Shoup Assails CLU Officials Over Report : Coach: Findings of Study on Athletics Suppressed

Football Coach Bob Shoup has charged that the Cal Lutheran administration suppressed a 1985 report that advised the university against becoming a member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in the NCAA Division III.

Shoup said that administrators knew of the report’s findings but did not make them available to the university’s faculty or Board of Regents. The board will consider in meetings today and Saturday a faculty recommendation that the school join the SCIAC.

“This report should have been available from the very beginning,” Shoup said. “It was done by somebody we looked to as an expert, and, because it doesn’t say everything we wanted it to say, it’s suppressed.

“There is no question that it was knowingly suppressed. It seems to me that they are not letting all the truth come out and are trying to slant the decision.”

David Olson, the director of athletics and dean of the School of Physical Education at Pacific Lutheran, in Tacoma, Wash, was commissioned by Cal Lutheran to study the school’s athletics program.

In his 4-page report of June 25, 1985, Olson recommends against Cal Lutheran moving to the SCIAC. The report was prepared before the school began play in the NCAA Division II Western Football Conference in the fall of 1985.

Olson writes: “The decision to proceed with membership in the WFC represents the best option available to you at this time. The risks associated with other options--drop football or eliminate scholarships and seek an affiliation with the SCIAC--seem to me to be greater than the negative aspects of WFC membership.”

Jerry Miller, Cal Lutheran’s president, at first denied Thursday that Olson’s report contained a recommendation against joining the SCIAC. “The SCIAC is not mentioned in the report,” he said. Miller also denied that contents of the report had been suppressed.

“The report was available to the athletic department, the coaches and others at the time,” Miller said. “We did not duplicate and distribute it widely at that time any more than we do other reports.”

Robert Doering, athletic director at Cal Lutheran, also said that the report was available. “There was no attempt to keep anything secret,” he said. “Shoup had the report. He could have brought it up before now.”

Shoup said he told the Cal Lutheran Athletic Policy Committee about the report in April and again earlier this month when the committee voted, 5 to 3, to recommend that the university join the SCIAC.

“I told them that this was the most recent and unbiased report on Cal Lutheran athletics by an expert in the field,” Shoup said.

Shoup added, however, that members of the committee--composed of faculty members and students--told him after the vote that they never read the report.

The Board of Regents must ratify the proposal for Cal Lutheran to become a member of the SCIAC. The university’s faculty voted, 52 to 11, last week to approve the move.

Olson also recommended that Cal Lutheran seek an appropriate conference affiliation for sports other than football, which the school did when it became a charter member of the Golden State Athletic Conference of the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics in 1986. Cal Lutheran was an NAIA independent until the GSAC was formed.

A move to the SCIAC would put all Cal Lutheran teams in the same conference for the first time. The football team has won only 2 conference games in more than 3 seasons in the WFC.

“I think the report has to be taken in the context that it was written,” Olson said Thursday. “I would have to evaluate the situation now for my recommendations to be current and timely.”

Shoup points to another Olson recommendation as proof that the report’s findings are still valid, however. Olson wrote that CLU should, “encourage other institutions in (its) region to pursue membership in the WFC, thus encouraging Portland State to seek another conference affiliation.” Portland State will leave the WFC and begin play in the Division I-AA Big Sky Conference in 1990.

In a matter related to Cal Lutheran’s proposed move to Division III, the GSAC Executive Committee will vote next Friday on what action to take against Cal Lutheran if the university moves to the Division III.

In a Sept. 7 meeting, the conference adopted a rule to terminate membership of any school that joins another conference.

Ben Norton, acting president of the GSAC, said that the committee, composed of athletic directors from the conference’s 8 schools, wants to clarify the policy at next week’s meeting.

“We’ve only been in existence two full years, so if Cal Lutheran leaves it would be the first time that any school has withdrawn its membership,” Norton said.

“The conference wants to make it clear that members cannot come in and out of the conference without some ramifications.”

Norton said that the committee could vote to exclude Cal Lutheran from postseason honors or playoffs if the university decides to join the SCIAC after athletic scholarships have been eliminated in compliance with Division III rules.

Doering, Cal Lutheran’s athletic director, said the university will play out its schedule this season as an independent if the GSAC terminates its membership. Cal Lutheran still would be eligible for the District 3 playoffs, he said.

Doering added that most Cal Lutheran teams would play as independents until the move to the SCIAC is completed in 2 to 3 years.