Charges Added to Husky Probe : Enforcement: Ongoing Pac-10 investigation of Washington football program will include allegations of cash and improper benefits for players from boosters.

The latest charges of wrongdoing involving the University of Washington football program will be investigated by the Pacific 10 Conference as part of an ongoing probe, a conference official said.

The charges, raised by The Times in stories published Wednesday, suggest that Washington boosters have regularly provided Husky players with cash and other improper benefits, including summer jobs requiring little or no work.

Such activities apparently are violations of the NCAA’s “extra benefit” rule, which prohibits representatives of a school’s athletic interests from providing student-athletes with benefits not generally available to the student body.

“If there’s anything to investigate there, we certainly will (investigate),” said Jim Muldoon, the Pac-10 assistant commissioner for public relations. “Any information we get from any source, we’ll follow up.”

The Pac-10 initiated an investigation last month after a published report in Seattle revealed that Husky quarterback Billy Joe Hobert had received $50,000 in unsecured loans from an Idaho nuclear engineer.

Although the engineer, Charles M. Rice, has no apparent ties to the university, Hobert was declared ineligible by the school because the loans were based in part on his earning potential as a professional football player.

According to a source familiar with the Pac-10 inquiry, who asked not to be identified, the probe is ongoing and not limited to the Hobert matter. As such, the source said, The Times’ findings would be included.

The Times, citing interviews with former Washington players and others, as well as court and state records, reported that cash and other improper benefits have been dispensed to Husky players by two prominent boosters--Los Angeles real estate developer James W. Kenyon and Seattle businessman Herbert T. Mead.

Kenyon and Mead denied the charges.

In an interview with The Times late Tuesday, Washington football Coach Don James said he has been assured by the two boosters that they follow the rules.

James also said his program can stand the test of any investigation.

“I personally would not care if the CIA or the FBI came in and wanted to investigate our program,” he said. “I have a clear conscience. We self-report things every year. There are too many rules.”

He questioned The Times’ sources, several of whom are former Washington players who were dismissed for disciplinary reasons or left the program on their own.

“We’ve heard there are players out there who would try to do anything they could to disrupt our program. I guess the same thing is going on at Auburn and Alabama,” he said, referring to two Southeastern Conference football programs that have recently faced highly publicized charges of wrongdoing by former players.

The Seattle Times, which in November disclosed the loans to Hobert, reported last Sunday that the Pac-10 also is investigating whether Husky boosters arranged a job for Hobert before his senior year in high school. Such an arrangement would violate NCAA recruiting rules.

Mead was identified by the Seattle newspaper as one of the boosters allegedly involved in arranging the job for Hobert.

The Pac-10 investigation is being conducted by David Price, the conference’s associate commissioner. He declined comment about the probe Wednesday.

When Price is finished with the inquiry, his findings will be reviewed by the conference’s Compliance and Enforcement Committee. The four-member committee will then reach a conclusion and recommend sanctions, if necessary.

Dick Dunne, Washington’s faculty athletics representative, is the chairman of the committee. Conference policy dictates that he remove himself from any hearing involving his school.

A ruling, based on the committee’s recommendation, would be made by the Pac-10 Council and would be subject to approval of the conference’s chief executive officers.

Sanctions can range from a reprimand to a ban on postseason competition.

The fact that the Pac-10 is investigating Washington’s football program means that the NCAA probably won’t become involved until the conference has dealt with the matter fully.

When a school or conference takes the initiative in handling an infractions case, the NCAA often stays in the background and acts as a final authority, reviewing the findings in the case as well as what action, if any, was taken.

“We’re a little more provincial with information we develop, versus information we didn’t develop,” said Mark Jones, an NCAA enforcement director. “If a conference or a school gets on (a matter) first, we’ll let them go after it.”

The Pac-10 is generally recognized as the most vigilant conference in the nation in terms of dealing with enforcement matters.

Speaking of the Pac-10 schools, Jones said: “They do penalize themselves. They take a more active role (in enforcement) than most conferences--no question about that.”

In its most recent ruling on a major infractions case, the conference banned Washington State’s baseball and men’s track and field programs from postseason competition during the 1992-93 academic year because of improper handling of scholarship funds in those sports.