Mizzou officials return from NCAA appeal hearing
Officials with the University of Missouri made their case on Thursday to an NCAA appeals committee over sanctions handed down earlier this year.
MU Athletics confirmed that the team, involving athletic director Jim Sterk and Chancellor Alexander Cartwright, traveled to Indianapolis this week for the hearing. The NCAA is headquartered in Indianapolis.
Sterk said that attorneys Mike Glaizer and Chris Griffin, along with university general counsel Steven Owens, helped make the argument in front of the panel to overturn sanctions for academic fraud. An NCAA committee banned MU football, softball and baseball from postseason play for the violations stemming from an academic tutor completing work for some athletes in those sports. MU appealed that decision, claiming the punishments did not fit the crime, and cited MU’s cooperation with the NCAA case.
“As I have stated since January, the penalties handed down to the University were unprecedented based upon past decisions, and we have been respectful and aggressive in our response since then,” Sterk said in an emailed statement. “We appreciated the opportunity and time the Appeals Committee has spent on our case and hope that they strongly take into account that the University was cited for exemplary cooperation from the NCAA Enforcement staff. I firmly believe that if these penalties are not overturned, it will have a chilling effect on future NCAA investigations by discouraging Universities to fully cooperate.”
It’s unclear when the NCAA appeals committee could make a decision on the case. If upheld, MU could lose millions of dollars due to the football postseason ban.
