These Are The Times That Try Men's TPS Reports
Come on, compliance, WTF:
University of Michigan football coaches failed to file the required monthly logs that track how much its players work out and practice, according to an internal audit released today.
The details: according to a university-released report—hey, look, a hyperlink to the primary source so the reader can click through and make his own judgment of the facts—as of May Michigan had not filed the internal paperwork (called CARA) that covers the countable hours for the 2008 season.
This is now fixed, but the report is unclear as to whether the reports have been retroactively submitted or not:
When detail on a concern identified in an audit needs to be provided to a department, a memorandum is sent so the issue can be addressed. In this instance, the audit and a memo went to the athletic department on July 24, 2009. The forms are now turned in on a timely basis. The audit does not identify where the system broke down and it did not identify any other areas of concern with respect to the football program.
The News tried to get a straight answer on that and got a "no comment." While this could be a legitimate inability to answer because of the investigation, it's probably an indication that the 2008 reports don't exist and can't be constructed retroactively for obvious reasons.
And the tail end of the Michigan report has a slightly defensive paragraph about what this all means (emphasis mine):
CARA forms were created by the U-M athletic compliance office and are one tool U-M uses to track athletic activities undertaken by student-athletes and ensure compliance to our own and NCAA rules and regulations. Other tools include regular monitoring and extensive educational programming for athletes, coaches and other personnel affiliated with the program.
Some upshot:
It's not a response to anything. As the report makes clear, this was an issue that was internally flagged in May, months before the Free Press story, and officially addressed in June, weeks before that story.
In itself it doesn't mean much… The absence of these logs is not incriminating—they're an internal tool, not something the NCAA requires.
…but it opens the university up to punishment. Extant signed logs and forms, as people inside the program suggested were standard practice, would just about shut the door on anything except complaints from former players. If it's a bunch of he-said-she-said and since the NCAA isn't a court of law they could decide to hand down something. What is still entirely murky.
This does not look good if you're banking on your faith in compliance. If these logs existed they'd be a fantastic way to tell various folks to talk to the documentation. They don't, and whether that's an intentional omission on the part of a nefarious mastermind or mere incompetence on the part of a compliance department that didn't bother to inform the new guy that they had to do this paperwork it is a missed opportunity.
The last bit of the report at suggests that Michigan has some records disputing the allegations, but a compliance department truly on top of their crap would not have let these forms slide even for a year. If there is no paper trail indicating compliance outside of the CARA forms, someone needs to be fired and possibly branded with a scarlet NCAA.
The coaches didn't file the reports The coaches didn't file the reports. They're the first line of compliance in the university's compliance system.
Who is it that Brian wants to be fired? If someone in compliance, how so? Was it their fault?
Ed Shuttlesworth
If there is no paper trail indicating compliance outside of the CARA forms, someone needs to be fired and possibly branded with a scarlet NCAA.
Mouth off all you want, but calling for the death of someones livlihood is way across the line.
STFU and write your blog. Quit trying to fire peeps.
Me
Infinity can only happen once. Think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwGXMryTbwE
9 a.m. - 10 a.m.: Develop offensive game plan
10 a.m. - 11 a.m.: Fill out/file compliance paperwork
11 a.m. - Noon: Develop defensive game plan
Do you seriously think the coaches fill out and file this paperwork themselves, rather than relying on office staff? Office staff who, by the way, undoubtedly pre-date the current coaching staff, and who are charged with filling out forms that presumably pre-date the current coaching staff. Did they figure, now that there's a new coach, we probably don't need to do the very same thing we did with LC as coach? Even though our co-workers continue to fill out this paperwork for the other sports?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure RR didn't need to bring a compliance staff with him from WVU, and that he instead figured he could rely on LC's compliance folks to do the VERY SAME THINGS they did under the LC regime. Now, I suppose it's possible that RR ordered these folks to stop doing the paperwork to cover up his violations -- and, of course, the buck always stops at the head man. But doesn't it seem possible, if not likely, that someone else didn't do his/her job here? Not just once, but for months on end?
what happened after the coaching change was that the new coaches knew they needed to fill out the sheets, but didn't understand that they were to go to the AD and instead stuck them in their own file cabinets.
This would provide for the existence of unadulterated forms and explain their absence from the POV of the AD.
Wasting away in Ohio, a Wolverine in a sea of red and grey
I would hate to think there was somebody in the AD that was leaking info to get rid of RR and would throw his own University under the bus. It will be a mystery for months to come but I'm hoping it was just a misunderstanding on the part of the coaches by not filing out the reports, and compliance never notifying the coaches that it was a University mandate to have the reports filed. Hopefully, there is other documentation available to show the length of practice time for the players on the team.
I wish I could magically make this teams record 10-1, then some how I think all of these potential problems would suddenly disappear! I just hate the thought of potentially losing a good coach.
expect the best
Does not somebody else appreciate the curious timing when such UM football announcements just happen to have been released into MSM? Look at the frickin' dates for, and natures of, the supposed allegations. Me, I'm now convinced the Detroit fix is in. The creative-destructive mechanism is alive and well and living in an economically-challenged state. This clearly is an inside job. That is where the true scandal lays. Somebody is attempting to fund a second home or settle a vendetta, or both, at the expense of our heraldry and righful opportunity to compete.
None. It is plain as day that there was a tip that this issue surfaced and the FREEP put out their article knowing that this would eventually be released. Someone inside the program threw the program right under the bus.
Eduardo is the nefarious mastermind. The Board of Regents requested his firing, and he will be replaced. Frontrunners are Sad Josh, Happy Teeth and Brian Kelly.
I don't think the easy "blame-the-Freep!" meme can stick here. If Michigan truly wants to prove the allegations are false, it would be incredibly helpful if they could produce the paperwork to prove it, and not have it look like they had lackeys in Schembechler Hall staying late at night to produce the paperwork when it was discovered to not exist.
We're Michigan--we should be above this stuff.
Do we know for a fact that these logs are not something the NCAA requires? The radio just said it was required by the NCAA, but I don't put much faith in the media.
NCAA compliance isn't my field of expertise, but I know a little bit about broker-dealer law and there are some analogies. If you run a broker, you have to have policies in place to prevent violations of the law. If you don't have them, it's a violation. If you have them and you don't pay enough attention to whether they're being violated, it's a violation.
I'd guess, without knowing but as a solid hunch, that the NCAA makes universities have a compliance program and that it can be a violation if you don't train people and pay the requisite attention to whether your own policies are being followed.
So the NCAA may not require a school to keep these logs, but once the logs become part of the school's policy, the school can't just ignore them not being completed and point to them not being "an NCAA requirement."
With the caveat that NCAA rules don't always make common sense, if the coaches didn't turn in the forms, compliance knew it, and didn't do anything about it, that could be a very serious matter. The violation then is really the school's and not the coaches. If compliance asked the coaches about the forms and the coaches blew them off, that's more on the coaches ... and paints the coaches in a very disorganized (if not worse) light.
Is this the same compliance office that let Artis Chambers play while inelgible in 2007, forcing a suspension and the was caught totally blindsided on the Marcus Witherspoon is?
Oh, it is.
Ok, then I'm not surprised by this clusterfawk.
Good grief.
The Winter Olympics at www.justcoverblog.com
God Bless Your Cotton Pickin' Maize & Blue Hearts
The coaches didn't file the reports. They're the first line of compliance in the university's compliance system.
Who is it that Brian wants to be fired? If someone in compliance, how so? Was it their fault?
It is going to be a LONG, LONG off-season for Rich Rodriquez. I hope next year we are better for his sake.
If there is no paper trail indicating compliance outside of the CARA forms, someone needs to be fired and possibly branded with a scarlet NCAA.
Mouth off all you want, but calling for the death of someones livlihood is way across the line.
STFU and write your blog. Quit trying to fire peeps.
Infinity can only happen once. Think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwGXMryTbwE
someone can fail utterly at their job but, because it's their livelihood, they get to keep it?
What country do you think this is, buddy? America is cut-throat. We were founded by people who went out into the woods because they couldn't get along with Euro-trash intelligentsia, and the ones who didn't die of malaria, get eaten by bears, freeze to death, or meet some other nasty fate are the ones who lived and made this country badass.
Sink or swim. Someone is gonna sink and I would rather see an office monkey who showed up to work every day and did nothing get thrown off the boat than the entire boat get a torpedo blasted into the hull.
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
"fail utterly at their job..."
(insert RR comment here)
lloyd was better.
walked right into it
well, there are a lot of things a coach must do other than win, and winning isn't entirely up to the coach. Making a phone call from your desk, or walking across campus to pay someone a visit, or sending an email, or whatever, because you don't have a form that you need is another story
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
...what is so wrong with that? the "compliance officer" is charged, by definition, with "compliance." if we are not in compliance (not saying we are, btw) and the very documents that would help keep us from being cited for non-compliance don't even exist...is that not legitimate grounds for firing someone?
we didn't submit the mandatory monthly logs, that is better than the over training, but it is still weird and unsettling. How can this happen, we have a FT compliance officer that gets these reports, if one is late, doesn't she try to get it caught up? How can you be a year late or 6+ months late? Also, not having these reports raises more scrutiny, like shred-gate.
to suggest that Rodriguez is toast. Listen, I will be the first to say that Rodriguez's getting fired is not in the best interest of the product on the field, hell, I saw some very promising things on offense against Wisky and am (would be - perhaps)excited to see the finished product. But I am starting to believe that we are not going to get the chance. At the beginning of this season, I would have said there was a 0.01 chance that any series of events could tranpire that would cost RR his job this year, after the Notre Dame game, that number dropped to 0.00. But somebody wants Rodriguez out, and badly. I think for anybody to say that it is not a possibility that Rodriguez is out at the end of this season, it is because they don't want to believe it. God please allow Michigan to be at least competitive in a very loose sense of the word against OSU, or I do not believe that Rodriguez will be walking the sidelines next year.
...for those targeting Rodriguez and the program. RichRod has more guns pointed at him than the deer in this state.
I hate the fact that Michigan football and Rich Rodriguez is getting killed in the court of public opinion. Now about 50% he has brought on himself with the buyout lawsuit, the failed business deal and how he conducts himself with the media. (Not slamming him, but his candor and honesty opens himself up to criticism, unlike Lloyd and Bo, who didn't say squat). The other 50% comes from people and organizations who are actively trying to cause him to fail.
"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures"
If the NCAA really wants to make an example out of us, the non-report provides an opening. It's one less piece of evidence that the university possesses. Again, all programs exceed the spirit of the rule, but at least a record shows they know the rules exist. A non-record can be construed as a disturbing sign of brazen behavior that could tip the NCAA over the edge. What I'm trying to say is that we all know programs exceed limits with their "voluntary" workouts, but there are lines there as well. If Barwis/RR exceeded those lines by a lot, it could cast a cloud of impropriety on the program. I want the university's sports programs to be above the unwashed masses of schools like Florida, Oklahoma and USC. While the report is only a piece of the evidence, it simply places more of a premium on winning because if there's no winning and our reputation takes a hit, there will be no future for Rich Rod.
The circus is here and if more comes out, I'm afraid this might be the end for Rich Rod, fair or not. I am now starting to think the Martin resignation was not a coincidence.
the documents that were not submitted are not required by the NCAA, they are documents required by U of M to make sure we are in compliance. Non-submission of logs does not equal an NCAA violation. All it does is make it more difficult for Michigan to prove that the countable hours were not exceeded.
"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures"
is voluntary only in the lightest sense of the word. At least when it comes to my experience regarding regulatory bodies and healthcare organizations, if the hammer comes and you cannot at least demonstrate good faith compliance, you are toast. A few things are needed.
1) A well-staffed compliance department
2) Effective enforcement schemes
3) Coming forth when you discover fraud or negligence within the system, voluntarily
I don't know how much these guidelines intersect with NCAA compliance. Just on its own, this probably wouldn't be a big deal but given the current investigation, this could be bad.
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
Compliance and coaches both f/d up. At some point, compliance must have known the reports that policy required weren't coming in. As Brian said, that point was way before anything came from the Freep.
What did compliance do to rectify the situation? If they contacted the coaches, and said, "Where are the forms," what was the coaches' response?
Which coach has ultimate responsibility to file the reports?
At the end of the day, the coaches have a big role to play. Either compliance didn't tell the coaches, the coaches didn't listen, or the coaches got lazy ... or the coaches didn't want to report what was really going on. Only the first of these relieves the coaches of responsibility.
This could be real bad and I don't know how anyone thinks otherwise.
People don't want to believe it. Honestly, we could be royally screwed. I am hoping it's not so, but... damn.
Looking at your listed possibilities re: coach responsibility, all but the last one would be considered incompetence, and the last one malevolence. The NCAA would be obligated to bring the hammer if the latter were shown to be true; if it was simply a matter of incompetence, then, as was stated before, the door is open. It's up to them to make an example, in that case.
The problem with trying to determine if the issue is a result of incompetence or malevolence is that usually you end up with a blame game, pointing fingers, and it's nigh impossible to tell. The NCAA may not be able to find out which is the case, so they would have to consider heavy punitive measures no matter what the truth may be.
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
Rats...that was my plan.
"...there's no excuse for the slander, but what's good for the goose is *still* good for the gander." -Dead Prez
There is a PDF link to the audit itself. It says that as of the date of the report (today) "regular season CARA forms (from 2008)still have not been submitted." The lack of basic documentation cannot be good for this program or RR given the allegations. Every other UM sports program that was audited was in compliance.
I just realized that I may have misread what you meant by "today". Apologies if I did.
Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.
The linked audit report is dated July 24, 2009, as is the management advisory memorandum. The statement released today says:
"The report also noted that this was an area of concern and University Audits sent a memo to the athletic department to correct it – which they did."
Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.
I feel bad for Brian having to play firefighter whilst the MSM pulls up anything and everything that could possibly shed even a ray of unfavorable light on our program. All while the uninformed masses take one glance at these headlines and turn it into OMG DICKROD SUX LOL and WHAT A DIRTBAG and MICHIGAN STILL HAS A D-1 PROGRAM I DIDNT REALIZE. sigh. Can it be next September yet?
"We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for."
-Malcolm Gladwell
It may not mean anything, but it's the exact sort of thing that will fire up the conspiracy rumor-mills to warp speed. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the internet-enabled public; the supposed absence of these reports is a vacuum, and pure, unadulterated shit will rush in to fill the void. As if the new rumors of firing weren't distraction enough for the coaching staff, this just adds more dynamite to the fire.
sigh.
Ahh, fun.
The timing of this is interesting. My question -- was the Freep's jihad based solely on complaints from ex-players and the interviews with the freshmen? Or were they tipped off about this issue, but couldn't publicize it because then the tipster would be exposed, so they went with the other angle?
Wanting something to be true does not make it true.
Given that the freep sought out players to talk about this issue, and that no players came forward unsolicited, I think the odds of the freep being tipped are above 50%
That's right, Dude. 100% certain.
I don't mean to go into tin foil hat territory here, but this also may lend some credence to the rumors that there was/is a lot of dissention in the athletic department over Rodriguez's hiring.
Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.
There should be NO speculation at this point about whether the Freep was tipped off.
They were not just tipped off, though: They were screamed at. Rosenberg positioned himself from Day One as the conduit between any anti-Rodriguez forces and Public Opinion.
And again, we have another "story" during the week of a Big Game as (to me) a pre-emptive strike in the event of any chance of a victory over OSU. The timing of these leaks has been what has kept me sequestered for an entire season in my basement posting bunker with a year's supply of Reynold's Wrap.
That being said, it is what it is.
unless this "leak" is found and booted, the Michigan coaching position will be subjected to media slander by the dissenters.
Bill Martin needs to clean house.
Boycott the Detroit Free Press! Do not click on any link to a freep article.
GO BLUE
... to describe the obsessive and sometimes appropriate study of that which lies beneath the surface of the everyday. I love that word.
As a matter of fact I like beer.