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Agent paying for meals, calling recruits too early among Michigan’s recent NCAA violations

A new employee who visits campus without proper authorization. An avid coach tweets things that should be kept private. Agent paying for meals.

These are among the few NCAA violations Michigan’s football and men’s basketball programs have committed in recent years. All were classified as Level III, the least serious of the crimes.

MLive obtained descriptions of violations through a record request made on June 15, 2021 for all reported violations in the two programs after June 10, 2021 (last year’s request A Handful of Equally Harmless Violations, until June 9, 2021). MLive received his paperwork on August 26th.

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June 1, 2021, The day the recruiting dead period ends and coaches can evaluate prospects directly, the Michigan football assistant coach posted on social media about the camp he will be working at that night. A colleague of his noted that such posts were not allowed and removed them hours later.

“He was so enthusiastic about resuming recruitment that he posted without thinking deeply about the issue,” the document said.

Although the coach’s name is not included, it is believed to be quarterback coach Matt Weiss, who deleted a tweet about an event on an eastern Michigan campus, and that night, running back coach Mike Hart. Both were in their first years on staff and returned for the 2022 season.

Weiss was “verbally reprimanded” and the relevant NCAA rule reviewed. “He was warned to be more thoughtful about his social media posts going forward.” Neither Big His Ten nor his NCAA added penalties.

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In July 2021, six Michigan basketball players (four men and two women) dined with agents. According to documents, the players were told to pay their own expenses so as not to violate NCAA rules. Associate head coach Phil Marteri contacted his agent to remind him of this, only to be told that the agency had prepaid meals worth $199.49 per student-athlete.

Michigan reimbursed the agency for the meal, but there was another problem. Three of his men’s players “received unauthorized accommodation from his coach, Juwan Howard, head of men’s basketball,” worth $44 per player.

It is unclear whether Howard paid for the hotel or invited players to his home, as certain phrases have been redacted from documents received by MLive. We had a hotel room booked at one point until we had a “change of plans”. Anyway, it was all reported to Compliance on August 2nd, 2021.

Howard was “alarmed” and declared a student-athlete ineligible until he was reinstated.

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In the winter term of 2022, a soccer player was in class against practice, so he skipped class and arranged a Zoom meeting with his professor to catch up on class.

On March 25th, the player texted the team manager to get the class excuse requested by the professor in order to receive course attendance credit. The request was forwarded to the team’s academic advisor, who reported the violation to the compliance department. The player did not realize that they were violating the rules because they were creating their work at another time. He was educated in rules.

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In that case, the student-athlete excuse was understandable, but another transgression involved Michigan’s director of recruiting. Still, Courtney Morgan instructed Michigan football coaches to contact recruits before they were allowed.

Last year, when the clock struck midnight and August turned to September, coaches were allowed to call class of 2022 recruits (and send written correspondence to class 2023 recruits). rice field). Morgan, who was hired as Michigan’s director of player personnel that April, thought 2023 recruits could be reached by phone, with head coach Jim Harbaugh, assistants Steve Crinkscale, George Herrow and Ron S. Bellamy provided the list to analyst Ryan Osborne.

“After 20 or 30 minutes, one of the coaches noticed that his call list included a member of the 2023 class and contacted a member of the football recruiting staff to call the high school junior. I have checked if is allowed.

“At that point, the player’s head of human resources realized the mistake and told all coaches that they should not have called the junior. By that time, 19 calls had been made to the junior.”

As a result, Michigan voluntarily imposed several penalties, banning coaches for two weeks after they were allowed to contact 19 prospects, and shortening the fall recruiting days by 19 days.

Morgan assumed the same position in Washington in December.

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The last breach in which MLive’s claims were disclosed occurred on June 18, 2021.

It was a big recruiting weekend for Michigan football, but one prospect was on the “organization’s demand list.” The result was a Level III violation, as the compliance office had not formally approved his visit. Christina DeRuyter, Michigan’s director of on-campus recruitment, received a verbal warning less than a month after she joined the company.

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