NJCAA penalizes CC cross-country team

The Clarendon College men’s cross-country program has been placed on one-year probation by the National Junior College Athletic Association following a random audit.

CC President Dr. Robert Riza informed the Board of Regents about the penalty during last Thursday’s regular board meeting and said the problem was simply that the college’s former athletic director had “sloppy paperwork.”

Riza said the college received notice by the NJCAA three weeks ago that it would audit CC’s indoor track and field program. During the course of the audit, CC officials and the NJCAA discovered some problems with letters of intent signed by members of the men’s cross-country team, athletes who also participate in indoor track and field competitions.

“You are allowed a certain number of letters of intent,” Riza later told the Enterprise, “and, if one of those athletes ends up not coming here, you are allowed to release them and add another one. We’re allowed letters for ten men and ten women to run cross-country, and we had one or two too many.”

Probation for the cross-country men means they cannot participate in regional or national playoffs next fall and the number of scholarship positions CC can offer for that program is reduced from ten to six.

“We broke the rule, and we’re going to take the punishment,” Riza said. “This is just a situation where paperwork was sloppy.”

CC is already taking steps to make sure this problem never happens again, Riza said. A new full time athletic director, Brad Vanden Boogaard, is already in place, and he will be attending NJCAA training this summer. In addition, new eligibility checklist procedures are being implemented, and CC coaches will be receiving training also.

On a positive note, Riza told the board that more than 90 student athletes from Clarendon had been listed on the athletic director’s fall honor roll for having a 3.0 or higher GPA, and 11 of those students had 4.0 GPAs.

Riza updated regents on an employee survey which found that “meeting students’ needs” is the college’s top priority and that the maintenance and housekeeping staff ranked the highest in terms of friendliness and teamwork. The survey also gave low ranking for communications and collaboration between the administration and the faculty and staff, which he said he expected.

The president also reported meeting with representatives of Cielo Wind Energy and said the company is inquiring about tax relief – not a tax abatement – for its proposed wind farm in northwestern Donley County.

Riza also briefed the board on his plan to use some S3 grant funds to offer TSI testing in area high schools as a way to help lower the number of students needing developmental classes in college.

In other college business, the Board of Regents: approved proposals from four vendors to purchase nursing equipment totaling $56,974 as part of a Title III grant; extended a food services contract with Great Western Dining for three years; renewed a lease with the Donley County Industrial Foundation for property on West First Street for storage and welding classes; and ratified the resignation of men’s basketball coach Tony Starnes, the retirements of Sharon Hannon and Gene Denney, and the hiring of Roger Schustereit as Interim Dean of Instruction, Melvin Balogh to coach volleyball, Emily Palmore for testing, and Meriem St. Laurent for an assistant at the Pampa Center.