NCAA: Probation for shoe discounts

The university has been placed on probation for five years and reductions have been made in grants-in-aid in football and men’s basketball for violations of NCAA legislation governing extra benefits, recruiting inducements and the institution’s failure to monitor its athletics program.

The NCAA Infractions committee today reported these findings by teleconference to media gathered at the Kohl Center. UW–Madison administrators later answered questions following the NCAA announcement.

The NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions also required that the university disassociate the representative of the university’s athletics interests involved in many of the violations for a period of seven years or show cause why it should not be penalized further.

“I am very disappointed by the NCAA’s additional reductions in the number of athletic scholarships, especially for our football program,” Chancellor John Wiley says. “While it is true that these judgments are within the NCAA legislation, they are, in the end, subjective in nature. We obviously believed that the loss of scholarships that we imposed was sufficient punishment. The NCAA clearly disagreed.”

Wiley says the university will not appeal the ruling. “Rather, we will pay our penalties, and we have put systems in place to make sure they won’t happen again,” Wiley says. “I continue to have confidence in the Athletic Department and its leadership team and look forward to putting this case behind us. ”

The Athletics Department has posted more details, including audio, at its Web site.