No Bowl Play For Huskies -- Sources Say Ban Will Last At Least One Year; Other Penalties Possible

SAN FRANCISCO - The University of Washington will not be able to go to any bowl games this season because of NCAA rules violations in its football program, the Pacific-10 Conference decided here yesterday.

The proposal that the conference presidents will vote to ratify this morning calls for a bowl ban of at least one year for the Huskies and may call for other penalties, conference sources told The Seattle Times.

Six of the nine presidents and chancellors, with Washington President William Gerberding abstaining, must agree to the penalty. They can adopt or amend the proposed sanctions, which may also include television restrictions and scholarship cuts.

The 30-member conference council of athletic administrators made the decision yesterday after eight hours of closed-door meetings at an airport hotel.

The university has also informed boosters Jim Kenyon, Jim Heckman, Roy Moore and Clint Mead that they have been dissasociated from the Washington athletic program because of NCAA rules violations, said attorneys for Kenyon and Mead.

Boosters who are disassociated cannot contribute money or participate in certain other Husky programs, such as offering summer jobs to athletes, Mead's attorney, Ron Neubauer, said UW assistant attorney general Mark Green informed him.

Jim Collier, university vice president of public affairs, refused comment except to say the boosters' status "might be discussed" on the presidents' conference call today.

The penalties are the toughest given to a Pac-10 football program since the University of Arizona was kept out of bowls and off television in 1983 and '84.

Bowl bans typically damage a program in terms of prestige and recruiting. For Washington, a school that until had last November billed itself a model program - and maintained that stance even as the Pac-10 announced its charges in June - the blow to its reputation would be no easy punishment.

Washington was accused by the conference of 24 violations, including one that served as an umbrella for several mini-violations stemming from the misuse of recruiting funds for on-campus visits by prospects. The sanctions are also the most severe handed to the Huskies since 1956, when a two-year bowl and two-year television ban went into effect for violations related to a booster-administered slush fund for players.

Improper booster payments were not among the violations in the recent report. But the evidence produced by conference and university investigators produced a picture in which boosters, if not always intentionally breaking the rules, made efforts to get around the rules to help the Huskies.

Among the most serious of these violations that Washington admitted to was a summer jobs program sponsored by Kenyon, a Los Angeles-area booster who has employed more than 50 Husky athletes since the 1970s. The conference and university agreed that athletes, including current running back Beno Bryant, were either paid for work that was not performed or were not given enough work to merit their salary.

In a letter addressed yesterday to Washington Athletic Director Barbara Hedges, an attorney for Kenyon chastised the university for "once again trying to avoid responsibility for its own acts." He accused the upper administration of trying to scapegoat the boosters in order make itself look good.

"If any rules violations occurred, the university bears much of the blame for failling to give proper guidance to people like Jim who were sincerely trying to help student-athletes," Patrick Walsh wrote in the letter.

Herb Mead, a Seattle-area booster, was accused by the conference of six recruiting violations but all one were dismissed by the conference Compliance and Enforcement Committee that reviewed the case two weeks ago, Neubauer said. Mead escaped being disassociated because the one violation that stuck was minor, an improper contact with then-recruit D'Marco Farr when Farr was in high school.

However, Mead's son, Clint, 26, was found guilty of two recruiting violations - including the allegation that Clint promised recruit Johnnie Morton that his father would adopt him if he signed with Washington.

Roy Moore was cited for lining up an improper high-school job for quarterback Billy Joe Hobert at his Sea-Tac golf course. Heckman, son-in-law of Don James and a business associate of Mead, was also cited for recruiting abuses.

However, the strength of the penalty indicates that the conference held the school responsible for some violations.

Washington specifically admitted a "lack of institutional control" over its handling of recruiting funds for on-campus visits, in which player hosts allegedly kept money and turned in false expense forms. No effective system to monitor the abuse was in place, the school acknowledged.

Financially, a bowl ban would have little effect on Washington. The conference shares all excess bowl revenues 10 ways. The Huskies would still be entitled to their share of the $6.5 million Rose Bowl payout, which netted each school $550,000 last year.