UCLA Appeal for Postseason Play Denied

As expected, the UCLA softball team will be banned from 1998 postseason play after the NCAA rejected the school’s appeal Friday.

In May, the Bruins were stripped of their 1995 national championship and the school’s entire athletic program was put on probation for three years. But the appeal was limited to the sole issue of NCAA tournament play.

UCLA was to have been barred from the 1997 NCAA tournament, but participated since there wasn’t enough time to hear the appeal. The appeal hearing was held Aug. 12.

Associate Athletic Director Betsy Stephenson told the players of the decision after a Friday morning conditioning session.

“They had just resigned themselves to the fact it [the school] probably was not going to prevail,” she said. “No school had ever done it [had a ban on postseason play overturned.]

“We look at this as closing the book on it.”

The ruling means that three seniors are finished with postseason action. UCLA did lose one player in the aftermath of the controversy: Sophomore Christa Williams transferred to Texas. Stephenson said the player left for several reasons, one of them being the NCAA sanctions.

It was the first time UCLA had to forfeit a national title, and the softball program was also hit with a reduction in scholarships the next two years.

The May ruling came after a 20-month investigation that focused on the softball program’s awarding soccer scholarships to three softball players. None of the three played for the soccer team.

The NCAA also required the removal of a senior associate director of athletics for “unethical conduct.” Dr. Judith Holland, former associate athletic director, appealed that penalty, but the appeals committee upheld the sanction Friday.

Holland, still at UCLA, was reassigned during the investigation to the student affairs department as an executive special assistant.