UTEP Penalized for Staggers Recruitment : College basketball: Miners get three years of NCAA probation for violations in dealings with former Crenshaw star, and other infractions.

The improper recruitment of former Crenshaw High School basketball star John Staggers was cited by the NCAA Tuesday in a report placing the University of Texas El Paso on three years of probation.

The finding by the NCAA marks the second time that a school has been sanctioned as a result of dealings with Staggers, the Los Angeles City 4-A player of the year in 1988.

Salt Lake Community College was placed on probation by the National Junior College Athletic Assn. in 1989 after the disclosure that Staggers gained his eligibility at the school with a fraudulent high school equivalency (GED) certificate.

Although the NCAA does not identify individuals by name in its infractions reports, a source familiar with the UTEP case confirmed that Staggers is the unnamed recruit described in the UTEP report as having received improper assistance from a member of the school’s coaching staff in preparing for a GED test in late summer and early fall of 1988.

The Times reported last year that the NCAA was investigating Staggers’ dealings with UTEP coaches during the time he was participating in UTEP’s High School Equivalency Program, a federally funded program for migrant farm workers or their families.

Staggers, who played briefly at Columbia Community College in Calaveras County last season,said Tuesday that he is no longer in school. He declined, however, to comment on the UTEP ruling.

The NCAA’s sanctions in the case call for cuts in scholarships and official campus visits for recruits.

UTEP will be allowed to award only two new basketball scholarships in the 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years. The university also must reduce its expense-paid campus visits for recruits from 15 to eight in 1992.

The NCAA Committee on Infractions, which issued the report, noted that it did not ban UTEP from postseason competition because the school has taken several steps to correct its problems, including dismissing two assistant coaches.

In addition to the violation stemming from Staggers’ recruitment, the NCAA cited UTEP coaches and boosters for providing enrolled athletes with the use of cars, making improper contact with recruits and providing improper automobile transportation to prospective and enrolled athletes.

The committee said it did not find a pattern of major violations in the case. However, according to the committee, the violations show that the university and Coach Don Haskins have lacked control over the basketball program.

“A highly successful coach with intensely loyal supporters was lax in his attention to the responsibilities of his position,” the committee’s report said of Haskins.

The Associated Press quoted Haskins as saying: “The mistakes have been made. I don’t think they are all mine, but maybe I’ll have to pay more attention. I made my mistake by not paying close enough attention to the little things.”

Staggers, a 6-foot-5 swingman who was one of the top 50 recruits in the nation as a senior at Crenshaw in 1987-88, signed a letter of intent to play at UTEP in November of 1987.

He was unable to enroll at the Western Athletic Conference school because he left Crenshaw without graduating, but he went to El Paso anyway in an attempt to obtain his GED certificate.

After failing to obtain his GED certificate in El Paso, Staggers enrolled at Salt Lake Community College. He played in five games at the junior college before it was disclosed that a teammate took a portion of the GED test used to certify Staggers’ eligibility.

As a result of that disclosure, the NJCAA, which serves as the governing body for all junior colleges in the United States outside California, put Salt Lake Community College on one year of probation.

The NJCAA also ruled that Staggers was ineligible to play for any NJCAA school.