University of Minnesota basketball scandal

Williams Arena is the home of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's basketball.

The University of Minnesota basketball scandal involved National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules violations, most notably academic dishonesty, committed by the University of Minnesota men's basketball program. The St. Paul Pioneer Press published an article on the day before the 1999 NCAA Tournament, with revelations by Minnesota academic counseling office manager Jan Gangelhoff that she had done coursework for at least 20 Minnesota basketball players since 1993.

The story led to the immediate suspension of four players from the Minnesota basketball team pending an investigation for academic fraud and later the resignations of head coach Clem Haskins, men's athletic director Mark Dienhart, and university vice president McKinley Boston. Minnesota voluntarily sat out the 1999–00 postseason, among other self-imposed sanctions. In 2000, the NCAA placed the Minnesota men's basketball program on four years' probation and reduced scholarships, based on numerous findings of academic fraud, improper benefits, and other ethics violations.

St. Paul Pioneer Press stories

On March 10, 1999, the day before Minnesota was to play in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the St. Paul Pioneer Press published an article by George Dohrmann reporting allegations made by Jan Gangelhoff, an office manager of the university academic counseling unit, that she had done hundreds of pieces of coursework for over 20 Minnesota men's basketball players. According to Dohrmann, former players including Courtney James and Bobby Jackson corroborated Gangelhoff's claims, and Gangelhoff provided printed samples of coursework written by her and turned in by students. Among other allegations by Gangelhoff: she was allowed to continue assisting players despite being caught in 1996 doing a take-home exam with a player, an assistant coach drove players to Gangelhoff's home for tutoring sessions in possible violation of NCAA rules, Gangelhoff duplicated the same work for different student-athletes to turn in to different classes, and coach Clem Haskins paid Gangelhoff in cash to tutor players.

Immediately after the Pioneer Press story went to press, the University of Minnesota began an investigation into the allegations and suspended four players for the NCAA Tournament: starters Kevin Clark and Miles Tarver, and reserves Antoine Broxsie and Jason Stanford. Minnesota lost to Gonzaga in the first round of the tournament on March 11. Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura accused the Pioneer Press of timing the article to be published around NCAA Tournament time for the sake of "sensationalism journalism," and the Pioneer Press got many hostile calls and letters in response to the story.

After the March 10 article, two more people came forward claiming to have done coursework for Minnesota basketball players: Gangelhoff's sister Jeanne Payer and Minnesota sociology doctoral candidate Alexandra Goulding. In a Pioneer Press article published on March 24, 1999, Goulding said that she wrote a paper for Minnesota starting forward Courtney James in 1995. After telling coach Haskins that she would never do student-athletes' assignments again, Goulding described Haskins' response: "[James] needed a lot of help."

NCAA investigation and findings

On October 24, 2000, the NCAA published its public infractions report relating to University of Minnesota men's basketball. Among its findings of rules violations:

• Gangelhoff prepared nearly 400 pieces of coursework for at least 18 basketball players;
• The academic counselor assigned to men's basketball at Minnesota, Alonzo Newby, orchestrated the academic fraud;
• Head coach Clem Haskins knew about the fraudulent activities of Gangelhoff, improperly provided benefits to Gangelhoff and the academic counselor;
• In 1986, Haskins was quoted in a memo by an academics counselor: "If someone doing a paper for a student-athlete would allow him the opportunity to be eligible to compete and therefore succeed, we need to do the paper for him;"
• And the academic counselor and other basketball staffers intimidated professors and registrar staff into changing grades for student-athletes to maintain eligibility.

Additionally, the NCAA also unearthed improper benefits that Haskins and other staffers provided to recruits and student-athletes, including cash payments made to student-athletes. Rules violations extended to football and men's ice hockey student-athletes, as well.

Sanctions

Self-imposed

Following an internal investigation launched on March 19, 1999, the university self-imposed the following sanctions on its men's basketball program, among others:

• A postseason ban for the 1999–00 season;
• A reduction of three scholarships for the 1999–00 season and a total of four scholarships from the 2000–01 and 2003–04 seasons;
• Forfeiture of 90% of money earned from appearances in the 1994, 1995, and 1997 NCAA Tournaments.

On June 25, 1999, the university paid $1.5 million to buy out the contract of Clem Haskins. Gonzaga head coach Dan Monson was hired a month later to replace Haskins—nearly four months after Gonzaga beat Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament. On November 19, 1999, the same day that Minnesota released its report of its internal investigation of the scandal, Minnesota president Mark Yudof accepted the resignations of vice president McKinley Boston and men's athletic director Mark Dienhart.

On May 13, 2002, Hennepin County District Judge Deborah Hedlund ordered Haskins to return $815,000 of the $1.5 million in buyout money paid to Haskins nearly three years earlier. This was based on an arbitrator's recommendation, after the university argued that Haskins committed fraud by lying to the NCAA yet accepting the buyout money.

NCAA

Following its investigation, the NCAA issued the following sanctions:

• Four years of probation until October 23, 2004;
• A reduction of five scholarships in total until the 2003–04 season;
• A reduction of six paid visits by recruits until the 2002–03 season;
• Vacation of all appearances in the 1994, 1995, and 1997 NCAA Tournaments and 1996 and 1998 National Invitational Tournaments, as well as individual records of student-athletes found to have committed academic fraud;
• And show-cause penalties for Haskins and Newby (both until October 23, 2007) and Gangelhoff (until October 23, 2005).

Aftermath

Broxsie transferred to Oklahoma State after the spring 1999 semester.

In 2000, Dohrmann won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for his reports on the scandal. According to Geneva Overholser of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, "the closeness of the sports writing community, Dohrmann and his editor knew, meant that others would be quite ready to turn on them if their work fingered some of the Twin Cities' most beloved figures."

Minnesota finished its first season under NCAA probation 18–14, including an appearance in the 2001 NIT. In November 2001, the Star Tribune reported that new coach Monson "rebuilt" the Minnesota men's basketball program after the scandal "faster than seemed possible." Minnesota made the NIT again in 2002 and 2003 and next made the NCAA Tournament in 2005.

Haskins worked as a scout for the Minnesota Timberwolves for a year after leaving the University of Minnesota. He then retired to his farm in Campbellsville, Kentucky. Dienhart became an executive at US Bank after resigning as men's athletic director and returned to higher education in 2001 as senior vice president for institutional advancement at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Boston returned to college athletics in 2004 as athletic director at New Mexico State University.

External links

• NCAA public infractions report for the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, published October 24, 2000. Formats: PDF, HTML
• University of Minnesota basketball scandal news coverage by Minnesota Public Radio
• Special reports on the scandal by the St. Paul Pioneer Press from March to November 1999