CSUN Probe Clears Burt and Hiegert : Investigation: Assistant football coach Mocny gets letter of reprimand for actions during confrontation with a former player.

Cal State Northridge’s athletic director and head football coach have been cleared of allegations of inappropriate conduct after an investigation by a top university administrator.

Ronald R. Kopita, Northridge’s vice president, said Wednesday that he supports Athletic Director Bob Hiegert and football Coach Bob Burt against separate complaints filed by members of the school’s Black Student Athletes Assn.

A football assistant, linebackers coach Lance Mocny, received a letter of reprimand after he admitted using profanity during an argument with a former football player.

Hiegert was accused by BSAA members of “swearing at the team” and “being demeaning and racially insensitive” during a meeting with football players on Oct. 5, the day after the Matadors boycotted a practice to protest the lack of a meal plan for Northridge athletes.

After listening to a tape provided by sports information director Barry Smith, Kopita said he determined “nothing said in that meeting even remotely suggested any type of sanction” against Hiegert.

Kopita said the sound quality was “poor, but good enough to hear what was said.” He said the dialogue was “very sharp and very directed,” and that Hiegert offered to answer questions and quoted the team’s rule book. “He made it clear what he was saying was not his edict,” Kopita said.

Burt allegedly ordered football players to physically remove members of the BSAA who entered the team locker room on Oct. 7 to help Associated Student officials distribute burgers to players.

Players and coaches who witnessed the incident said Burt asked the men to leave the team’s locker room facility, Kopita said. When they refused, Burt reportedly said, “I don’t have to deal with this” and retreated to a coaches’ office, where he called campus police.

Kopita said he was able to confirm that Burt made such a call.

Mocny, a first-year assistant, admitted to Kopita that he used “a mild profanity” during a verbal altercation with BSAA president Patrick Johnson, a former Northridge player, as the Matadors boarded buses Oct. 8 for a trip to a game in Las Vegas.

Johnson and about two dozen other representatives of the university’s Black Student Union gathered in the North Campus Stadium parking lot early that morning, attempting to discourage players from boarding team buses.

The BSU and BSAA have been at the forefront of allegations that some Northridge athletes have been mistreated.

“As an employee and representative of this university, we have to be above these things,” Kopita said of Mocny’s actions. The letter of reprimand will be included in the coach’s personnel file.

“As far as we are concerned, the case is now closed on all three issues,” Kopita said.