March 8, 2003
Vince Nicastro, Director of Athletics
"First of all, we are going to do the best we can to weed you through the events of the past three, three and a half days. It's a little more complex than it sounds sometimes, but we'll do the best we can."
"We are very disappointed and frustrated over the events of the past couple of days, and how things have played out on a lot of levels. We are most disappointed. Anytime that a coach or an administrator has to tell a student-athlete that they are not eligible to participate, that is toughest thing for us to do. That is something these young men and women work hard for and dedicate a lot of time and effort to. Whatever the circumstances were, when the consequences are that they are not able to compete, it is very difficult for us to communicate that to them."
"We are particularly distressed about our seniors. It is starting to hit home now to all of us that there is a potential here that our senior's careers - and these guys have given a lot of effort, blood, sweat and tears to the Villanova program - that their careers may end prematurely and on a somewhat dubious note. That is something that is really starting to hit home, once we've gotten through some of this process. Never the less, we have an institutional responsibility to address these issues when they are discovered or brought to our attention. Our plan is to do that. We are going to do that thoroughly. We are going to do that completely. And we will hand out any disciplinary action and make any corrective measures (and put them in place) that we need to.
"Let me take a minute to emphasize that this is an ongoing process. I think the conclusion of this process could take weeks if not months. There are a number of students and student-athletes who may be involved. We are not sure right now, but there are a lot of students involved. It is going to take a long time to go through all the records, documentations and all the interviews we need to conduct to come up with a final report and some conclusions. That being said, there is some information we just don't have at this point in time to pass on to you."
"It has been an educational process for all of us. NCAA rules, if you know, are complex and the book is large. Sometimes it is difficult to wade through that. So I will try to simplify what we are dealing with here. We are dealing with violations of the extra benefit rule, related to telephone use. In this instance, I want to make a clarification that I have heard in some reports. What we are talking about here is not a telephone credit card, it is a telephone access code. The access code is a University assigned number, I think it's an eight-digit number, that students and staff alike are issued by the University in order to make calls off campus. There are phones in the dorms, in offices, and around the campus which are essentially house phones. You can make calls between extensions on campus by just dialing the five-digit extension. A number of those phones are blocked to dialing anywhere outside of campus. In order to get an outside line in order to call Bryn Mawr or to make a long distance call, you have to access code in order to get that outside line. So it is not a credit card, it is an access code issued by the University."
"That being said, it is still constituted as an extra benefit violation if a student-athlete is using an access code that was not assigned to them personally, and making calls that are being charged and billed somewhere else to someone else connected to the University. So that's what we have now. The NCAA is very definitive and is very prescriptive in their penalties for extra benefit violations related to telephone usage. It is based on dollar value of the calls. So we have been pouring over reports over the past 3-4 days to determine who made calls and what the value of those calls are. That is a very critical factor in the number of games that some of the players will be facing in suspension. Anything under $100, the students just need to pay restitution, pay back, and there is no effect on their eligibility. Beyond that, there is a range. Over $100 to $300, the student-athlete faces a 10 percent of their schedule penalty so in men's basketball that would be a three-game penalty. From $300 value up to $500, it would be 20 percent penalty which would be six games. And then from $500 and up the student-athlete would face a 30 percent penalty which round to eight games. So these penalties are very well defined and very prescriptive. They are not penalties that the institution has imposed. We have worked closely with the NCAA in getting to where we think we had enough information to report, who was involved, and to what dollar amount within the range. The NCAA has established the suspensions based on that."
"Another nuance here that you read in the press release is we have 12 student-athletes that were affected by this. Obviously if we suspended all 12 on Sunday, we wouldn't be able to put a team on the floor. There is case precedent. It has happened before in other sports. The NCAA has put into place a staggered suspension plan in order to allow teams to continue to compete when they have cases where the majority of the student-athletes are involved on one team in an eligibility issue. In men's basketball, they have established the number as seven, a maximum of seven. That's why we are dressing seven that will be eligible to play in the game. The seven that you see in your release will be the seven student-athletes effectively that will be playing in the last three games for this season."
Jay Wright, Head Men's Basketball Coach
"Obviously this is a very sad day for our basketball program and our University. As head of the basketball program, our players and coaches understand that we represent the University, the students, and our alumni and fans. That's what makes this such a sad day."
"Also, for our seniors, it looks as if (and as Vince said this is still ongoing) they would end their careers not being able to play their final games. At this point, that's how it stands. The four young men I think are very good people, I know they come from very good families. To end their careers this way is sad."
"As the coach, it's like anyone who has children would probably understand, I feel this is a situation of some good young men making poor decisions and probably at the time not understanding the consequences of their decisions. However, like a parent, you are disappointed in them and disappointed for them. But you still love them and they're still your guys. That's the way I am looking at this right now."
"They are good guys. They know what they did was wrong. I don't think they thought of what the consequences would be. I think they thought they were doing what some other students were doing. We make it very clear here, and they know that, that as a Villanova basketball player you are held to a higher standard. And as an NCAA student-athlete, you are held to a higher standard than other students and our players understand that. They are going to learn a very dear lesson from this and they are going to pay a very dear price for this. But I think they understand it, they accept it, and I'm sure they all wish that they didn't do this. As a coach, we are trying to make sure they all understand it and learn a lesson from this. And that the seniors move on and learn from this and become stronger in life because of it, and the players that remain, our coaches and the University learns a great lesson and that we all become stronger. That's the way we are going to approach it. We are going to play these remaining games with the seven guys that the NCAA allows us to use and we are going to proceed and try to grow and I promise we'll we stronger for this."
"As Vince stated, when you have a number of ineligible players, the NCAA sets the limit that you are allowed to dress a maximum of seven. Then they give you guidelines about which of the ineligible players must sit. The seniors because they have the possibility of playing the fewest games must sit first. From there, any redshirt, any injured player, would not be able to play. If any player is eligible (meaning that they in some way are not involved and are deemed to be eligible) and in this case it is Tom Grace, Mike Claxton and Baker Dunleavy, they have to be part of the seven. Baker Dunleavy is being redshirted so he would not be one of the seven. They don't force you to make a player give up his redshirt season. So what it comes down to for us is you have six players remaining that could be eligible for the other five. And then you have a choice depending on position, other reasons, that you can choose those five."
