Notre Dame Ordered to Forfeit Two Scholarships : College football: NCAA imposes penalty because former linebacker DuBose received improper benefits.

The NCAA ordered Notre Dame to forfeit two football scholarships as an institutional penalty for impropriety involving former Irish linebacker Demetrius DuBose and a Seattle couple with ties to the university.

Notre Dame officials Wednesday acknowledged the penalty, which was imposed early this year but not disclosed at the time by the NCAA or the school.

DuBose was suspended for the first two games of the 1992 season after the NCAA determined that he received more than $1,000 in improper benefits from Grant and Rose Courtney of Seattle.

Grant Courtney received a law degree from Notre Dame and has served as president of the Western Washington Notre Dame Alumni Club. Rose Courtney is a former Notre Dame admissions officer.

DuBose, picked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second round of this year’s NFL draft, attended Seattle’s Bishop O’Dea High.

The NCAA ruled that Notre Dame could award only 23 scholarships to football players entering the university in the 1993-94 academic year, cutting by two the school’s maximum allotment, said Melissa Conboy, a Notre Dame associate athletic director who handles rules-compliance matters.

The NCAA also ordered the university to re-emphasize its commitment to monitoring and educating boosters, she said.

“(The NCAA) did feel that the institution had a very thorough education program for its (athletic) representatives,” Conboy said, “but, because of (Courtney’s) proximity to the university, (the NCAA) felt there should be some institutional responsibility.”

She said the university was notified of the penalty, determined by the NCAA enforcement staff and Committee on Infractions, shortly before high school football players began signing letters of intent in February.

Because the DuBose matter was considered a secondary infraction by the NCAA--one that provides a school with a limited recruiting or competitive advantage--the only public announcement of the penalty was a brief listing with similar cases in the March 31 edition of the NCAA News, the organization’s official publication. Such listings do not include the names of the schools or athletes involved.

David Berst, NCAA assistant executive director for enforcement, declined comment, citing NCAA policy for secondary-infractions cases. Dennis Brown, assistant director of public relations at Notre Dame, said the university did not believe it was necessary to make a public disclosure of the penalty at the time it was imposed.

“This was a secondary violation, and, as a result, we felt like we didn’t need to make any more of it than had already been made,” he said. “At the same time, we recognized that, although the sanction was reported in an anonymous way in the NCAA News, it was obvious what school and student-athlete were involved.

“We felt sure that members of the media would come to us at some point and that we would acknowledge the situation then.”

Notre Dame Athletic Director Dick Rosenthal was unavailable Wednesday.