INDIANAPOLIS
Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson will not receive a $500,000 raise and his team will lose one scholarship for next season after violating NCAA-imposed sanctions on phone calls, the school announced Sunday.
It’s the second time in 17 months Sampson has been penalized for improper phone calls.
The NCAA banned him from off-campus recruiting for one year in May 2006 when the infractions committee ruled Sampson made 577 impermissible calls from 2000 to 2004 while at Oklahoma. As part of the penalty, Sampson also was banned from participating in three-way calls.
School officials said that while NCAA rules allow coaches to use three-way calling, the internal investigation showed Sampson violated the punishment handed down by the NCAA.
In a hastily arranged conference call with reporters Sunday, Sampson said he unknowingly participated in nine of 10 three-way calls a review found he was involved with during the 12-month period he had been sanctioned.
“It’s very disappointing,” Sampson said. “We’ve been dealing with sanctions from May 25 to May 25, and when it was over, we were confident that we had followed all of the rules other than one call. I was not aware the three-way calls were three-way calls other than one.”
