Houston Football Program Given 3 Years’ Probation

The University of Houston’s football program, which has had one of its most successful seasons, Friday was placed on probation for three years by the NCAA.

The Cougars will be barred from bowl games for two years and from television for one. They also lost 10 scholarships for next season, leaving Coach Jack Pardee with 15.

The penalties stem from violations that included money being paid to players and occurred during the tenure of Bill Yeoman, who retired following the 1986 season after 25 years as coach and is now a $100,000-a-year athletic fund-raiser.

University president Richard Van Horn said Houston retained Yeoman partly to assure his cooperation in the probe of the football program.

“One of our concerns was that as long as Bill Yeoman was employed by the university, he was bound by university policy to cooperate fully in the investigation,” Van Horn said.

“We did have a problem that many of the assistant coaches whose positions were ended simply wouldn’t talk to us, and they wouldn’t talk to the NCAA.”

Houston became the seventh school in the nine-member Southwest Conference to be penalized by the NCAA in the past three years. Most recently, Texas A&M; was placed on two years’ probation Sept. 9 when the Aggies were found guilty of 25 violations.

The punishment does not affect the Cougars’ Aloha Bowl appearance against Washington State on Christmas Day. Houston finished the regular season at 9-2.

The NCAA also advised the school to prohibit Yeoman from “engaging in duties on behalf of the university’s athletic program that place him in contact with prospective student-athletes or representatives of the institution’s athletic interests for a period of one year.”

Van Horn said he would set up a meeting soon with Yeoman to discuss his future.

The latest sanctions marked the third time that Houston has been placed on probation for violations that occurred during Yeoman’s tenure.

The Cougars received a 3-year probation starting in 1966, and in 1977 they were placed on one year’s probation.

Yeoman could not be reached for comment Friday.

Van Horn said the school would not appeal the penalties, and he praised the progress made by Pardee and athletic director Rudy Davalos over the past two years.

“The problem was caused by some dumb things we did in the athletic department,” Davalos said. “Now Jack, myself and the players have to suffer for it.

“But we are not a couple of carpetbaggers who came in here to build a program up and get rich off it and hit the road.”

Cougar quarterback David Dacus said the NCAA meted out harsher punishment to Houston because it has less political clout than Texas A&M.;

“If we had the political power of Texas A&M;, it probably wouldn’t have come down that much,” Dacus said.

“We’re probably a little scapegoat for the Southwest Conference. They used us to say what’s going to happen to other schools if something like this happens.”

Freshman linebacker Ted Pardee, son of Jack Pardee, agreed.

“The program is just getting turned around, and it’s not as big as A&M;’s or Texas,” Pardee said. “That kind of thing happens to the small guy, I guess.”

The NCAA started investigating the Cougars in October, 1986, after former players Lonell Phea and David Roberson said they had received $18,000 and $10,000, respectively, during their playing time at Houston. Phea played from 1979 to 1981, Roberson from 1981 to 1983.

Yeoman said previously that he gave petty cash to players for humanitarian reasons, such as paying their parents’ utility bills. But in March, 1987, former booster Frank Terry said Yeoman asked him to raise thousands of dollars for improper use.

“The violations on occasion were so numerous,” the NCAA said, “that the former head football coach (Yeoman) and his assistants, even after they began to tell the truth, were not able to recall all the occasions they gave money to student athletes.”

In a letter of inquiry on July 13, the NCAA gave Houston a list of more than 250 infractions that had been uncovered. The violations occurred from 1978 to 1986.

“One of my regrets is that Coach Pardee and the current players have to bear the punishment of these infractions even though they played no part in them. I think that’s the great tragedy of this,” Van Horn said.

Pardee, who has been rumored to be leaving the school for other jobs, said he was staying and was pleased that the sanctions finally were dispensed.

“We’re halfway through this,” Pardee said. “The last two years have been the worst, dealing with rumors and innuendo. It’s much better dealing with reality.”

Davalos said he felt the NCAA was more lenient because of the progress the school had made in the past two years.

“I knew we were going to get hit when I saw the allegations,” said Davalos, who was hired as athletic director in January 1987. “The hope we had was they would see how far back it happened and they would take that into consideration. I think they did.”