Parseghian, Switzer Reportedly Broke Rule

Coaching greats Ara Parseghian and Barry Switzer admitted to having broken the same National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rule that the University of Florida used to force Coach Galen Hall to resign last Sunday, the Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday.

Hall resigned after admitting giving salary supplements to his assistant coaches, but Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said 90% of coaches do not or did not know of the existence of the rule forbidding a coach from supplementing assistants’ salaries.

All three coaches made their remarks in the newspaper.

“I will tell you right now,” said Parseghian, winner of national championships in 1966 and ‘73, “when I was at Notre Dame, I co-shared income that I received . . . but that was after the fact.

“It was commercial and television money I had received as a reward for our success. I shared it at Christmas, as bonuses, with my assistant coaches.”

While he refused to say just how much he paid his assistants at Notre Dame in bonuses, Parseghian contended that he did not realize the NCAA had a rule prohibiting the practice until he read of Hall’s weekend resignation.

Hall admitted paying $4,000 to former defensive coordinator Zaven Yaralian and $18,000 to former offensive coordinator Lynn Amedee. He said he didn’t know the supplements violated NCAA rules.

Switzer, former Oklahoma head coach, said he supplemented the salaries of his assistants, graduate assistants and secretaries. That led to the Sooners’ current NCAA probation status.

But Nancy Mitchell, a legislative director with the NCAA, states the rule has been in the NCAA’s manual “for quite some time.”

The rule states: “The institution, as opposed to any outside source, shall remain in control of determining who is to be its employee and the amount of salary the employee is to receive within the restrictions specified by the NCAA legislation.”

A head coach is considered “an outside source” in this instance.

Bowden said he never supplemented the salaries of his assistants--for lack of money.

“I never did it at all,” Bowden said. “And it wasn’t because I wouldn’t do it, but I never had the funds to do it.

“I will say that out of 1,000 coaches out there, 90% of them do not know this (rule) is on the books.”