USC to Appeal NCAA Ruling: Penalties too severe for infractions alleged.

June 10, 2010: The University of Southern California today announced that, after reviewing the NCAA Committee on Infractions report, it will accept some of the penalties imposed by the Committee and it will appeal those penalties it believes are excessive.

The university noted that it is pleased that the NCAA determined that USC's self-imposed penalties on men's basketball and women's tennis were sufficient, and that the NCAA imposed no further sanctions.

"We acknowledge that violations occurred and we take full responsibility for them. However, we sharply disagree with many of the findings in the NCAA Committee on Infractions Report. Further, we feel the penalties imposed are too severe for the violations identified in the report," said Todd Dickey, USC's senior vice president for administration.
Dickey added, "We will accept those sanctions we believe to be consistent with penalties imposed upon other NCAA member institutions found guilty of similar rules infractions. We are hopeful that the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee will agree with our position on appeal, and reduce the penalties.

"There is a systemic problem facing college athletes today: unscrupulous sports agents and sports marketers," Dickey stated. "The question is how do we identify them and keep them away from our student-athletes? To provide us with recommendations about the best way to protect our student-athletes and their families from those who seek to violate the rules, we have retained the Freeh Group, headed by former federal judge and ex-FBI director Louis Freeh.

"Our success in athletics and the outstanding individuals we recruit make our student-athletes an attractive target for those seeking to take unfair advantage of them," Dickey stated. "We cannot and will not tolerate this. Our program must set the highest standards in the country. USC deserves that and our 640 student-athletes deserve that."

Dickey said that USC will not comment about specific elements of its position while it is in the appeals process.

For a special message to the Trojan Family from USC President Steven B. Sample, visit
http://uscnews.usc.edu/university/special_message_to_the_trojan_family.html

USC has posted its original response (redacted to eliminate identifiers) to the allegations promulgated in the fall of 2009 by the NCAA regarding alleged rules violations at
http://www.usc.edu/cms/sites/usc_president_/final/president/private/pdfs/NCAA...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• USC
• NCAA
• ruling
• appeal
• college
• athletics
• athletes
• student-athletes
• sports
• Todd Dickey
• basketball
• tennis
• football

[brendanduggan]

SC FOR LIFE

[nirvgardengod]

Good luck and fight on.

[thegreeensky]

well said.. thats really nice...

[careerhuntsville]

nice one

[aseohosting]

great! good job .. keep it up =)

[kbm9397]

LANE KIFFIN:

CAUSED SANCTIONS AT USC AND TENNESSEE!!! FIRE HIM IF YOU ALL KNOW WHATS GOOD FOR YOU.

[irishgrove]

Man up USC PUSSIES

[dbohon77]

Yeah yeah yeah, I find it funny that even still a lot of people at espn are saying it was just reggie bush and there too harsh of penaltys. BS they had freaking snoop dogg at there practices who knows all what went on. I am sure there's a lot of things that the ncaa didnt find out.

[mongoose704]

The punishment was just when we consider that THREE of the University's programs were cited with major infractions regarding impact players in highly successful programs.  It was clear lack of institutional control which indicts their entire athletic department. USC's football program (which did cheat) is its money maker and to make ther punishment fit the crime it's only logical that the NCAA hit the AD's money maker. Their whole institution is corrupt which is why it was so severe.

[tvgator1]

CRY ON, Trojans.....