News Nuggets, 02.07.04
NOTES FROM ECU AND BEYOND...

Previous Day Nuggets...             Next Day Nuggets...

Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Conference USA name change on the docket?

The Great South Conference... The Gulf-Atlantic Conference... The Light Crude/Bituminous League..?

Conference USA, the regrouping association of Division I athletic programs that will span a southerly slice of the country from the oil fields of Texas to the coal mines of West Virginia, will at least ponder those types of questions as it considers a name change.

On the other hand, according to a story this week in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, there is a strong sentiment among some officials to leave the league's moniker alone.

"One AD did bring it up," Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson told the paper. "But our position is that we don't want to change the name. As I go out to my meetings across the country, you say 'Conference USA' and people know what you're talking about. So I don't see that happening."

"But we will look at everything," Johnson added.

Johnson made the comment to the Commercial Appeal after a teleconference between C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky and league athletic directors that touched on various issues.

Whether or not a decision is made to change the name the conference has gone by since its founding in 1996, it is probably a more appropriate time than ever to consider the possibilities.

The conference is poised to reconfigure itself from a motley conglomeration of 15 schools — sweeping from the South to the Northeast to the Midwest — into an alignment of 12 football-focused schools, all of whom are within or on the fringes of the South.

Departing will be Army, Charlotte, Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette, Saint Louis, South Florida and Texas Christian. Of those schools, Charlotte, DePaul, Marquette and Saint Louis do not sponsor Division I football teams.

East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulane and UAB are staying put and will form the foundation of a new-style C-USA that will point to football as its flagship sport.

Central Florida, Marshall, Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulsa have accepted invitations to join the conference in the 2005-05 season, setting the stage for an 11-team league.

Officials also discussed adding a 12th member, Johnson told the paper, adding that such a move is not a foregone conclusion.

"We won't just expand to expand," Johnson said. "The important thing is to just see who is out there. But you know, the Big Ten has 11."

A 12-team configuration would enable the conference to divide itself into two divisions for football and stage a lucrative championship game at the end of the regular season.

Media speculation about a potential 12th member has touched on Louisiana Tech, Miami (OH) and Temple, among other likely-to-be-interested candidates.

Buffalos' recruiting/sex scandal allegations get sleazier by the day

AURORA, CO — The University of Colorado chose two former lawmakers Friday to head a commission that will spend the next three months investigating whether the school's football program enticed recruits with alcohol-fueled sex parties that may have led to rape.

Two university regents questioned the plan, suggesting the commission won't be impartial and lacks leaders familiar with sexual violence issues.

Speaking in front of a packed crowd at an emergency meeting of the regents, university President Elizabeth Hoffman chose Democrat Peggy Lamm and Republican Joyce Lawrence to co-chair the commission.

The panel must report its findings by April 30 on whether "sex and alcohol are used as recruiting tools" — claims school and athletics officials have insisted are untrue.

The state's flagship university has been caught in a firestorm since depositions surfaced last week about a December 2001 off-campus party in Boulder attended by football players and recruits. Three women who say they were raped at or just after the party sued the school, saying it fostered a hostile environment for women in violation of federal gender equity laws.

Boulder District Attorney Mary Keenan declined to file rape charges at the time but said in a deposition leaked to reporters she believed sex was used to lure recruits and that athletics officials had ignored her demands to crack down.

New allegations surfaced late Friday when police in neighboring Broomfield said they are investigating claims that the CU athletic department is tied to an incident involving an escort service at a hotel. KUSA-TV in Denver reported Friday that a woman said an employee of the school's football office paid thousands of dollars in cash for "adult entertainment services" at a hotel and that the clients seemed quite young.

CU officials said they will cooperate with the investigation and take "swift and decisive action" if the claims are true. David Hansburg, director of football operations, said Friday night that an anonymous caller last week told him that a CU staffer was using the escort service and then asked him to help her get a job at the university.

Hansburg said he didn't consider the woman credible because she told him the CU staffer last used the escort service in March. He said: "March is not a recruiting month for us. There are no recruits on campus in March."

The fallout for CU has been dramatic: Gov. Bill Owens warned the university to take action or he would step in; Regent Jim Martin said he received a death threat from a CU booster; and football coach Gary Barnett said he lost two potential recruits.

"This has been a horrific week," Regent Pat Hayes said. "It's like having a knife in your heart and every day someone's turning it a little more."

The regents backed the commission plan on a 7-2 vote, with Martin and Regent Cindy Carlisle dissenting.

"We have a black eye with the state of Colorado if not the country," said Martin, who questioned whether the university could thoroughly investigate itself.

"My goal has been to do exactly that," Hoffman replied. "My goal is independence and impartiality throughout this process."

Carlisle, whose husband is an attorney representing one of the women suing CU, said neither Lamm nor Lawrence has a legal background or experience dealing with violence against women.

However, she said she would reserve judgment on whether the public will be able to trust the panel's conclusions.

"Everything will ride on who the other appointments are," she said after the meeting.

Nearly 3,000 pages of depositions have been released in the past week. In one statement, a former CU athletics official suggested Barnett wasn't interested in restricting recruits because it might hurt CU's chance of staying competitive with teams like Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Barnett, however, told the regents that during preseason camp, for an hour every night, the team goes over a players' handbook that outlines the exemplary behavior expected of them. He said his staff checks the background of recruits intensively.

"We don't bring in loose cannons," he said. He said an athlete who appears to be a potential problem while visiting campus will not be offered a scholarship — something that happened once this year.

Many parents said they were angry about the allegations.

Patty Klopfenstein, among several players' parents who attended the meeting at the university's Fitzsimons medical campus, told regents the scandal has muddied the names of everyone on the team. She said she does not believe coaches ever set up tawdry entertainment for recruits.

"By all means, do your investigation," she told the regents. "That may be the only thing that clears these men's names."

Bill Redmond, the father of a woman who says she was raped by a University of Nebraska football player in the 1990s, also said he didn't believe Barnett set up sex parties for recruits.

"The question is, was the athletic department aware and didn't do anything?" he said. Hoffman bristled at the suggestion, and Chancellor Richard Byyny described at length how the university tightened policies regarding sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse after both the 2001 party and a similar 1997 party in which a high school student said she was raped. No assault charges were filed in either case.

Byyny also said players are warned not to initiate sexual contact with someone who is intoxicated, and are told the university does not condone alcohol use. He said athletes now have a curfew, and that player hosts are expected to behave during recruits' visits.

"The overriding goal here for all of us is for the university to do what it can to protect its students from sexual harassment, sexual assault, alcohol abuse and other harm," Byyny said.

News Nuggets are compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member schools, and from Associated Press and other reports. Copyright 2004 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Page Updated: 02/23/2007