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Handling of review criticized

B.G. Brooks, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 23, 2007 at midnight

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BOULDER - The University of Colorado's former director of football operations believes the school should have proceeded more deliberately before self-reporting what it saw as possible training-table violations to the NCAA.

If that had happened, David Hansburg thinks CU administrators eventually might have realized the issues stemmed from unclear wording in a contract between the athletic department and its food vendors.

"Had the contract been worded differently, and it clearly stated what the food value of the meal was, we would not have been in violation,'' said Hansburg, CU's director of football operations for five seasons under former coach Gary Barnett and one season under current coach Dan Hawkins. "I think 95 percent of the universities out there would have looked at all the evidence available and not considered it a violation. "(But) we called the fire department, and they're going to come."

On Thursday, the NCAA announced CU would be put on two years' probation, fined $100,000 and lose one football scholarship for the next three seasons because it undercharged walk-ons for training-table meals during a five- year period.

The Division I Committee on Infractions deemed those major violations, a decision exacerbated by CU being classified as a repeat violator. The school still was in the five-year probationary window after being sanctioned in 2002 for recruiting violations.

Contrary to published reports, Hansburg, who left CU this spring to enter private business, claimed no walk- ons received free training-table meals, adding, "That would have been a violation." Rather, he said the discrepancy came in the difference between what the meals cost the athletic department and their actual worth. Hansburg said what the contract with vendors identified as a $14 meal included labor expenses, equipment, etc.

"The value of the food was $4," he said. "If a kid pays $7, we are not in violation."

Freshman football walk- ons who lived in dormitories were encouraged to buy a full meal plan, which allowed them to eat at the training table once a day if they could not get to another dorm serving a meal.

Until about 2000, Hansburg said no dorms were available in-season for walk-ons at the dinner hour. But with one dorm serving dinner, the NCAA ruled a walk-on had an option - if he believed he could shower, reach the dorm during serving hours, then return to the Dal Ward Athletics Center for study table.

"A lot of kids just weren't eating - and I told that to the NCAA," said Hansburg, noting he believed CU had similar training-table practices as far back as 1996. The NCAA scrutinized a period from 2000-2005 and said 133 student-athletes from six sports were undercharged $61,700.

Hansburg said shortly after his arrival at CU, then-compliance director Lindsay Babcock thoroughly reviewed training-table procedures, as did former director Karen Morrison.

Neither Babcock, now the Atlantic Coast Conference's director of compliance, nor Morrison, the NCAA's director of educational services, returned telephone messages.

After speaking with an NCAA investigator, Hansburg said he "felt optimistic. . . . I went to Julie Manning (CU's director of compliance) and told her I didn't believe there was a violation."

Under new NCAA rules, there wouldn't have been. Not waiting until Aug. 1, when most new legislation is enacted, the NCAA in April adopted a Pacific-10 Conference proposal clarifying training-table issues.

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