LUBBOCK — Texas Tech filed a report with the NCAA over the summer admitting violations of a ban on text-messaging recruits in three sports — football, men’s golf and softball.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports that Tech athletic director Gerald Myers referred most questions to Brian Shannon, Tech’s faculty representative who has communicated with NCAA and Big 12 Conference officials on the case.

Shannon told the newspaper that violations were uncovered last February by Tech’s athletic compliance staff in a routine review of phone records. He said that after an internal investigation, Tech sent a report to the NCAA and the Big 12 in July that included self-imposed penalties.

He said he hasn’t been given a time frame for the resolution. “We reported it. We imposed some self-imposed penalties. Most of those have already been served,” Shannon said.
Tech imposed its own penalties in football that included giving up one scholarship for 2010 and reducing the number of campus visits to four fewer recruits than the program’s average over the last four years.

He said “comparable” sanctions had also been imposed on men’s golf and softball. He said each team would give up a fraction of one scholarship and “some limitation or reduction in official paid visits in both.”

The NCAA could accept Tech’s self-imposed punishment or add sanctions.
Shannon said the violations involved two coaches in men’s golf, three former coaches in softball and “quite a few” football coaches, which he estimated to be about 10.
“I don’t know what the NCAA is ultimately going to conclude on this,” said Shannon, a Tech law professor.

Text-messaging recruits was banned in August 2007 after high-school students complained that text messages from college coaches cost them personal time and money because of increased cell-phone charges.

Shannon said nearly all the football coaches involved no longer work for Tech. From former Tech coach Mike Leach’s staff, offensive line coach Matt Moore was the only on-field assistant new Tech coach Tommy Tuberville retained. Shannon said he believed Moore had sent “about four” text messages after the ban. Tuberville was hired Jan. 9. “I told him that this was ongoing,” Myers said. “I don’t know exactly when I told him. I told him early, though. He didn’t seem to be bothered by it.”

The NCAA limits campus visits to 56 recruits per year. Tech had been averaging 44 visitors a year the last four years, Shannon said, and volunteered to cap visits at 40 for the recruiting year that just ended this week. “I think the intent was to show that this was a reduction,” Shannon said.

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