President Trauth responds to NCAA ruling

Date of Release: 03/10/2005

SAN MARCOS—Texas State University-San Marcos President Denise M. Trauth said Thursday that she believes the NCAA’s decision to place the athletics program on probation for three years is fair and the university will not appeal it.

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions announced the penalty in response to two issues: improper textbook purchases between 1997 and 2001 and excessive football practices in 2003.

“I fully support the actions of President Trauth and Texas State University,” said Charles Matthews, who became chancellor of the Texas State University System that oversees the university in February. “Their actions are evidence that athletics are being monitored carefully, as they should be.”

“We appreciate the committee’s work on behalf of college athletics,” said President Trauth. “Texas State is committed to a clean athletics program – in fact, to ethical conduct universitywide. We believe that in order to move forward, we must acknowledge the past and learn from our mistakes. We reported ourselves to the NCAA, hired an outside agency to investigate and penalized our own program. We are doing everything we can to prevent future infractions.”

The committee noted in its report that the university took appropriate and decisive action once the violations came to the attention of the president. The university replaced several administrators and penalized itself by sidelining players, withholding scholarships, requiring repayment of funds and reducing practice times.

Texas State named a new athletics director, Larry Teis, in March 2004; a new football coach, David Bailiff, in February 2004; and new associate athletics directors in internal operations (Tracy Shoemake), external operations (Don Coryell) and development and communications (Tim McMurray). The athletics director now reports directly to the president.

Contact: Larry Teis, (512) 245-2963