Auburn committed a number of secondary violations during the 2012-13 fiscal year, the most serious of which resulted in an assistant coach being banned from off-campus recruiting for 90 days, according to AL.com. The off-campus ban took place between Sept. 20, 2012 and Dec. 19, 2012.
The documents containing the list of violations, as obtained by AL.com in an open-records request, were heavily redacted.
According to the report, the assistant was aware that two prospective student-athletes met with “an athletic representative,” defined by the NCAA as “someone who has assisted or been requested to assist in the recruitment of prospective student-athletes.”
After this, the SEC notified Auburn, and the school imposed penalties and stopped recruiting those student-athletes. The representative was then “banned from making recruiting phone calls for one month.”
All sports, names and some full titles have been redacted, which makes it impossible to name the programs or coaches that committed violations. Additionally, most of the violations occurred before the current football coaching staff was hired, the report said.
Secondary violations, as defined by the NCAA, are “isolated or inadvertent in nature; provide or are intended to provide only minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage; and do not include any significant impermissible benefit.”
Fifteen different violations were released and most were minor recruiting issues like phone calls or emails to athletes who were too young or during “quiet periods,” where calls are impermissible.
Some of the violations included:
“On April 24, 2012, a student manager for a team tweeted about a possible recruit's official visit. Publicizing a recruit's visit is a violation. Additional education sessions with staff -- the staff is redacted -- and another individual were prescribed.”
“On Aug. 30, 2012, an assistant director whose official title was redacted, returned a call to an unrecognized phone number of the father of a sophomore student-athlete. The assistant director returned the call thinking that the number was either Goodwill or DirectTV, who was expected to call. Auburn requested relief of the standard penalties, based on no coaches being involved.”
“Oct. 6, 2012, a student-athlete serving as host for a prospect during the weekend of the Arkansas football game was confused about which day he/she was hosting. The student-athlete signed in as the host when another student-athlete was the true host for the day. Both student-athletes received a breakfast worth $6, according to the report. One student-athlete was to receive the meal. The meal violated bylaws 13.6.7.5 and 16.11.2.1. The student-athlete donated $10 to the American Red Cross for the impermissible meal.”
“Aug. 4, 2012, a prospect was shown a PowerPoint presentation by a head coach, which included a picture of the prospect in one of the slides. The PowerPoint was created by a staff member, not a coach, and not approved by Auburn's compliance department as required. A picture of the slide later appeared on Twitter. A person (redacted) was prohibited from providing additional materials for 60 days, from Sept. 20, 2012 to Nov. 18, 2012. A person (redacted) was prohibited from in-person contact with another person (redacted) for 30 days, from Sept. 20, 2012 to Oct. 19, 2012. Additional staff members were prohibited for making calls to a person (redacted) for 60 days from Sept. 20, 2012 to Nov. 18, 2012. A person (redacted) was "limited to one additional off-campus contact" with a person (redacted)."
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