With Latest NCAA Infractions Case, Arizona State Takes an Uncomfortable Lead

The NCAA handed down stiff penalties to Arizona State on Wednesday for recruiting violations in its highly ranked baseball program. For the Sun Devils, this has become an all-too-familiar exercise: With this latest case—its ninth—Arizona State is now the NCAA institution with the most major-infraction cases to its name. (It was previously tied with Southern Methodist, which has eight.)

The last time the NCAA penalized Arizona State was in 2005, when it slapped the Sun Devils with the dreaded “lack of institutional control” tag for transgressions in its football program. Now the NCAA has reached the same conclusion, this time about the baseball program, for rules violations and a “cavalier attitude” toward compliance on the part of the former head coach.

According to a 55-page report released by the Division I Committee on Infractions, the former head coach—identified in news reports and by the university as Patrick Murphy—and, in some cases, several former assistant coaches, broke a variety of NCAA rules over a five-year period. That included making more than 500 impermissible recruiting phone calls, paying 20 athletes for work with Murphy’s nonprofit organization that they never performed, and asking several athletes to reduce the value of their scholarships so that the money could be provided to incoming athletes.

The university has discussed its response to Murphy’s behavior. Murphy, who was fired last year, has disputed the allegations.

The penalties announced on Wednesday include a three-year probation for the university’s athletic program, a show-cause penalty for Murphy, and a ban on postseason competition for the 2011 season—a very big deal for a program that has made 22 appearances in the College World Series.