern Conference, this panel hereby takes the unusual step of imposing its own standards for academic eligibility for the men’s basketball program at the University of Tennessee ("Tennessee Eligibility Standards"). The Tennessee Eligibility Standards are as follows:

* All D and F students, including those currently enrolled and those recruited for the duration of this sanction, must roll each semester to determine their athletic eligibility for that semester. The player must roll two six-sided dice prior to each semester and to be eligible to play men’s basketball during that semester, must roll within the following ranges:

D STUDENT:

First semester: 2-8

Second semester (if player was eligible first semester): 2-7

Second semester (if player was not eligible first semester): 2-10

F STUDENT:

First semester: 2-6

Second semester (if player was eligible first semester): 2-5

Second semester (if player was not eligible first semester): 2-8

* A player may enhance his chances for eligibility in two ways.

* Special note for men’s basketball players currently on the Tennessee roster: All D and F students must roll immediately for their second semester eligibility this season. This panel is not empowered to apply these sanctions retroactively to the first semester, so there is no basis to determine which of the "second semester" roll ranges should be used. Accordingly, the roll ranges to be used for this roll shall be those listed above under "First semester". Commencing next season, the roll ranges shall be followed exactly as described above.

* Compliance Coordinator Lance Ito is hereby directed strictly to enforce the Code from this point forward, and to report all violations of the Code directly and immediately to this panel for further action.

Drug Violations. This was, in many ways, the strangest area into which this panel’s investigation delved. In short, the panel heard allegations that the Physician Review Panel ("PRP"), charged with administering the University’s drug testing program, was in fact a single individual, known to law enforcement authorities as a low-level figure in a cocaine- and heroin-distribution syndicate, who was simultaneously supplying illegal drugs to players and certifying the same players as drug-free. This frightful arrangement was apparently the work of a former University of Tennessee assistant coach, Carlton Cooper, whose posthumous letter accepted full responsibility for the violation. Again, though common sense dictates that Coach Maxfield had to have been aware of the irregularities within the program’s drug testing regimen, once again no definitive evidence ties Coach Maxfield to these violations. Since Cooper and Chico Washington are no longer affiliated with the University, this panel finds no grounds for sanctions in this area.

However, the most damning drug allegation in this case involved the procurement of "clean" urine from Mrs. JCF (a confidential NCAA informant serving as executive secretary to Coach Maxfield, who tells this panel that she provided the urine at the direction of Coach Maxfield) by Tennessee players for the purpose of circumventing mandatory drug testing. If true, this allegation, standing alone, would be sufficient to merit application of the "death penalty," see NCAA by-law 88-117(a), to University of Tennessee athletics.

The problem, once again, is an absence of physical evidence to corroborate the allegation. All urine samples have long since been destroyed, and the players’ drug test results were destroyed during a flash fire at the University of Tennessee Medical School records room in September, 1999. The most compelling circumstantial evidence of "urine switching" dates from December, 1998, when eight Tennessee players tested positive for pregnancy -- the same month that Mrs. JCF learned that she was pregnant with her first child. If this proved, conclusively, that all eight players had indeed submitted Mrs. JCF’s urine instead of their own, this finding would have grave consequences for the program.

But in this case, the problem appears to be the sheer volume and diversity of the pharmaceuticals that Tennessee players were actually ingesting. The autopsy performed on Rondrick "Scooby" Skipper after his death in England not only found high levels of cocaine, heroin, mescaline and St. Joseph’s children’s aspirin in his system, but also found elevated levels of female hormones, elephant chromosomes, and toad genomes (from a species found only in the South American nation of Suriname) in Skipper’s bloodstream, leading to at least two posthumous positive indications for pregnancy. Likewise, the autopsy for Funke Moses inexplicably suggested that he was suffering from, among other drug-induced maladies, an ovarian cyst. In short, it appears that toxicology results obtained from Tennessee players may be per se unreliable, such that the positive pregnancy tests are not probative of a concerted effort to circumvent the testing regimen. Ironically, then, this panel’s attempt to prove drug-testing irregularities on the part of the Tennessee men’s basketball team have been hampered by the Tennessee men’s basketball team’s pervasive drug problem. Only in Knoxville.

The RaySean Tooley Recruitment. For reasons that no one has to know, RaySean Tooley, a former player on the University of Tennessee basketball team, agreed, on the spot, to cooperate with this panel’s investigation into the inducements that led him to matriculate at the University of Tennessee. In return for his cooperation and his agreement to pay a $3.4 million administrative fine to the NCAA Infractions Committee Operations Fund, the panel has agreed not to refer Tooley to the United States Senate Select Subcommittee on Racketeer-Influenced Construction, or to any other criminal investigatory body.

According to Tooley’s account, his recruitment to Tennessee proceeded accordingly:

In 1995, Bud Adams, owner of the National Football League’s Houston Oilers, received permission from the league to relocate his franchise to Nashville, Tennessee. Because no stadium was then available in Nashville, Adams made arrangements to play two seasons in Memphis, Tennessee, before moving to a newly constructed Nashville stadium. This interim plan was deeply flawed, both because the Liberty Bowl in Memphis had a capacity of only 40,000, and because Memphis fans, knowing the franchise’s stay in town would be short-lived, stayed away in droves. As a result, Adams -- already heavily leveraged as a result of the move -- had to seek additional financing, which he ultimately obtained from the First Credit Union of Knoxville ("FCUK") (an institution currently under local, state and federal indictment for a variety of fiduciary offenses). Construction overruns by the Nashville project’s general contractor, KaneSolutions, Inc., forced Adams to play yet a third year in Memphis; then, when the Nashville stadium was finally ready for occupancy, it was damaged by a tornado, forcing the erstwhile Oilers to play their 1998 season at tiny Vanderbilt Stadium. These developments caused Adams to fall behind in his debt service, including his obligations to FCUK.

Adams told this panel what happened next:

"In the fall of 1997, this guy, Roscoe Pettifogger, he’s a lawyer for FCUK, comes into my office with three of the biggest dudes I’ve ever seen in my life. He says something like, ‘You’re late, you know.’ I say, ‘Whaddya want from me? I’m playin’ in a fuckin’ high school stadium here.’ One of Pettifogger’s goons, he picks me up and holds me out the window by my ankles. I just about pissed myself. And Pettifogger, he doesn’t even get up, he just goes, ‘You’ve got a new partner now. He owns 20 percent of the team. Treat him good.’

"The next day, this kid Tooley shows up, I’ve never seen him before in my life. He pulls out the blueprint for [Adelphia Stadium], picks out three luxury boxes, and says, ‘I’ll take these.’ Then he picks out three cheerleaders and says, ‘Them, too.’ And he gets up to go, then he stops and says, ‘Oh, and Oilers sounds like a fuckin’ salad dressin’ or somethin’. From now on, we’re the Titans. That sounds chill.’

"After that, I never saw him again, except on game days, when he and his buddies would have these wild blow-out parties in the luxury suites. But he sure cashed his distribution checks: $3.1 million bucks, the first day of every quarter. I didn’t know till last year that he was a college basketball player. Isn’t there some kind of rule about stuff like this?"

Indeed there is. The evidence heard by this panel clearly indicates that RaySean Tooley received illegal financial inducements from Roscoe Pettifogger, in return for his agreement to attend the University of Tennessee. And, unlike in previous cases, there are no evidentiary problems in linking Pettifogger to the University itself. Pettifogger, a prominent Knoxville attorney, sits on the University’s Board of Trustees. He chairs the basketball program’s standing committee on criminal defense of current and former players, and is a co-founder of the Tennessee Volunteer Death Row Project. He is the private counsel to Coach Maxfield, Coach Kirks and Coach Mackey, and he served on the President’s Investigative Task Force. In short, to say that Tooley was improperly recruited by Pettifogger is precisely the same as saying that Tooley was improperly recruited by the University of Tennessee. The Tennessee program will therefore be disciplined accordingly.

Conclusion. Paying student-athletes to attend an institution of higher learning is among the most serious offenses that a member institution can commit. While the payment was arranged by an intermediary (Pettifogger), this panel reasonably infers that it was made with the full knowledge of the institution and its staff. Because improper benefits were conferred upon RaySean Tooley with the knowledge of the University, RaySean Tooley was never eligible for interscholastic competition at the University of Tennessee. The University of Tennessee was unjustly enriched by utilizing the services of an ineligible player for four years of interscholastic competition.

Accordingly, this panel hereby decrees (1) that RaySean Tooley’s name shall be stricken from all official records of the NCAA and the SEC; (2) that the University of Tennessee shall return all proceeds from its 1999 NCAA Tournament appearance and that said appearance shall be expunged from the official records of the NCAA; (3) that all appearances in the SEC Tournament by the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team from 1998 to 2001 shall be expunged from the record books of the NCAA and the SEC; (4) that the University of Tennessee shall be barred from NCAA and NIT tournament play for a period of 3 years and from SEC tournament play for a period of one year; (5) that the University of Tennessee shall be barred from television, radio or Internet appearances for a period of four years; and (6) that, as a result of this stain upon the University of Tennessee’s reputation, Tennessee shall lose two rolls in its attempted recruitment of any out-of-state 0- or 1-rated troublemaker for a period of three years. Moreover, the University of Tennessee shall be barred from playing non-conference home games for a period of three years. (All such games that have been scheduled to date shall be moved, where practicable, to the opponent’s home court, or otherwise, to the Laramie Field House and Agricultural Exposition Center in Laramie, Wyoming.)

Trademark Infringement. Finally, one of the most important functions that this panel serves is to protect the intellectual property of its member institutions and coaches, and the revenue stream that flows from such property. See In re "Refuse to Lose" ("John Calipari III"), Matter No. 92-113; In re "Hands up on Defense" ("Hank Iba II"), Matter No. 48-002. Therefore, it is with deep sadness that we note the indisputable: Coach Maxfield, the author of such American classics as "Basketball is for Youth, but Education is for a Lifetime" and the boldly ironic "A First Class Program," has joined the ranks of the plagiarists.

Since 1999, Coach Maxfield has been using "A Genuine Concern for the Student Athlete" on official Tennessee publications, always being careful to include a small "TM" in superscript to indicate that the slogan was a registered trademark. And indeed it is -- but not registered by the University of Tennessee. On the contrary, that trademark was one of several registered by Coach Bob Huggins of the Cincinnati Bearcats in 1994. Tennessee’s unauthorized appropriation of the slogan is unforgivable.

So, too, is its shameless theft of the aphorism "Winning with Integrity," a blatant rip-off of "Wining [sic] with Integridy [sic]" first coined by Bobby Bowden and the Florida State University Football Team in 1992. These offenses strike at the lifeblood of any academic community -- royalties and free stuff -- and therefore cannot be ignored. They also bear the unmistakable thumbprint of Coach Maxfield himself, who so skillfully managed to avoid personal accountability in the program’s many other contretemps.

For a number of years, Coach Maxfield has thrust then-Public Relations consultant David Fair to the fore with respect to the above slogans and, in fact, has uncharacteristically shared credited with Mr. Fair for having created several of them. Like Coach Maxfield, therefore, David Fair cannot escape blame for the blatant offenses described herein.

Accordingly, this panel hereby decrees that Coach Maxfield, together with now-assistant coach David Fair, shall be barred from participation in regular-season SEC conference contests for a period of one season, beginning immediately. As the University of Tennessee is barred from the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournaments this season, this sanction effectively precludes Coaches Maxfield and Fair from participating in game decisions until next season. This panel expresses no opinion as to who, if anyone, should coach the team during the pendency of this suspension.

With respect to Coach Fair specifically, he is precluded from making any public appearance or public statement on behalf of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball program for the duration of the suspension.

Summation. By way of review, this panel has today imposed the following penalties upon the University of Tennessee men’s basketball program:

1. Coach Maxfield and Coach Fair shall be barred from participating in any conference contests for the duration of the regular season, and Coach Fair shall be barred from making any public appearance or public statement on behalf of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball program for the duration of the suspension.

2. The team shall be ineligible for SEC tournament play for one year, and for NCAA or NIT tournament play for three years.

3. The team shall be ineligible for television, radio or Internet broadcasts for four years.

4. The team shall lose two recruiting rolls with respect to any and all targeted out-of-state 0- or 1- rated troublemakers for the ensuing three years.

5. The team shall be in a zero-tolerance posture for standardized testing violations for the next three years, as set forth above.

6. The team shall be in a zero-tolerance posture for violations of the Tennessee Eligibility Standards for the next three years, as set forth above.

7. The team shall be barred from playing non-conference home games for a period of three years.

8. RaySean Tooley’s name shall be stricken from all official records of the NCAA and the SEC.

9. The team shall return all proceeds from its 1999 NCAA Tournament appearance and said appearance shall be expunged from the official records of the NCAA

10. The team’s appearances in the SEC Tournament from 1998 to 2001 be expunged from the record books of the NCAA and the SEC.

These penalties shall be cumulative in nature, and the panel remains free to supplement them, without further notice or further proceedings, if additional violations are brought to our attention. Accordingly, this docket shall remain open, but these proceedings, at least for the time being, are now closed. We can only express again the wan hope, as we have expressed it often in the past, that this is the last this panel ever hears of the University of Tennessee.

May God have mercy on its soul.

Dated: December 29, 2001 NCAA Infractions Committee

William J. Daley, Chairman