A major instance of academic fraud with the Syracuse University basketball program was the work of "rogue individuals," according to now former S.U. athletic director Daryl Gross.
Gross, who stepped down last week following an NCAA investigation into Syracuse athletics, spoke with WRVO News Tuesday.
The starkest case of academic cheating within S.U. basketball that the NCAA outlined in its report, involved regaining eligibility for a star player of the 2011-2012 Orange basketball team, undefeated at the time.
Gross called a meeting with several colleagues to discuss how to get FabMelo’s grades up so he could return to the court. The meeting was entirely in line with NCAA policy, Gross said, and he’s not going to apologize for convening it.
"What that meeting was, and a meeting that I would have done a thousand times over and over and over, was for information, education, compliance and transparency across the campus in an effort not to do something inappropriately," he said.
Gross and his staff decided it was best if Melo tried to improve his grade in a previous class by submitting additional work, which Gross says was also fully within the rules. Gross says two staff members within the department, a receptionist and the director of basketball operations, abused honest efforts to restore Melo’s eligibility.
According to the NCAA, those two staff members "provided text, research and citations included in the final paper submitted for credit."
Gross did not encourage the staffers to write Melo’s paper, he said, "so someone had to go rogue and do their own thing in order to do that and that’s unfortunate. And they got fired, they got fired. And they got fired years ago," said Gross.
The NCAA investigated several instances of rule breaking, academic fraud and inappropriate gifts given to players within primarily S.U.’s basketball program also football dating back to 2001. It handed down several penalties and sanctions earlier this month.
But Gross says the portrayal that the athletics department "did not control and monitor its athletics programs," is completely false.
"You’re trying to paint this picture that this was some kind of out of control program, which it wasn’t," he said.
Twelve days after the NCAA’s report was released, the university announced Gross would be stepping down as athletic director, a post he held for a decade. Gross has moved into a position as a special assistant to the chancellor and professor in the school’s sports management program.
Discussions with the chancellor about the new role, according to Gross, were mutual and collaborative and he was not a fall guy.
"All I would tell you is that’s just speculative and everyone has their opinion, obviously," he said about comments he was forced out.
Gross oversaw a rise in success and prominence for several sports programs at Syracuse, such as men’s soccer and field hockey. He also moved the school into the Atlantic Coast Conference from the Big East, which brought in more revenue to athletics.
"We’ve done some amazing things and we’ve had some extraordinary changes and incredible successes," he said.
Gross says for now, his new position allows him to "look at the university from another lens," but he wouldn’t rule out becoming an athletic director again someplace else, saying "life always has opportunity to it and so we'll always be open to various things in life."
