The Sun Devils' five-time national champion baseball team will endure a three-year probation and a one-year postseason ban for violations that took place during former head coach Pat Murphy's tenure. Murphy, meanwhile, will need a permission slip for his next job.
Arizona State's laundry list of infractions includes "using impermissible recruiters, excessive phone calls, exceeding coaching staff limits and paying players for work not performed" at Murphy's own organization. It also details unethical player recruitment, the misuse of student managers, and the use of a privately owned athletics training facility on campus — a value of $60,000.
In addition to the NCAA's ruling, Arizona State has self-imposed a few punishments: the baseball team loses two scholarship a year and will relinquish its 44 wins from the 2007 season, which included the university's 20th run in the College World Series.
Murphy, who recorded 629 wins over 15 seasons with Arizona State before leaving in November 2009 in the midst of the investigations, was hit with a required "show-cause" for his next job. Any school interested in hiring him will have to convince the infractions committee that he is deserving of the position, and he'll probably have to fill out a lot of paperwork. In addition, he will not be permitted to call prospective athletes, and he has to attend one of NCAA's rule seminars — at his own expense. Someone better tell this guy about ZipCar! But all of those punishments are kind of irrelevant, anyways, because Murphy is currently an employee with the San Diego Padres.
The NCAA-sanctioned punishment was especially harsh because the football team was cited for violations in 2005, which — under the five-year rule — makes the university a repeat offender. ASU has already made clear that it plans to appeal the decision, on the grounds that some of the infractions were secondary, not major. If they fail, Kendall Rogers explains, the Committee on Infractions will "waive the transfer rule...[and] juniors and seniors could transfer and be immediately eligible elsewhere," which would certainly hurt the team's postseason chances anyway.
Arizona State has released a statement on its webpage, although it looks something like a long lost poorly-processed fax from 1992. The university seems to consider the postseason ban ruling to be the most unfair, as it "punishes many student athletes and coaches who were not involved in the rules violations" and argues that the NCAA's ruling "ignores the fact that it was ASU that first investigated and reported most of these violations."
There is no mention of Pat Murphy. He has released his own statement on his personal website.
The NCAA's full 55-page report is available for download here.
NCAA Bans Arizona State From 2011 Postseason [Baseball America]
Arizona State Violations Outlined and Reaction [College Baseball Daily]
[H/T Brian for the NCAA report]