Schultz Defends NCAA’s Legal Procedure

Laws forcing the NCAA to apply rules of criminal due process are unnecessary, NCAA Executive Director Dick Schultz said Thursday at the Associated Press Sports Editors’ national convention in San Antonio.

“We’re not opposed to due process. We feel we have that,” Schultz said. “Our concern is that our national organization has members in all 50 states.

“If we have four or five states that have some type of due process legislation, then it’s impossible for us to evenly apply the rules.”

Schultz described NCAA procedures as administrative, rather than criminal, due process.

Basketball Coach Jerry Tarkanian of Nevada Las Vegas had told the House subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Competitiveness in Washington on Wednesday that the NCAA conducted a “reign of terror” in its investigations.

Schultz said that the NCAA is limited in its ability to conform to normal criminal due process procedures.

“We don’t have subpoena power,” he said. “We don’t have the ability to swear people to oath. Without subpoena power you don’t have the ability to cross-examine because you can’t require a witness to appear.”

The NCAA was ruled a private organization in 1988 by the U.S. Supreme Court and therefore is not bound by due process as mandated by the Constitution.