HOUSTON (AP) — The NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee has upheld a three-year show-cause order for former Texas Southern football coach Johnnie Cole.
Cole was given the order for failing to promote an atmosphere for compliance and the order prohibits him from all on- and off-campus recruiting activities until October 2015. He contested that finding, but the committee found that the information in the record was enough to uphold the finding of the violation.
The appeal came after the Division I Infractions Committee determined on October 2012 that the school allowed 129 student-athletes in 13 sports in seven academic years to compete and receive financial aid and travel expenses while ineligible. That report found that Cole knowingly allowed a booster to recruit for the program and that former men’s basketball coach Tony Harvey provided misleading information during the investigation.
The university was given five years of probation, scholarship limitations in football and basketball, and the vacating of all team records from 2006-10 in all sports, as well as the 2010-11 records for football and women’s soccer. In 2010, Texas Southern won its first Southwestern Athletic Conference football championship since 1968.
