Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article offers additional discussion of the announcement by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that Kelvin Sampson, who coached Oklahoma University's basketball team for twelve years and was hired in March to coach at Indiana University, is being punished for recruitment violations (see the New York Times article, LITS001, at, The Lumbee Indians: An Annotated Bibliography ). Sampson made 233 phone calls to recruits between 2000 and 2004 which were in violation of NCAA recruiting regulations. He knew the calls were not allowed but considered the violations minor. In addition, Sampson has served as president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and, in that capacity, presided over an ethics summit in October, 2003. Indiana University knew of the violations and was expecting NCAA sanctions when it signed Sampson to a seven-year contract. Indiana believed in Sampson's integrity and considered his violations minor, but the school retained the right to fire him if the NCAA sanctions turned out to be severe. Sampson said in a statement on May 25, `I have learned an invaluable lesson, and I hope that this reinforces to other coaches the importance of every aspect of NCAA compliance.'' This article lists all the NCAA penalties imposed on Oklahoma and Indiana as a result of the 233 phone calls made by Sampson and the additional calls made by his assistants (for a total of 577 calls that were in violation of recruitment regulations). Author Greg Couch has harsh words for both Sampson and Indiana in connection with this incident. He states, "It is true that calling recruits during periods when you're not allowed is not as serious as paying them. But this isn't the least serious rule, either. And when you break it 233 times, it suggests that you not only don't take that rule seriously, but also don't take any rules seriously."