Severity of violations show Tennessee was right to fire Donnie Tyndall
When Southern Mississippi released the notice of allegations it received from the NCAA on Friday evening, the severity of the violations allegedly committed by former coach Donnie Tyndall proved two things.
Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart did not do a good enough job vetting Tyndall before hiring him almost 16 months ago, but Vols officials made the correct decision acknowledging that mistake and firing him after just one season this past spring.
The most severe allegation against Tyndall asserts that he arranged fraudulent academic credit for seven prospective student athletes during his two-year tenure at Southern Miss from 2012-2014. That allegedly includes one instance in which Tyndall paid for the online courses himself.
Tyndall also allegedly provided thousands of dollars in cash and prepaid cards to help two players pay for their expenses associated with room and board. Lastly, the NCAA says Tyndall failed to cooperate with its investigation and went so far as to obstruct it by deleting pertinent emails and providing false or misleading information to enforcement staffers.
It won't be clear how severe a punishment Tyndall will receive until sometime next year because both he and Southern Mississippi must first respond to the Notice of Allegations and then appear in front of the NCAA's committee on infractions. Regardless, the looming threat of a lengthy suspension or worse would have made Tyndall susceptible to transfers and radioactive to recruits were he still the coach at Tennessee today.
Tyndall issued a statement to the Hattiesburg American on Friday evening in which he denied intentionally committing any violations but accepted responsibility for any that occurred under his watch.
“To the extent violations occurred, I wish I had prevented them, and I apologize to the Southern Miss community for any harm caused by violations that occurred," Tyndall said. “However, I did not knowingly violate NCAA rules, nor did I encourage or condone rules violations by anyone on the coaching staff. A fair review of the evidence will show that the allegations that I did so are simply wrong.”
It will be Tyndall's ability to refute the most severe of the allegations that will probably determine whether he will work again in college basketball anytime soon.
Todd Bozeman, Bruce Pearl and Kelvin Sampson are among the coaches who have bounced back from severe NCAA violations to eventually become head coaches again. Tyndall enjoyed enough success at Morehead State, Southern Mississippi and his lone year at Tennessee that another program may someday take a chance on him, but Morehead State also received probation and NCAA sanctions during his tenure.
That checkered history will not be easy to overcome.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
