Monday, June 24, 1996

Bockrath warns that Tech allegations may ring true

By Associated Press

DALLAS - In leaving Texas Tech, athletic director Bob Bockrath has warned his Lubbock colleagues against complacency amid allegations of improprieties in the Red Raiders' athletics programs.

"I don't know that those allegations are all false," said Bockrath, who left office Friday to become Alabama's athletic director.

Bockrath was commenting to The Dallas Morning News in the wake of a report that a former Tech football player had told the NCAA that a Tech assistant coach and an academic counselor helped him cheat on a college correspondence course.

According to the report Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle, Stephen Gaines, a 6-foot-3, 300-pound defensive lineman who started for Tech in 1992 and 1993, said the assistance helped him get credit for a course from Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God in Lakeland, Fla.

"I hope all of them are proven false," Bockrath said of the allegations. "It has the potential to be a significant setback for the (Tech athletic) program. If the allegations are proven true, I would expect there will be some penalties."

According to the Chronicle, Gaines also has told NCAA investigators of Red Raiders head coach Spike Dykes' efforts to get him enrolled in a junior college free of charge in January 1992. Gaines needed academic credits at Navarro College in Corsicana before he could regain eligibility at Tech.

However, Bob McElroy, Navarro College football coach and athletic director at the time, told the Chronicle that he recruited Gaines on his own after hearing that the player had lost his eligibility at Tech.

The NCAA notified Tech in late February of an official inquiry into the Red Raiders football and men's basketball programs. The outcome of those investigations are expected late this year or early next year.

Other allegations include improper recruiting, improper benefits for scholarship athletes and improper inducements dating to 1991.

T. Jones, Tech athletic director at the time the improprieties are alleged to have occurred, said he fully expects Tech to be vindicated.

"I'd be surprised if it went any other way," he told The Morning News.

Just in case, Tech officials have hired a law firm in the Kansas City, Mo. area, where the NCAA is located, to conduct a parallel investigation.

Bockrath's interim successor at Tech, Gerald Myers, said the university is confident of its position.
"People read allegations in the papers and accept that as the truth, but all of those allegations are not accurate," said Myers, a former Tech men's basketball coach.

However, Bockrath expressed concern that university administrators are not showing graver concern over the allegations.

"I have not sensed a real feeling of despair or concern. It hasn't set in as strong as it might, I guess, if it continues to build," he said.

"If it (the NCAA investigation) was the total focus of everybody here, I think it would be quite different in terms of how the people have reacted to it," he said. "They're conscious of it, but it's just kind of calm now."

Robert Sweazy, Tech faculty athletics representative, expresses just how calm.
"If in fact violations occurred, I'm confident they weren't purposeful and will not have been severe in nature," he said.