Bulk of NCAA staff report addresses trucking firm jobs

Posted 6:34AM on Thursday 16th January 2003 ( 22 years ago )

FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS - More than half of a report by the NCAA enforcement staff released this week deals with one allegation in which Arkansas allegedly violated four NCAA bylaws. The employment of 20 student-athletes at a Dallas trucking company and the faulty record-keeping of their employment will take up a majority of the meeting when the NCAA staff and university officials appear before the NCAA Infractions Committee on Saturday at Charlotte, N.C. A 23-page summary filed by the NCAA on Jan. 3 does not recommend that Arkansas be treated as a repeat violator, and agrees with the school's views on all three accusations to be discussed. Twelve pages of the summary details how Ted Harrod, an Arkansas booster who owns J&H Truck Service Inc., is at the center of the issue that led to the accusations. The summary also mentions that athletic director Frank Broyles and Harrod became friends in 1984 on a university trip to Tokyo. The NCAA Infractions Committee will hear both sides on Saturday, ask questions and, at a later date, will announce whether the school's self-imposed penalties should be accepted or enhanced. The school submitted a summary of its findings and arguments in December. The case summary by the NCAA staff is a response to the school's summary, but it expresses no disagreements with the university's views. The enforcement staff agrees with the university that no player received money for not working. The report breaks down the amount of overpayments made to each player involved, the most belonging to football player Deon J. Cooper. From 1996-99 he received 19 paychecks for a total of $3,350.50, with $381.25 considered to be an overpayment. The fact that Broyles is mentioned only briefly in the staff summary reinforces the university's stance that he didn't know Harrod's trucking company was overpaying athletes for part-time jobs in the 1990s. Six pages of the case summary are devoted to the enforcement staff's ``concerns regarding the accuracy and reliability'' of Harrod, his wife Linda, his son T.J. and two J&H employees. The same concerns are raised about three former employees who accused Harrod of wrongdoing but whose claims the NCAA largely did not accept. Arkansas has self-imposed several penalties, including football scholarship reductions. Stiffer penalties could be handed out if the Infractions Committee were to rule Arkansas is a repeat violator, having committed a major violation twice in five years. The NCAA found a major violation in a case against Arkansas' basketball program that the committee heard April 19, 1997. The other two allegations are secondary infractions: that trainer Dean Weber did not report monetary gifts totaling $21,100 from four men considered boosters, $19,100 of it coming from Harrod; and that Arkansas failed to detect that athletes were overpaid at J&H Trucking and, in some cases, did not know that athletes were working there.

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