Kansas Director of Athletics Lew Perkins Comments
April 21, 2006
Kansas Director of Athletics Lew Perkins Comments:
When I arrived at KU – even BEFORE I arrived here – Chancellor Hemenway was EMPHATIC in his directive to me that the athletics department should operate in compliance with NCAA rules. I support the Chancellor’s goals in this area, and I appreciate his unwavering support as we took steps to build a strong compliance department.
Last summer I sat here and told you that nothing is more important to me than winning. But winning is more than numbers on a scoreboard. Winning entails academic integrity, compliance with the rules, and an unyielding commitment to excellence.
As I said then, we will not win at the expense of the University, and we will not win at the expense of our student-athletes. I know the Chancellor feels the same way, and that is why we ordered an independent audit of our compliance efforts as soon as I arrived here at Kansas.
At that time, we also began to reshape the Kansas athletics department. We restructured the staff and hired new compliance personnel.
The NCAA’s response contains all the violations we reported to the NCAA last July, except a basketball issue that was resolved during this past season, and the issue of institutional control.
Since we have worked closely with the NCAA throughout this process, nothing in these pages surprises us. Rather, it serves to reinforce our commitment to doing things the right way. We never again want to hear the words ‘lack of appropriate institutional control’ and ‘Kansas’ in the same sentence.
I want to review with you some of the corrective measures we have taken in the past two-and-a-half years:
• We have provided additional rules education for all of our coaches.
• We have sent an in-depth compliance guide, to be updated and distributed annually, to all representatives of KU’s athletics interests, reminding them of NCAA rules and regulations.
• We have restructured the academic advising office to centralize responsibility for academic support for all prospective and enrolled student-athletes.
• We have hired a new Associate Athletics Director for Compliance, and we have increased our compliance staff by two full-time positions. We also have budgeted for two additional full-time compliance positions in the next academic year.
• We have contracted with an outside firm to perform annual athletics department-wide compliance reviews.
• We have included a comprehensive compliance and monitoring program in our strategic plan. We are committed to winning within the spirit and the letter of NCAA rules. We will play by the rules. Our university, our student-athletes and our fans deserve nothing less.
