NCAA Charging ASU For Lack Of "Institutional Control" (Very Interesting Trojan Twist)

From AZCentral.com:

The NCAA is accusing Arizona State University of at least one major rule violation for failing to maintain control of its baseball program, raising the chances that the school could be hit with severe sanctions.

That allegation and others follow an investigation by the NCAA into the baseball program and are being made while the university is on probation for major athletic violations four years ago. A second major infraction within the five-year probation could lead to sanctions that affect the entire athletic department.

The allegations by the National Collegiate Athletic Association are preliminary, and ASU will have several months to respond. ASU's case is not expected to go before the NCAA Committee on Infractions until June.

The Arizona Republic has learned that a "notice of allegations" was sent to university officials on Nov. 19, the day before university officials abruptly forced the resignation of baseball coach Pat Murphy. Murphy was the three-time reigning Pac-10 Coach of the Year.

At the time, ASU denied the resignation had anything to do with the NCAA investigation.

A portion of the notice obtained by The Republic shows that ASU is being accused of at least nine violations. A key one is that the university lacks "institutional control."

You can read rest of the report here. The most interesting angle to this story (besides the obvious elephant in the room which the NCAA seems to have been ignoring for years) for me is the athletic director for Arizona State. Her name is Lisa Love and guess where she arrived from to take the center stage in this mess (emphasis added):

Love, who becomes ASU’s 21st athletic director, will take over for Christine Wilkinson, who is a senior vice president for the university and had been serving as interim athletic director since April 8. Former athletic director Gene Smith left the university April 8 for a similar post at Ohio State University. Love will begin her new role on July 1.

Love has served as the senior associate athletics director at USC since 2002. She handles day-to-day supervision of eight sports – including women’s basketball, volleyball, tennis, and men’s and women’s swimming and diving – and monitors all women’s sports at the university. She is active in the department’s strategic planning, gender equity, civil rights and NCAA certification issues, and she serves on the NCAA Management Council. Love led a very successful volleyball program as USC’s Head Volleyball Coach. She also served two stints (1992-1993 and 2001-2002) as vice president of the Pac-10 Conference.

ASU President Michael Crow says Love brings qualities and experience that will carry ASU’s Athletic Department to championships and excellence.

Lisa Love is not the first former "Senior Associate Director" for USC athletics to get in trouble after taking over another athletic program in the Pac-10. Everyone here should know about former USC Associate Athletic Director Barbara Hedges. Under her shady "leadership" the Washington athletic department into a total mess resulting in the million dollar settlement with Rick Neuheisel (which pretty much exonerated CRN for the alleged violations stemming from March Madness pools). Looking from the outside one could raise serious questions whether Hedges' compliance staff had provided Neuehisel and other Washington coaches clear guidelines about the parameters of recruiting.

Anyway, Lisa Love now becomes at least the second major USC athletic official to get another major Pac-10 program in serious trouble. The story here speaks for itself. Doesn't it? They all must have had a great experience learning under Mike Garrett.

GO BRUINS.