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Changes could come for NCAA: Cottrell suit may alter how investigations are pursued in future

The Associated Press
July 27, 2005

TUSCALOOSA | The NCAA may change its way of conducting investigations following a nasty court fight and $30 million verdict linked to its probe of the Alabama football program.

Mark Jones, former enforcement director of the sanctioning body, said there’s “a good chance” the NCAA will no longer use confidential witnesses to the extent it used them in a 2002 infractions case against Alabama.

Former Alabama assistant coach Ronnie Cottrell won a $30 million defamation verdict last week against Tom Culpepper, a recruiting analyst who was used as a secret witness in the NCAA’s probe of rules violations by the Crimson Tide.

Jones, who left the NCAA in 2004 after 18 years to advise schools on infractions issues, said his office “felt comfortable” using information from Culpepper to buttress allegations against Alabama.

“Whether the enforcement staff will ever do that again, in light of what happened here, there’s probably a good chance they would not,” he told The Birmingham News in a story Tuesday. “It’s very possible you won’t see confidential witnesses try to be used again.”

Jones, a defense witness at the trial, said the NCAA report on Alabama did not include anything from Culpepper related to Cottrell. Still, Culpepper’s private cooperation with the NCAA was exposed by subpoenaed evidence and sworn testimony in the Cottrell case.

Alabama law professor Gene Marsh, who led the school’s defense in the infractions case and now serves as chairman of the NCAA Committee on Infractions, said the verdict against Culpepper could have a “chilling effect” on people who aren’t connected with schools talking to NCAA investigators.

“It’s likely that people who look at this case from a distance would be less inclined to talk to the NCAA, unless they have to,” said Marsh.

A judge dismissed the NCAA as a defendant in the Cottrell lawsuit, but lawyers for the former coach have said they would appeal. Culpepper also plans to appeal the verdict.