OCC appeal denied

Orange Coast College’s appeal of a postseason ban on all sports for the 2016-17 academic year has been denied by the state’s governing body for athletics.

The California Community College Athletic Assn. board of directors upheld the postseason ban, and a two-year probation for all sports.

In addition, OCC will be required to conduct a total program review in order to better demonstrate institutional controls across all aspects of the athletic program, and submit a written report every six months to be reviewed by its conference commissioners, CCCAA President Carlyle Carter, and the CCCAA board.

Doug Bennett, OCC’s executive director of college advancement, said Monday the school will decide soon whether it wants to pursue the final level of appeal in binding arbitration. A department meeting has been scheduled Thursday to discuss the school’s options, OCC baseball coach John Altobelli said Tuesday.

OCC, in its appeal to the CCCAA board, said the sanctions — issued based on six violations dating back to 2009 — were too harsh. The school also argued that it had self-reported most of the violations and had instituted policies to prevent future violations of CCCAA bylaws.

OCC also said it was unfair to punish programs not involved in any violation, and raised questions of due process. Additionally, OCC accused state and conference officials of acting with bias against the school.

A CCCAA letter announcing the denial of the appeal that was faxed to OCC officials, as well as the commissioners of the Orange Empire Conference and the Southern California Football Assn. (which oversees football only), did not convey any elements of the board’s decision to deny the appeal.

Carter had not, as of Tuesday evening, returned a request for further comment left Tuesday afternoon on his telephone answering machine.

A handful of OCC coaches have stated they do not believe the punishment fits the crime(s) and that denying student-athletes the right to compete in the postseason is an inappropriate way of addressing violations for which administrators are responsible.

Conference officials have said that the pattern of violations demonstrated a lack of institutional oversight by OCC athletics, and that collectively, they were worthy of sanctions appropriate for what the CCCAA constitution identifies as a Level I (the most severe) violation.

The violations included: Altobelli’s season-ending suspension after two game ejections (2009); the men’s golf team allowing an athlete to compete before he had been certified for eligibility (2011); All fall sports except football starting practice before the allowable date (2013); a football player competing in eight games in 2011 without having completed eligibility paperwork (discovered in 2014); and a 2015 Coast Community College District investigation that concluded two assistant football coaches initiated contact with out-of-state recruits. The football coaches were also found to have provided $60 for a rent deposit and transportation from the airport, purchased a meal for recruits, and helped them obtain furniture that had been donated to the school, or from private individuals.

OCC met the terms of sanctions already imposed for the above violations, excluding the football assistant coaches’ misconduct. It fired one assistant football coach and did not pursue any penalty against the other assistant coach who quit.