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The Auburn University men’s basketball program has been formally sanctioned by the NCAA for violations of ethical conduct stemming from a 2017 scheme in which Chuck Person, an associate head coach, provided cash payments and other gifts to student athletes.
According to details of the case shared in the NCAA ruling, Person accepted $91,500 in bribes from a financial adviser in exchange for arranging meetings with two NBA prospects playing for Auburn. Person arranged meetings with the adviser—who was cooperating with the FBI—and student athletes and their families to discuss financial services. Both athletes and their families were given cash payments and other gifts, which are impermissible benefits, per NCAA rules.
Person was fired by Auburn in 2017 after being indicted on federal charges.
“The associate head coach violated the trust of his student-athletes and their families,” the NCAA said in a Friday press release announcing the ruling. “Rather than protect them, he intentionally brought opportunists into the Auburn men’s basketball program and, using his influence, introduced them to the student-athletes and their families.”
The NCAA press release notes that athletic staffers “are prohibited from receiving benefits for facilitating or arranging a meeting between a student-athlete and an agent, financial advisor, or a representative of an agent or advisor. Athletics staff members are also prohibited from representing, directly or indirectly, individuals in the marketing of their athletics ability or reputation to an agency, and from accepting compensation for the representation.”
Person was also hit with a 10-year show-cause order, meaning “any NCAA member school employing him must restrict him from any athletically related duties unless it shows cause why the restrictions should not apply.”
The NCAA accepted a number of self-imposed punishments from Auburn and levied several others, stopping short of hitting the basketball program with a postseason ban this season.
The sanctions imposed by the NCAA include four years of probation, a fine of $5,000 plus 3 percent of the men’s basketball program budget, the loss of two scholarships during the probationary period and the disqualification of all team records in which ineligible student athletes competed.
Two other coaches were also reprimanded.
As part of the investigation, the NCAA also looked into allegations that an unnamed former Auburn assistant coach paid the tuition of a walk-on student athlete. Ultimately that violation could not be confirmed, but the former assistant coach refused to fully cooperate with the NCAA investigation, leading to a one-year show-cause order, among the other sanctions.
Bruce Pearl, the current Auburn head coach, was also hit with a two-game suspension. The ruling notes that Pearl violated his responsibility as Auburn’s head coach “because he did not adequately monitor the associate head coach and failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance,” which ultimately “allowed violations to go undetected.”
