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A former president of Kentucky State University broke NCAA rules by directing athletics staff to allow a football player to compete even though he was no longer eligible, the NCAA found Tuesday.
In response, the NCAA placed the public, historically Black university on probation for two years and fined it $2,000. Kentucky State, which competes at the Division II level, is also required to vacate records of the games in which the ineligible player competed and undergo an external audit of its processes.
The former president was also hit with a two-year show cause order, meaning “he will be prohibited from any involvement in eligibility certification for student-athletes.”
The NCAA’s statement noted that after the player had exhausted his 10 semesters of eligibility, the former president directed athletic department staff members to “correct” his eligibility issues. The university “improperly certified the student-athlete and knowingly permitted him to participate in competition,” the NCAA reported.
The ineligible player went on to compete in eight games.
The NCAA found that Kentucky State “lacked institutional control and failed to monitor its athletics program.”
Though the former president was not named, the NCAA reported that the incident occurred in the 2019 football season, when M. Christopher Brown was president. Brown resigned in 2021 amid state scrutiny over the handling of Kentucky State’s finances.
In the grand scheme of things, the NCAA infraction is a blip on the Kentucky State radar. A recent state report found that the university’s finances were “chaotic” and lacked “effective safeguards and responsible management,” putting millions of dollars of federal funding at risk. State auditors have forwarded the findings of the report to authorities for possible prosecution.
