"It’s a Game of Spiraling Costs, So a College Tosses Out Football"

Strauss, Ben and Zach Schonbrun. "It’s a Game of Spiraling Costs, So a College Tosses Out Football." N.Y. Times. December 2, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/sports/ncaafootball/uab-cancels-football-program-citing-fiscal-realities.html

High time that happened at SUNY. What is a "sport" wherein people give each other brain damage while cutting classes and exams doing at an institution of higher learning, anyway? Why, for that matter, does the corrupt organization known as the NCAA still exist? Report violations to them, they pretend to be receptive initially (see below) but ultimately they just ignore everything.

From: "Matha, Kristen"

To: [Chris Philippo]

Date: September 20, 2012 at 10:55:18 AM EDT

Subject: NCAA Committee on Infractions: submitting information about possible violations?

Mr. Philippo,

I received your email regarding the process for submitting information about possible violations. You may contact our Call Center to at 317-917-6008 to report the information. You may remain confidential or anonymous in your reporting.

Thank you,

Kristen Matha

Associate Director of Enforcement

National Collegiate Athletic Association

317/917-6967 (office)

317/917-6040 (fax)

A later e-mail, not the initial response:

From: Christopher Philippo [...]

Subject: SUNY, the American East Conference, gang rape by athletes

Date: July 13, 2013 11:47:43 AM EDT

To: "John S. Black" , Roscoe Howard , Gregory Sankey , Britton Banowsky , "Melissa L. Conboy" , James O'Fallon , Rodney Uphoff , "Dennis E. Thomas" , "Eleanor W. Myers" , Christopher Griffin , Kristen Matha , Allen Sack , Dave Ridpath , Jason Lanter , Joel Cormier , Amanda Paule-Koba , Sarah Stokowski , Gerry Gurney , Fritz Polite , Brian Porto Cc: Allen Sack , Dave Ridpath , Jason Lanter , Joel Cormier , Amanda Paule-Koba , Sarah Stokowski , Gerry Gurney , Fritz Polite , Brian Porto , Patricia Fahy , Neil Breslin , "Regina (MAC) Calcaterra" , Kathleen Rice , William Fitzpatrick , "Milton L. Williams Jr." , Richard Briffault , "Daniel J. Castleman" , "Derek P. Champagne" , Eric Corngold , Nancy Hoppock , David Javdan , "David R. Jones" , Lance Liebman , Joanne Mahoney , "Gerald F. Mollen" , "Makua W. Mutua" , Benito Romano , Kristy Sprague , "Peter L. Zimroth" , "Thomas P. Zugibe" , "lwvny@lwvny.org" , Danya Perry

Does the NCAA approve of university police not reporting athletes' gang rape to a district attorney ASAP? Of university police who fail to solve to disappearance of a student, and who receive an award for their failure? Of award-winning university police who manufacture drugs? Of university police who fail to maintain a sexual offender registry? Of university administrators threatening students who try to report crimes and armed university police backing those threats? [...]

"While six sexual assaults have been reported on the UAlbany campus since September, university police contacted Albany County District Attorney David Soares' office for only one - the alleged rape of a freshman woman by the three football players. In the five other cases, the victims declined to press charges. In the case involving the football players, the district attorney's office was called by a television station before receiving a call from the UAlbany police. […] After the forum, Wiley declined interview requests, saying he only conducts interview by e-mail. 'I've been misquoted in my time here. I have been the object of irresponsible, gotcha journalism,' he said. Wiley steered questions to his officers."

Crowley, Cathleen F. "Handling of rape case defended; UAlbany police chief says officers followed protocol in dealing with alleged assault." Albany Times Union. October 26, 2006: A1. http://albarchive.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=6365244 (emphasis added)

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Albany County Sheriff's Office, like N.Y. EDUC. LAW § 355 (2) (l) seems to require, might avoid the problem of SUNY PD choosing to ignore the DA's office's advice to contact the DA's office when they have a case, even prior to an arrest, something ex-athlete, ex-coach Wiley stated he'd never done in his (at that point) ten years there. If UAlbany had wanted to build stronger cases and provide better services to victims, they'd have been doing what the DA's office wanted them to do… but UAlbany wasn't interested in stronger cases or better services to victims.

No such MOU exists, naturally, even seven years after that case. UAlbany's failed to establish MOUs or agreements with other adjacent law enforcement agencies as well, but did make one with the UAlbany football team.

Are you familiar with SUNY Binghamton's problems in 2010? There's no reason to believe the problems wouldn't extend to other universities in the SUNY system.

UAlbany Police "Chief" J. "Frank" Wiley's an ex-coach, ex-athlete, football fan. When he was appointed directly to chief in 1996 he was reportedly a Baltimore, Maryland public schoolteacher, and Oberlin College had rejected his application for employment earlier that year (after their newspaper initially announcing he'd been hired). The previous chief had been forced to retire unwillingly in the wake of the notorious campus shooting by Ralph J. Tortorici. Mr. Wiley was a strange choice in light of that, but his sports connections might have made him seem a logical choice given that UAlbany was transitioning from Division III athletics to Division II around that time (with ambitions for Division I) and had also acquired the summer training camp of the NY Giants around that time too - for which the UAlbany police would be paid extra to do security. After Wiley was appointed (and failed to swear and file an Oath of Office with the NYS Secretary of State) he established a ride-along program for UAlbany football players. Hopefully no victims of rape were thereby visited by their rapists.

Wiley gave his Investigator Wendy Knoebel his "Chief's Award for Excellence" for her work in the year that student Suzanne Lyall disappeared; Wiley's police deleted the out-of-date, orphaned, page for the Lyall case where they'd had her name misspelled for years recently, despite the fact that she's still missing. Wiley later gave Knoebel the "Gall" [sic] award for excellence, named after SUNY Albany Peace Officer Lawrence E. Gaal who'd been shot in the line of duty and later died young of cancer.

Ms. Knoebel was more recently found to have a major area drug manufacturing operation and to have brought an unregistered Raven Arms "junk gun" on campus, for which she got a slap on the wrist. The firearms instructor Matthew Griffin who advised her to bring all her personal weapons on campus (in violation of SUNY policy if not also law) because he feared she'd use them at home in an emotional fit (evidently unconcerned she'd do the same on campus), and who'd removed her unregistered "junk gun" from her locker to his own home when she wanted it hidden while she was under investigation by the DEA and State Police, and then who violated policy by bringing it back on campus and logging it in as evidence despite his being an accomplice rather than surrendering it to police at his own home: he doesn't seem to have been censured, much less charged with anything.

When I was a student at UAlbany I reported an untenured visiting assistant professor in the Communication department for academic dishonesty and sexual harassment, among other things. It's one of the departments in which athletes cluster according to the Faculty Athletics Representative, who'd long been the chair of the Communication department. I also reported a student in that professor's class for egregious, obvious plagiarism and falsification of citations. The student had, among other things, plagiarized gibberish evidently compiled by a spambot that was posted on a blog. I was told the professor, his five teaching assistants, and the 160 or so other students who had access to that student's paper did not report it. I was told nothing would be done about the student unless I accused him face-to-face in a hearing, despite the evidence against him being his own paper to which 160+ people had access, and the plagiarism and falsification in it could be independently verified without my testimony. The student is an athlete, his parents both graduates of UAlbany. His father is a major donor to the athletics department, and his father's company co-sponsors UAlbany athletic events. I filed a FOIL request for donations to the athletics department and was told there weren't records of that, something the IRS I'm sure would find curious… as might the donors themselves. The father was among the few people SUNY Albany highlighted to help spur further donations for the new multi-sports arena, an arena which evidently was necessary to join more competitive athletics associations. [...]

UAlbany police should have only had one sexual offender registry, but instead they had two different, separate ones simultaneously online, both of them misinforming the public for years:

• Sexual Offender Registry #1 "© 2009 University at Albany"

"There are currently three (4) [sic] registered sex offenders enrolled or working at the University. The following Information has been released:" was followed by a list of six (6) offenders. Accessed: October 19, 2012 Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6BXAjbUOP Accessed: February 19, 2013 Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6EZ55k2vF (it still read © 2009 at that time)

• Sexual Offender Registry #2 No date (probably circa 2007-2008)

"There are currently two (2) registered sex offenders enrolled at the University. The following Information has been released:" was followed by a list of three (3) offenders. Accessed: October 19, 2012 Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6BXAsiiOT

http://police.albany.edu/2ColPage.asp?PageSName=SOR2 now redirects to UPD's homepage

There was an audit by the NYS Comptroller's Office in 2007 with a follow-up in 2009 http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093009/07s121.htm which found a number of problems, but it evidently failed to take note of the mismanagement of the sexual offender registry. The Registry gets referenced in the Clery Act Report http://police.albany.edu/ASR.pdf on page 53, the claim being there that it was being maintained - when clearly (the above archives) it was not being maintained properly. At least part of page 53 was not written for the report but was instead copied and pasted from the website: "The DCJS Sex Offender Registry site may be found on the web (See the link to the right)" (there's no link to the right in the PDF).

The Comptroller's Office thanked me for informing them of the non-compliance, but took no action on it as far as I know. I was informed on October 22, 2012, "We have provided the information you supplied with your email to staff in our State Government Accountability for their consideration with respect to future audit planning." The Registry continued to be dated 2009 until sometime after my last archive on February 19, 2013 when it was updated to 2013.

More details and a considerable amount of evidence are available, should you be as concerned about such things as I have been. Others have been contacted as well, naturally.

The silence in response amounts to a resounding yes.

Yes, the NCAA approves of university police not reporting athletes' gang rape to a district attorney ASAP.

Yes, the NCAA approves of university police who fail to solve to disappearance of a student, and who receive an award for their failure.

Yes, the NCAA approves of award-winning university police who manufacture drugs.

Yes, the NCAA approves of university police who fail to maintain a sexual offender registry.

Yes, the NCAA approves of university administrators threatening students who try to report crimes and armed university police backing those threats.

How else to explain the lack of response?