Provost Laurel Wilkening appointed Attorney Michael Glazier Dec. 15 to investigate allegations of rules infractions in the University of Washington football program and the athletics department.
Glazier, a member of the Bond, Schoeneck and King law firm based in a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., is a nationally known specialist in NCAA and conference infractions and compliance matters. During his review, Glazier will hold the rank of special state assistant attorney general.
The special counsel was named after a series of allegations against the UW program broke Nov. 3 with a Seattle Times article detailing a $50,000 loan to Quarterback Billy Joe Hobert. The loan from Idaho nuclear engineer Charles Rice, who was neither an alumnus nor a UW contributor, violated NCAA rules.
UW Athletic Director Barbara Hedges suspended Hobert on Nov. 10 after conducting an internal investigation of the affair. Hobert, a junior, has since made himself eligible for the professional football draft.
Following the Hobert episode, a UW football player and three former UW athletes were arrested Nov. 23 on felony drug charges. Reserve Linebacker Danianke Smith was charged with four counts of cocaine delivery and one count of marijuana delivery.
Former basketball Forward Doug Meekins was charged with four counts of cocaine delivery. Former Hurdler Bernard Ellison was charged with two counts of cocaine delivery, and former football player James Goodwin with one count of cocaine delivery.
According to police reports, Goodwin and Smith were also involved in attempts to obtain and sell “assault rifles and machine guns.” Federal authorities were investigating the gun transactions. Several of the drug transactions allegedly took place in Smith’s dormitory room in the Husky crew house, according to police records.
All four athletes pleaded innocent at a hearing held Nov. 30 in King County Superior Court. These criminal charges are outside the scope of the Glazier and Pac-10 investigations.
Then on Dec. 9 the Los Angeles Times broke a story alleging UW boosters engaged in a long-standing practice of providing Husky football players with thousands of dollars and other benefits that violate NCAA regulations, including summer jobs that required little or no work.
The LA Times named California real estate developer James Kenyon, ’59, and Seattle businessman Herbert Mead, ’56, as boosters who broke the rules. Both men have denied the charges and questioned the credibility of the newspaper’s sources: former football players who were on the losing side of a lawsuit against the UW program.
None of the players interviewed by the LA Times said they believe Coach Don James had any knowledge of the alleged improper activities.
In the wake of the latest allegations, President William P. Gerberding asked Provost Laurel Wilkening to oversee an investigation. “It is incumbent upon this University to conduct a thorough and complete investigation of any and all potential rules infractions in the athletic department and the football program specifically,” Gerberding said in his letter to the provost.
“After years of relative immunity from the problems that plague intercollegiate athletics, we find ourselves face to face with very serious allegations. The University must get to the bottom of this matter, address whatever problems may exist, and insure the integrity of the program and the good name of the University,” he stated.
Glazier is expected to complete his investigation by June. He and his assistant, Richard Evrard, will work cooperatively with the Pac-10 Conference, which is conducting its own investigation.