Auburn reported 21 secondary violations to NCAA in past year
It was a busy year for the Athletics department at Auburn as they reported 21 secondary NCAA violations between July 2013 and June 2014, per a report from USA TODAY.
The documentation was acquired via a Freedom of Information Act request, but was heavily redacted, making determination of which sports and athletes were involved in the violations incredibly difficult.
One piece of evidence that was visible was an online profile for football recruit Rashaan Evans that was discovered on Auburn's website on National Signing Day. Evans ended up committing to Alabama.
"Media personnel were able to hack into the site and 'find' the code to pull up the bio," Auburn's report of the incident states.
Another of the violations included when Cinmeon Bowers was on campus for an official visit. He played pickup basketball with former NBA veteran and Auburn-alum Chuck Person, which Bowers later tweeted about. That tweet was retweet by some members of the Auburn coaching staff, which constitues a violation by creating public electronic messages to a prospect.
The other violations can be seen below (per USA TODAY):
- A recruit took a picture with an unnamed celebrity at the Iron Bowl.
- A high school coach received complimentary tickets totaling $28 for two games on March 6 and 7.
- There was an impermissible text message sent to a recruit on Oct. 24.
- A walk-on was allowed to practice 80 times before Auburn received final approval of the player from the NCAA Eligibility Center.
- Two calls were placed to a prospect during a week when only one call was permitted.
- A coach mistakenly texted a prospect thinking they were a current player.
- A coach visited a high school twice during the fall evaluation period due to another coach not being aware the first visit occurred.
- A coach addressed a high school team that rented an on-campus facility for practice, but then competed that night, making the contact a violation.
- Visitor's guides not produced by Auburn were mistakenly sent to five prospects in May.
- Two assistant coaches in an unspecified sport mistakenly called the same recruit for a span of two minutes on Aug. 13. An electronic monitoring system caught the violation and was self-reported, resulting in one of the coaches not being permitted any recruiting calls for 14 days, and no calls to the recruit the coaches called for 14 days.
- A Level I violation was considered a "fluke" because of incorrect biographical information filed by another institution to the NCAA Eligibility Center.
- An assistant coach contacted a recruit via Facebook prior to Sept. 1 of the athlete's junior year in high school. This came despite research by the coach that led them to believe the recruit was a junior, and because the recruit attends an online high school it was more difficult to discern what grade they were in.
- There was an impermissible meeting at an off-campus restaurant during a recruit's unofficial visit by a member of an unspecified coaching staff on Feb. 12.
- A coach received a group text message on Jan. 17 that included an unknown number, which sent a follow-up message, and the coach, believing the sender was the high school coach of a recruit, responded asking it that was the case. The unknown sender was the prospect's father.