NCAA hammers Donnie Tyndall with penalty that may end his career

https://es.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/ncaa-hammers-donnie-tyndall-with-penalty-that-may-end-his-career-204702720.html

In response to what it described as a "breathtaking and audacious" series of rules violations, the NCAA has hammered former Southern Mississippi coach Donnie Tyndall with a punishment that will make it difficult for him to work in major college athletics again. Tyndall received a 10-year show cause penalty Friday for allegedly directing his staff to engage in academic fraud, facilitating impermissible financial aid for two players and obstructing the NCAA's investigation into the potential violations. If an NCAA school were to hire Tyndall during his 10-year show cause order, he would be prohibited from participating in all coaching duties. Even after the 10-year show cause expires on April 7, 2026, any NCAA school that hires him would have to suspend him for the first half of his debut season. "It's heartbreaking," Tyndall, 45, told Yahoo Sports. "I don't know what to do, man. There's nothing I want to do with my life besides coach basketball, and now that has been taken away from me. Ten years? That is so over the top." Only one other basketball coach has received a 10-year show-cause punishment before: Ex-Baylor coach Dave Bliss, who was at the helm of the Bears program when guard Carlton Dotson murdered teammate Patrick Dennehy in 2003. The NCAA's ensuing investigation revealed that Bliss paid multiple players to come to Baylor and tried to cover it up by instructing players to fabricate a story about Dennehy dealing drugs as a way to explain how part of Dennehy's tuition was paid. The allegations against Tyndall aren't as salacious as those against Bliss but they're still unprecedented in scope. The NCAA says Tyndall sent assistant coaches or graduate assistants across the country to physically assist seven prospects complete the requisite coursework to become eligible to play at Southern Mississippi. This scheme began six weeks after Southern Mississippi hired Tyndall away from Morehead State in 2012 and continued throughout a two-year tenure in which his teams went 56-17 and twice reached the NIT quarterfinals in 2013 and 2014. All parties involved in the case accept that sweeping academic fraud took place at Southern Mississippi from 2012-14, but it's Tyndall's contention that the scheme went on without his knowledge. Though the NCAA has evidence Tyndall paid for a graduate assistant's trip to California to assist one player with his coursework and paid the registration fees for another player's online classes, the former coach insists he knew nothing of the academic fraud until his initial interview with NCAA investigators on Nov. 18, 2014. Tyndall's biggest point of contention is that the committee on infractions relied heavily on the testimony of a former assistant coach who only linked Tyndall to the academic fraud after cutting a deal for immunity with NCAA investigators. That is Adam Howard, who followed Tyndall to Tennessee in March 2014 but was forced to resign the following November when Tyndall says the school discovered he had lied to NCAA investigators. "There are over 4,000 pages of transcripts and documentation," Tyndall told Yahoo Sports. "There were 40 people interviewed. The only person that said anything about Donnie Tyndall having any involvement in this was Adam Howard. ... How's the NCAA going to take the word of one guy who's already lied to them on the record twice and only spoke to them the third time when they gave him immunity?" In additition to the academic fraud allegations against Tyndall, the NCAA also says he fabricated a document to help justify facilitating cash and prepaid credit card payments to two players from their former high school coaches. Tyndall also allegedly took other actions to thwart the investigation once it began, from deleting relevant emails, to providing false or misleading information during interviews with NCAA investigators, to calling key figures in the investigation from a previously seldom-used phone registered to his mom. Tyndall denies intentionally obstructing the invstigation and says he only placed those calls in an attempt to glean more investigation about the allegations against his program. Besides Tyndall's punishment, the NCAA also placed Southern Mississippi on three years probation, handed down some scholarship and recruiting restrictions and accepted the two-year postseason ban that the Golden Eagles have already served. The former assistant coaches involved in the academic fraud each were hit with shorter show-cause penalties as well. Tyndall spent only the 2014-15 season at Tennessee before being fired in March 2015 when Vols athletic director Dave Hart discovered the extent of the violations his coach was facing. Tyndall last worked as an associate athletic director at NAIA Tennessee Wesleyan College earlier this year on a volunteer basis. Tyndall has vowed to appeal Friday's punishment in hopes of reducing the length of the show-cause penalty he's facing. He hopes to work again in college athletics. "I'm stunned," Tyndall said. "To hit me with 10 years, it's unbelievable." - - - - - - - Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @JeffEisenberg