NCAA sanctions West Chester University for violation in swimming program recruitment

West Chester University faces a $25,000 fine and delayed recruiting for one year in its swimming and diving program after it self-reported a violation to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The university’s athletic department for decades had been operating a swim club at the school from which it recruited athletes for its award-winning collegiate program, an NCAA violation. NCAA regulations prohibit athletic departments or their booster groups from sponsoring a local sports club that includes prospective university athletes.

West Chester violated regulations in two ways: allowing its athletic department to have “financial and managerial control” of the club and allowing a coaching staff member to coach at the club, the NCAA said.

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University officials said Friday that when the practice started in the late 1980s, it was not a violation, but regulations changed in 1994.

A new assistant athletic director discovered the violation last spring and the university, which competes in Division II, reported it to the NCAA, said Christopher Fiorentino, president of the more than 17,000-student university, the largest in Pennsylvania’s state system.

On Friday, the NCAA handed down its sanctions, which also include two years of probation for the school and a prohibition on renting the university’s swimming and diving facilities to a local sports club for two years. And the school must reduce its recruitment budget for the swimming and diving team by 25%.

The sanctions do not impact athletes’ ability to compete, only the university’s recruiting practices.

The university also said it has hired an outside firm to conduct an audit of all university athletics with a report expected next week.

“We wanted to ensure there are no other problems,” Fiorentino said.

No one has been disciplined in connection with the violation, but the university continues to investigate, he said.

“We have additional work to do to understand exactly what happened, when and why,” he said. “We need to understand why it was not detected, and we need to be sure something like this would never happen again.”

The approximate 41-member men’s and women’s swim teams have been repeated winners of conference championships over the last several decades. The men have won 23 since 1994, while the women have won 19.

Fiorentino said it’s hard to know what impact the sanctions will have on the program. The university is required to notify prospective athletes on the swim team that the school is on probation and the reasons.

“We would expect it’s going to be tougher for us,” he said.