Trying Not to Forfeit Their Integrity

On the campus of Chapman University, autumn is as prominent as the bronze busts of Albert Schweitzer and Martin Luther King Jr. The air is crisp and cool, leaves have begun falling from the canopy of sycamores dotting the campus, and football is on everyone’s mind.

But, oh, how a mood can change.

The atmosphere went from sunny to dark last week, in the motion of a single deed. Acting on his own volition, Chapman President James L. Doti forfeited the football team’s five victories in 1996.

His action came only days after the Chapman Panthers, reeling from the news that two key players were playing their fifth season of college football and were thus ineligible, lost their first game of the season.

With the prospect that National Collegiate Athletic Assn. officials could decide to nullify the team’s five victories, Doti felt he was bound by duty.

“It was the right thing to do,” he said last week. “Really, it was the only thing I could do.”

But as with all tough decisions, it made a lot of people unhappy. And as for the others, they chalked it up to the only proper course a university president could follow--it put football in its proper place, even at a school where every player is a “walk-on” who pays his own tuition.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” said Michael Chiarella, 21, a pre-med major from San Diego. “It’s too bad. They were doing so well.”

“It was great Doti was willing to say, ‘Hey, we made a mistake, so let’s give up our wins,’ ” said Rhonda Nelson, 26, a graduate special education major from Newport Beach. “I think it’s important we uphold our integrity as an institution.”

Of course, had Doti not taken the action, the NCAA probably would have erased the victories anyway. Star running back Darnell Morgan and defensive back Malcolm King had played two seasons at other colleges before entering a third at Chapman. School officials say they discovered that Morgan was ineligible only after The Times made inquiries about his status.

NCAA officials usually don’t comment in depth on specific cases, directing questions back to the institution. “But, certainly, any actions the university has taken on its own--proactively--are among the first things we consider,” NCAA spokeswoman Kathryn Reith said Friday.

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The controversy notwithstanding, Chapman’s team is hardly the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Division III is exactly that--two notches below Division I, which NCAA officials say accounts for 86% of all punishments leveled against member schools.

In fact, Reith said, Division II and Division III each account for about one rule infraction a year, whereas Division I has 12 to 14.

Unlike the Nebraskas of the world, Chapman has no television contract. Its stadium seats 3,500 people, who attend faithfully but who watch athletes playing on a strictly volunteer basis. The school offers no athletic scholarships in any sport.

But in an era when scandal has become as synonymous with football as twisted knees, Chapman has suffered in that regard too:

* Before Morgan’s and King’s ineligibility was uncovered, two other players were arrested, after allegedly assaulting and robbing a fellow student of $75.

Charges were later dropped, after the victim, Steven Bisel, admitted he lied in saying that running back Dwan London, 22, and linebacker Carl McRae, 24, stole money from him. He later identified marijuana--not cash--as the stolen goods, according to the Orange Police Department.

* A member of last year’s team, Tyrone Vickers, is back in prison after being accused of rape last year. Vickers was on parole for voluntary manslaughter. In 1991, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in state prison.

* Offensive lineman David Tangitau is facing misdemeanor battery charges for allegedly hitting a woman on July 4, court records show.

* Last season, wide receiver Oscar Ford was suspended for disciplinary reasons after a “physical altercation” on campus, officials said. No charges were filed against Ford, whose behavior prompted a university investigation. He was reinstated to the team after one game.

But in the midst of all this, it’s the embarrassment of having to forfeit five games that has many students upset.

“I’m in support of Darnell, because I know he didn’t do it on purpose,” said junior Aimee Green, 20. “It was a mistake . . . an unfortunate thing. But football is really a big deal here, and people on campus are very down about it. It’s a shame we had to forfeit.”

Doti contends that blaming football for what seems to be more than its share of bad apples is unjust and unfair, whether the team involved is Chapman or one in the National Football League.

“If our players’ misdeeds got attention from the media,” Doti said, “it was only because they were football players. But we have misdeeds on the part of all our students. To a certain extent, it’s just a sign of the times.”

At the same time, some students on campus expressed concern that--before Doti’s action--football players were benefiting from a double standard, a la Division I schools such as Nebraska.

“I think a whole lot of people were just getting real tired of the whole football player thing,” said senior Crystal Von Lewis, 24. “With this recent episode, that seems to have dissipated somewhat. Football seems to have been put in its place, if you will. Is football good for morale around here? I think it varies from person to person. To me, it doesn’t make much difference.”

But it did to Doti, who took the school from Division II to Division III, ended athletic scholarships, increased the number of women’s sports programs to match those of men, and in 1994 restored football at the school for the first time in 62 years.

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In a setting familiar to Hollywood--the last scene in “Crimson Tide” was filmed on the Greco-Roman steps of Memorial Hall, and the appliance store in “That Thing You Do!” is only a few blocks away--football has flourished.

“We don’t need football here--we certainly went a long time without it--but it’s certainly been a better place for it,” Doti said. “Football has given our students something to rally around. It provides wonderful lessons in sportsmanship, responsibility and leadership.”

In fact, Doti says football has opened the door to students who would otherwise not attend college and to students who could play football nowhere else.

Nevertheless, Chapman’s rivals say the school’s lust for winning is more in keeping with the powerhouses Doti says he would never permit Chapman football to become.

“In the past, we haven’t run across those types of Division III schools in recruiting kids who typically went to a Cal State [University] school,” said Rob Tomlinson, coach at Division II Chico State. “Since Chapman has gotten their program going, we seem to be recruiting against them. The players they’re going after are not top of the line academically.

“They’re not totally out of it, but the thing that troubles us is, they are going to school where tuition is [$18,520] a year, and they’re somehow affording that.”

Michael O. Drummy, Chapman’s admissions director, disputes the notion that the small, private, Christian institution with 2,200 undergraduates (and about 3,000 students overall) is bending the rules just to accommodate 100 nonscholarship football players.

“I get more arm-twisting from the orchestra director to help get virtuoso violin players in,” Drummy said.

Drummy says all freshman students are required to post a minimum score of 900 on the SAT entrance exam and transfer students must have a 2.25 college grade-point average. He noted, however, that some transfer students are admitted with a 2.0 grade-point average, albeit on probationary status.

But the football team’s average of transfer players--especially recruits from community colleges--far outweighs the number of other students who transfer to Chapman. Of the 86 players on the roster at the start of the season, 70 were transfers, officials said. That compares with only a 50% average of all Chapman students who transfer from community colleges or other four-year schools.

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Athletic Director Dave Currey said he would prefer the football team be more representative of the campuswide ratio. But transfer players were necessary instruments, he contends, in helping Chapman be competitive as soon as football returned.

“I had people say to me, ‘Why didn’t you just lose for a couple years?’ ” Currey said. “I never felt that was an answer to anything.”

Doti said it costs the school $200,000 a year to fund football, which allows about 100 students to participate. He takes pride in the fact that, four years ago, Chapman had 185 students participating in nine sports at a cost of $7,881 per student, as compared with 450 students who now compete in 20 programs (10 men’s, 10 women’s) at a cost of $3,111 per student.

Chapman officials say the school’s Southern California setting and the sharp reduction in four-year football programs have made the campus a popular destination. Budget concerns led Cal State Fullerton to drop its football program in 1992, two years after Cal State Long Beach eliminated its program.

Chapman--now the only Orange County school with an NCAA football program--is attracting the same pool of players who might have gone to those schools.

“We all want to win,” Doti said, “whether it be in a U.S. News & World Report [magazine] ranking or an award for a concert or a meritorious student. But particularly in the case of athletics, winning is so clearly the objective.”

Certainly, there’s no denying the school’s success. Not counting the recent forfeits, the Panthers carry a 21-4-1 record into the final weeks of their third season after a 35-21 victory Saturday over Occidental. The Panthers’ margin of victory this season is a daunting 27 points, and they were ranked fourth in the Division III West Region poll before losing Oct. 26.

But despite his zest for winning, Doti believes too many schools place too heavy an emphasis on it, particularly if ethical violations or rules infractions are the byproduct.

“I like to win, don’t get me wrong, but I think we place far too much value on it, in almost every corner of the country,” he said.

If anything, the school’s experience has taught it a valuable lesson, one Doti hopes is never repeated.

“Winning isn’t everything,” he said. “But our integrity is. That’s more important than anything that ever happens on a football field.”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Martin Beck, Geoff Boucher and Chris Foster.