Washington Coach Rick Neuheisel Says He Was In Gambling Pool

AP via ESPN ^ | Associated Press

[John W]

SEATTLE -- Washington Huskies football coach Rick Neuheisel admits he participated in an NCAA basketball tournament gambling pool the past two years, The Seattle Times reported Thursday.

Two NCAA investigators and one from the Pac-10 Conference questioned Neuheisel on Wednesday after receiving a tip that he put up $5,000 and won about $20,000 by picking Maryland in an auction-format pool on the men's basketball tournament in 2002, the newspaper reported.

NCAA officials would not discuss the probe.

The NCAA manual specifies that coaches, staff members and athletes may not knowingly "solicit or accept a bet on any intercollegiate competition for any item (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) that has tangible value."

Emerging from a meeting with the investigators, Neuheisel acknowledged that his college coaching career could be on the line.

"I never in my wildest dreams imagined I was doing anything to jeopardize my employment," he said. "I don't think I would ever put myself in that situation knowingly, but I'm hopeful I can be the coach at Washington. I'd certainly like to be."

Huskies athletic director Barbara Hedges said she learned of Neuheisel's involvement in the betting pool late Wednesday and promised "a careful review of all the facts."

"Gambling is a serious violation of NCAA rules," Hedges said. "You can't minimize this. The university will take this very seriously."

Neuheisel said he was part of a four-member "team" that had the overall winner in both years he participated in what he described as a pizza-and-beer gathering. Neuheisel said his group split its winnings but would not discuss dollar amounts.

Under the auction format, participants bid on each team and the highest bid gets that team in the tournament.

"I was there (at the auction) really because most of these people were buddies of mine from my neighborhood," Neuheisel said. "Their kids went to the same school as my kids and I was an invitee ...

"Obviously, it's become a point of contention, but I never imagined that I was doing anything wrong, because we weren't dealing with bookies or lines or anything like that.

"We were just friends, like we were betting on golf holes. It seemed pretty harmless."

He would not discuss the dollar figures.

"I was fortunate to be on a winning team, but the money was of no consequence. It really made no difference," he said. "I was just there to share some social time with some guys in the neighborhood, golf buddies and so forth ... all guys I thought were friends."

Neuheisel, 42, has a 33-15 record in four seasons with the Huskies. Under a six-year contract extension he signed in September, he makes $1.2 million a year, and a five-year option could keep him at Washington until 2013.

The kind of pool Neuheisel described is not against state law unless a bookmaker is involved, but NCAA rules forbid any form of gambling on college sports by athletes and coaching staff.

Institutions can be sanctioned in such cases if violations were known to college officials or if the NCAA finds they should have known.

"There are a lot of questions and we don't have a lot of answers," Hedges said.

"In hindsight, Rick realizes he should have known," she said. "It's clear that gambling is prohibited on any kind of college sports regardless of what the circumstances are. I do believe Rick should have understood the situation. He just didn't relate it to the particular social situation he was in.

"Rick was forthcoming. That is to his credit."

NCAA measures to combat gambling by coaches, players and staff include preseason talks by consortium officials to athletes, locker room posters and efforts to deny credentials to cover major NCAA events to newspapers that publish gambling point spreads.

Many college athletic departments ban even ordinary, small-change tournament brackets that are commonly filled out in offices nationwide during so-called "March Madness."

"If an athlete or coach put $1 in a pool, certainly there would not be a significant penalty," said Bill Saum, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities. "If there is a significant amount of money in the pool, there would be a significant penalty."

The Times reported that the NCAA investigators also questioned Neuheisel about two potential minor violations.

The most recent was in February, when he issued a statement through the university denying he had been interviewed for the San Francisco 49ers head-coaching vacancy -- then admitted he had in fact been interviewed.

Thursday is the deadline for the Huskies to report to the NCAA that Neuheisel has fulfilled all compliance requirements concerning 50 minor violations that were committed while he was coach at Colorado from 1995-98.

As the last requirement on the list, Neuheisel attended a regular NCAA compliance seminar Wednesday with athletic department officials from many schools.

[NittanyLion]

How does a football coach betting on basketball games do that?

How does he/she exert influence? Campus athletics is a tightly knit community. In a former life I was in a position to know things about other varsity teams I could never act upon. Doing so would be akin to insider trading.

While in most cases I'd agree there would be no way to influence athletes/coaches in another sport, avenues to do so exist. Without strict controls these avenues would certainly be exploited, and if they were the integrity of college athletics would be on the level of, say, The New York Times.

The role of the NCAA, first and foremost, has to be to protect that sanctity and integrity.

[shotgun]

A pretty blonde woman from the U of W is driving down a country road near Pullman in her new sports car when something goes wrong with the car and it breaks down.

Luckily, she happens to be near a farmhouse. She goes up to the farmhouse and knocks on the door. When the farmer answers, she says to him, "Oh, it's Sunday night and my car broke down! I don't know what to do! Can I stay here for the night until tomorrow when I can get some help?

"Well," drawls the farmer, "you can stay here, but I don't want you messin' with my sons Jed and Luke, they are studying for their finals over at WSU.

She looks through the screen door and sees two young men standing behind the farmer. She judges them to be in the early twenties. "Okay," she says.

After they have gone to bed for the night the woman begins to think about the two Cougs in the room next to her. They are not too bright it seems, but they are so handsome. So she quietly goes into their room and says, "Boys, how would you like for me to teach you the ways of the world?"

They say, "Huh?"

She says, "The only thing is, I don't want to get pregnant, so you have to wear these rubbers." She puts them on the boys, and the three of them go at it all night long.

Four years later Jed and Luke are sitting on the front porch,rocking back and forth. Thinking about their day off from the new McDonald's in Colfax.

Jed says, "Luke?"

Luke says, "Yeah, Jed?"

Jed says, "You remember that blond woman that came by here about four years ago and showed us the ways of the world?" "Yeah," says Luke, "I remember."

"Well, do you care if she gets pregnant?" asks Jed.

"Nope," says Luke, "I reckon not."

"Me, neither," says Jed, "Let's take these things off."

[eeman]

you must be a UW alum, GO DAWGS.

Do you know how to get a WSU grad off your porch? Tell him you didn't order the pizza.

[bray]

New-Weasel and BJ clinton were separted at birth. A perfect role model for the mutts. Here's hoping for a long marriage between the two.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREGON!!!

Pray for GW and America

[eeman]

.....all dirt roads lead to Pullman!

Since I now live in Spokane (which in itself is a great city) I can say with great authority that there are one ____-of-alot-of dirt roads arond here, not all of them (just most) lead to Pullman. This thread has given me more mud to sling at the WSU alum around here

[eeman]

He does recruit well, even when he does it legitimately. I suppose that the cloud of trouble that follows him distracts from coaching

[shotgun]

Go th http://www.huskyfan.com and visit their WAZZU joke board. They also have all the scores and stats needed to shut up any coug, duck, beaver....

[eeman]

cool, thanks

[Drango]

Yeah thanks...I've got the band's tequila playing right now...

[husky ed]

Bow down to Washington

[Drango]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/134908041_blai05.html

---

Blaine Newnham / Times associate editor
NCAA might give Hedges no option but to fire Neuheisel

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What if it had been one of Washington's players caught wagering in a high-stakes pool on the NCAA men's basketball championships?

Instead of its coach.

The player, even though he hadn't paid attention when counseled about the dangers of gambling, even though the pool had nothing to do with illegal gambling, even though he played football and not basketball, would lose his eligibility.

Rick Neuheisel is about to lose his.

The NCAA will make a big deal out of this even if many, including Neuheisel, is shocked that it is.

Jack Sikma, the former Sonics great, said he also was involved in the neighborhood auction pool on the 2002 NCAA basketball tournament.

"It was a kind of office pool, just another way to go about it," Sikma said. "I don't think any of us thought it was inappropriate. We were just having fun.

"I'm totally stunned. I hate to see Rick hurt by something like this."

He will be.

The NCAA is more concerned about gambling in college athletics than it is about recruiting violations. Its punishments have been swift and harsh.

A year ago, Florida basketball player Teddy Dupay was declared ineligible for his final season for gambling on college sports.

A year before that, an assistant football coach was fired and suspended from college coaching for two years after he repeatedly gambled $200 to $300 on college and pro games.

A head coach such as Neuheisel, and especially someone already under NCAA sanctions, will be treated at least as sternly.

You can understand Sikma's confusion, and his compassion for a friend. When does an office pool become something sinister? It isn't illegal in this state, it isn't run by the mob. It's just rich guys having fun.

But when the money bet on a team is in the thousands, which it apparently was, when one college coach bets on another college team, when inside information could be important, when players could be influenced, then the NCAA gets involved big time.

To his credit, Neuheisel didn't try to sidestep the issue. Or lie about it. Yesterday, he admitted involvement in the pool in 2002 and again this year.

But the latter came after the NCAA had sanctioned him and his university president had told him to walk the straight and narrow.

Even his boss, athletic director Barbara Hedges, admitted last night that he should have known the NCAA rules, which don't differentiate between organized gambling and an office pool.

"You can't minimize this," Hedges said. "The university will take this seriously. I do believe Rick should have understood the rules. He just didn't relate them to the particular situation he was in."

It shouldn't have escaped Neuheisel that there is no office pool in the UW athletic department for NCAA basketball tournaments.

Hedges might not have to decide whether this is the straw that breaks her coach's back, the culmination of problems that began in Colorado and embarrassingly followed him at Washington.

The NCAA may give her no option but to find a new coach. Washington can't conduct a program with a coach who is suspended for a season or two. Or would want to, given Neuheisel's regrettable track record.

For many, the casual betting among friends is less embarrassing to the university than Neuheisel's decision earlier this year to lie about his interview with the San Francisco 49ers.

But it all adds up, from the beginning when he didn't understand the rules about when he could and couldn't recruit athletes, to what may well be the end, when he didn't realize that he shouldn't be gambling on college sports.

He was more thoughtless than arrogant about the rules this time, but the stakes got so much higher when gambling was involved.

Hedges said all Neuheisel had to do was ask for an interpretation if he was confused about rules. He never asked about gambling.

Neuheisel seemed perfect for college coaching, his ability to relate to kids, his passion for the game and all that surrounded it.

In the end, one mistake might take him down, but it was an attitude, an arrogance, that put him in the position to take the fall.

What will Hedges do?

She seems to have no choice but to fire Neuheisel, and, at this late date, move to either replace him with offensive coordinator Keith Gilbertson, who has head-coaching experience, or go after another link to the past, Gary Pinkel, the Missouri coach.

If she doesn't act, the NCAA will.

[Sonny M]

Under the auction format, participants bid on each team and the highest bid gets that team in the tournament.

Help me out here, how does this kind of pool work exactley? I'm used to the old fashioned, a bunch of names in a hat and you pick one out, or some kind of draw on teams and stuff.

[Drango]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/134918287_history06.html

UW Football
Odds don't look good for UW coach

By Les Carpenter
Seattle Times staff reporter

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The warnings are everywhere — on posters, in newsletters. The NCAA floods its member institutions with information about gambling, pleading with each school's compliance directors to let their coaches know anything that involves betting and sports is forbidden.

Some conferences, like the Ivy League, actually create Web sites with "tips" for their athletic departments. The dominant element of the Ivy League's tips page for this past March was an illustration of a basketball tournament bracket with a slash drawn through it and the screaming headline, "Don't Bet on it!"

Underneath, in big, dark letters, were listed the forms of gambling banned by the NCAA. Included was the phrase, "No sports 'pools.' "

"I think when it comes to (athletic department) staff, it's dealt with even more seriously by virtue of the fact they are the adults," said Jeff Howard, an NCAA spokesman.

In the past six years, the NCAA has investigated 17 cases in which athletic-department staff members have gambled in one form or another. Most were small-time bets, with only one in the neighborhood of the $20,000 that Washington coach Rick Neuheisel and three partners are alleged to have won on an NCAA tournament pool last year.

And in that similar case, resolved last year, a sports-marketing director at a college resigned after it was revealed that he ran a $25,000 "NFL Survivor Pool."

But the punishments were just as severe for coaches who risked far less money.

In 2000, McNeese State football coach Kirby Bruchhaus resigned after the school began investigating $200 and $300 bets he supposedly made on football. Bruchhaus denied the allegations but quit anyway.

That year, the NCAA cracked down on an unpaid volunteer assistant tennis coach at Indiana State whose $10 bets on sporting events over a five-month period totaled about $300. The NCAA suspended him for two years.

That could make Neuheisel's problems even worse. Not only might he lose his job at Washington, but he might not be allowed to find another position in college football for years.

"The rules around gambling are pretty clear, and the NCAA finds that any form of gambling is something that can lead to hurting the integrity of the game," Howard said.

In 13 of the 17 cases the NCAA investigated, the participants were either suspended or forced to leave their jobs. For instance, an assistant coach at a Division III school who bet $300 on professional baseball and football games was suspended for half of the next season. A women's soccer coach who made a $10 bet with a student assistant on another team was given a one-month suspension and one-year probation.

Most college employees who were reported to the NCAA for taking part in tournament pools got off lightly, usually with one- or two-day suspensions and letters of reprimand. Of course, those were pools that had $1 or $5 entry fees, not like the pool in which Neuheisel allegedly bid $5,000 for Maryland.

"We feel there isn't a need to gamble around the NCAA basketball tournament," Howard said. "It doesn't make it any more fun once you put money down on it."

[Guillermo]

It seems the rules are repeated often. There is no way he could claim ignorance.

[husky ed]

Isn't there some guy still living in the Seattle area, that has coached for the major collage's? And won a National Championship?

Bab's "The USC Beotch" Hedges, should see if she could find someone like him.

[RinaseaofDs]

I have to say that Nebrasks fans are the more polite, most gracious people to grace a stadium.

You guys give a standing ovation to the opposing team as they leave, even if you've clobbered them 70 - 0.

Nebraska = Class Act

[RinaseaofDs]

I think the guy is smarmy too, but he's a good coach. He's been to the Rose Bowl twice in four years, and won one. He's gone bowling every year he's been here.

There was one season, the one before last season, where the UW won something like 6 come from behind wins, many in the last drive. The clock management and execution was something I have yet to see since. It was incredible. His teams found ways to win. That's a hard thing to coach, but he manages it.

I really do think he's a good coach, but he's so arrogant that in the end he'll be a liability that may lead UW back into jail with the NCAA and the PAC 10

[Drango]

Nebraska = Class Act

This thread is going down hill fast....

True story: I was at a Nebraska/Cal football game in Berkeley. (I know, I know, this is before I was boycotting Berkeley)

In anycase, we wanted to go out to dinner after the game but we were concerned that the local restaurants might be full as there was a large Nebraska contingent. (Nice and well behaved).Well, as we walked down the main drag some were and some weren't. All the Burger Kinks/McDonalds were full. All the really good, ethnic, and well rated restaurants were empty! These people had flown in to one of the top culinary areas in the country and they were eating fast food!

Nebraska has no taste in food! None. Zippo. Squatro. Zilch.

[j_tull]

I hear there is a former "Moo U" football coach available after running in to a buzz saw at the "Tide".

LOL! Imagine the weeping from the Husky faithful if Hedges hired Mike Price!

[eeman]

I was at the Rose Bowl in January 2001 and he coached a very complete game, although Purdue, while a worthy opponent, it was not like playing Miami. Nevertheless, the PAC-10 that year was an extremely competetive conference with all or most of the PAC-10 teams dominating their bowl games. Thus for UW to win the conference that year speaks highly of Neuheisel.

Nevertheless, he is aquiring too much baggage and I think will be let go.