It seems the UConn athletic department has been lax in its oversight of Jim Calhoun's summer basketball camp.
The Hartford Courant reports that Calhoun's contract allows officials from the school’s athletic department to audit his camp and requires Calhoun to offer up logs of who gets free tickets, the school has never done either.
The NCAA is investigating allegations of violations in the men’s basketball program, including 26 impermissible complimentary admissions to high school basketball coaches and people affiliated with prospective players.
The Courant reports that the tickets went to well-known AAU coaches affiliated with players UConn was interested in. You can find more on who those tickets went to, on the Courant's Web site.
The athletic department is being questioned about its oversight of the basketball program. The investigation has also brought up questions about whether UConn coaches had improper contact with Nate Miles, who participated in Calhoun’s summer camp in 2007, the Courant reports.
Calhoun's contract requires that he to "maintain a list or log of names of individuals who have received all complimentary and purchased admissions issued to Coach for each home, away and post-season athletic events," the newspaper reports.
The Courant reports that Calhoun has repeatedly refused the paper's request for ticket logs, but he addressed the tickets issue on Tuesday night at a charity event in Southington.
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"There are three major areas I give tickets to. I give tickets to my family, which makes up the lion's share. The second group I give tickets to is friends. The third — we have, occasionally, additional tickets — I would give to an assistant coach. But I'm responsible for all those things. In the final analysis, they're my tickets, (even) if I give them to you and I don't check who you give them to," Calhoun said.
Calhoun’s contract allows him to conduct a private camp for elite players, but specifically says that in accordance with NCAA rules, he agrees to "submit for University audit, all relevant financial and payroll records from any basketball camp or clinic in which prospective student-athletes, as defined by NCAA regulations, participate and in which the coach is a majority owner or operator."
School officials told the Courant that no audit was done in 2007 or 2008, the only years that Calhoun ran the camp.
