NCAA Rejects Request to Reveal Documents in Florida State Investigation

The NCAA has spoken, and the answer is no.

The NCAA has officially rejected a request to release documents in its case against Florida State University athletics. The response is part of an ongoing dispute between Florida news organizations and the NCAA, which says it is not subject to Florida's public-records law.

The response, dated June 8 from Elsa Kircher Cole, vice president of Legal Affairs/General Counsel for the NCAA, reads "... please be advised that the NCAA is not subject to requests pursuant to Article I, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution (Access to Public Records and Meetings) or Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes (Public Records).

More than a dozen Florida newspapers and television stations sued the NCAA and FSU on Monday for the release of documents in an ongoing appeal of athletic-program sanctions. A public-records request by the media outlets has not been fulfilled in violation of Florida's open-government laws.

The dispute is over a response the NCAA gave FSU on its appeal of sanctions resulting from an academic cheating scandal that first surfaced and was investigated by the school in March of 2007.

An NCAA response to the appeal was made available to FSU's outside attorneys exclusively on a secure Web site that did not allow the documents to be printed or downloaded and required those attorneys to sign confidentiality agreements.

Media groups filed suit against the NCAA and FSU to gain access to the NCAA committee on infractions response to the university's appeal of sanctions against it. Among other penalties, the NCAA seeks to vacate team wins in games that included players implicated in an academic cheating scandal.

FSU President T.K. Wetherell has said he wants to turn over the information but is constrained by the agreement. The NCAA letter denying access to the records was addressed to Rachel Fugate, attorney for the media outlets.



"I understand FSU may have found itself in a hard spot here. But FSU knows its obligations under Florida law," Fugate told The Tallahassee Democrat. "What we're really concerned about here is that this could be a continuing problem."

Word is the NCAA has not moved from its position that FSU must vacate victories in multiple sports, including football and track, which would lose a national championship.

The fallout could cost FSU football coach Bobby Bowden 14 victories and, for all intents and purposes, end his bid to become college football's all-time winningest coach. Bowden, who turns 80 in November, has 382 wins, one fewer than the 82-year-old Joe Paterno of Penn State. Paterno earlier this spring voiced his displeasure with the NCAA possibly vacating Bowden's victories.

The NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee recently granted FSU's request for a 14-day extension to submit a rebuttal to the NCAA Committee on Infractions. FSU has until July 1 to appeal the sanctions.

FSU's appeal is another step of a process that will likely go into the fall, according to school officials.