Daniels at the Center of New UNLV Inquiry : Basketball: NCAA says former Las Vegas recruiter became player’s guardian and funneled perquisites to him.

The NCAA has charged the University of Nevada Las Vegas basketball program with violating numerous NCAA rules and showing a lack of institutional control in its recruitment of former New York high school basketball star Lloyd Daniels.

The charges are described in a letter of official inquiry from the NCAA that was received by the university Tuesday and made public Thursday.

The 43-page document was released by the University of Nevada system general counsel’s office in Reno with all names deleted.

The school has 60 days to respond to the letter, the result of a preliminary inquiry initiated by the NCAA in October 1987. The NCAA Committee on Infractions will then conduct a hearing and determine the validity of the charges and assess a penalty, if necessary.

Because most infractions cases require an additional month of pre-hearing meetings between NCAA enforcement representatives and school officials after the school has responded to the official letter of inquiry, the Daniels case apparently will not have an impact this season on the Rebels, the defending national champions.

However, the case’s repercussions could be felt at UNLV far into the future.

The infractions committee has already barred the Rebels from postseason competition and live television appearances during the 1991-92 season, the final penalty stemming from the infractions case that caused UNLV Coach Jerry Tarkanian to take the NCAA to court 13 years ago.

If the committee decides to impose similar penalties in the Daniels case, the sanctions would apply to the 1992-93 season or beyond.

In addition to Daniels’ recruitment, the NCAA charged UNLV with exercising a lack of institutional control over the basketball program in the administering of scholarship funds and bills incurred by players at hotels during trips.

The infractions committee has generally considered institutional control violations to be major in scope, according to Chuck Smrt, an assistant director of enforcement for the NCAA.

UNLV President Robert Maxson was out of town Thursday and could not be reached for comment, according to his office.

However, the Associated Press quoted him as saying Wednesday: “When you find out you’ve made mistakes, you do whatever you have to do to correct them. We’re very anxious to get this cleared up and get the slate clean.”

Maxson has instructed all university employees not to comment on the allegations, said Joe Hawk, the school’s sports information director.

Tarkanian has referred all inquiries to his attorney, Chuck Thompson of Las Vegas.

Thompson has said that Tarkanian is not named in any “major allegations.” Thompson has also expressed anger at the charges, saying: “I know for a fact some of the things in there are not true and not supportable.”

Although names and most identifying characteristics were deleted from the version of the letter released to the public, the bulk of the allegations, grouped in 29 areas, match those outlined in a series of stories in Newsday during March 1987 describing Daniels’ dealings with the school and identifying many of the people involved.

The newspaper reported that Daniels, a 6-foot-8 swingman who was considered one of the best players to come out of New York, received a variety of special privileges--including cash, a car and a motorcycle--from UNLV coaches, boosters and other representatives of the school while attempting to become eligible to play for the Rebels.

Daniels, who signed a letter of intent to play at UNLV in April 1986 despite failing to complete the 11th grade at Andrew Jackson High in Queens, spent the fall of ’86 at Mt. San Antonio College and enrolled at UNLV as a full-time student for the ’87 spring semester. He was banned by Tarkanian from playing at UNLV, however, after being arrested on drug charges in Las Vegas in February ’87.

The NCAA began a preliminary inquiry into the Daniels affair after an in-house investigating committee, appointed by Maxson after the Newsday series, concluded that it could neither prove nor disprove the allegations in the newspaper.

Many of the allegations focused on Mark Warkentien, UNLV’s basketball recruiting coordinator at the time, who became Daniels’ legal guardian in October ’86.

In its letter of inquiry, the NCAA alleges that UNLV athletic staff members did not exercise appropriate institutional control when they allowed Warkentien to become Daniels’ legal guardian without following up on the advice of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.--now the Big West Conference--office to seek an official interpretation from the NCAA.

As a result, the NCAA alleges Warkentien violated NCAA rules in becoming Daniels’ legal guardian, a relationship that, according to the letter, allowed Warkentien to pay numerous improper living, travel and educational expenses for Daniels.

Among the improper benefits provided Daniels by Warkentien, the NCAA alleges, are a motor scooter, a motorcycle, a used car, clothing and a cash allowance.

Although no longer coaching, Warkentien remains a member of the UNLV athletic department staff.

The NCAA also alleges that, in the summer of 1986, Daniels was improperly employed by UNLV booster Sig Rogich, owner of a Las Vegas advertising firm, and allowed to use a Dodge Aries leased by Rogich’s firm during both working and non-working hours.

A former UNLV regent, Rogich served as advertising director for George Bush’s 1988 Presidential campaign and is currently an assistant to President Bush for activities and initiatives.

In a statement released Wednesday through his company, R&R; Advertising, Rogich acknowledged that he had been named in the charges but maintained that his agency had not broken NCAA rules.

The letter also lists four instances in which UNLV staff members and players allegedly provided false and misleading information to NCAA investigators, and it describes a scenario in which a UNLV booster allegedly paid a former UNLV player $200 in return for signing an affidavit recanting allegations published in Newsday and promising to lie to the university’s in-house investigating committee.

According to a source familiar with the inquiry, who asked not to be identified, the owner of a Las Vegas hotel-casino with ties to the UNLV basketball program made the $200 offer to former UNLV guard Ricky Collier of Riverside, who had described a series of rules violations involving himself and Daniels in Newsday.

Collier accepted the money and signed the affidavit, according to the source, but later, in dramatic testimony before the school’s in-house investigating committee, described how he had been pressured to recant the information he had given Newsday.

The NCAA has also charged that UNLV altered an NCAA certificate of compliance form in 1986 by deleting the name of an athletic department staff member who refused to sign the form because of her knowledge of possible rules violations in the program.

The Times has reported that in 1986, Brad Rothermel, then UNLV’s athletic director, altered a compliance form to eliminate the name of Ann Mayo, the school’s academic adviser for basketball at the time, after Mayo told Rothermel’s secretary that she could not sign the form because of her knowledge of improper activities in the basketball program. Rothermel, who resigned his position last June, declined comment Thursday night.