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 Loan rangers Dayton waiting for NCAA to assess degree of violations
Posted: Monday May 31, 1999 06:12 PM
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The University of Dayton expects to learn in the next few weeks whether the NCAA considers the violations uncovered in its basketball program to be major offenses. The NCAA's enforcement staff will let the university know whether personal loans that a Dayton trustee gave to the father of a top recruit amounted to a major infraction. If so, the university faces probation, loss of scholarships and the loss of recruit Brooks Hall, a 6-foot-6 guard from Troy. If the enforcement staff decides that the loans were a minor violation, the program could receive little punishment. "Once we receive some official indication of their view and their response to our self-report, we'll know how to proceed further," said university attorney John Hart. Hall has said he was unaware that his father, Chuck, had financial dealings with trustee Clayton Mathile, who is chairman of the board of the Iams Co. Mathile said he loaned money to Chuck Hall last summer to help him qualify for a mortgage. The loans are among several business dealings that Chuck Hall has had with Dayton boosters and trustees since his son began narrowing his choices of colleges last year, the Dayton Daily News reported Sunday. The newspaper said that Miami County auto title records show that Chuck Hall leased a new truck for his son from Frank Z Chevrolet last May. The dealership is near the school's campus, has four front-row seats for Flyer basketball games and advertises in game programs. Brooks Hall began driving the truck two months before he announced his intention to attend Dayton, the newspaper said. Frank Z general manager John Johnson told the newspaper that he had no knowledge of his dealership leasing a vehicle to the Halls and he could find no record of such a transaction. Johnson suggested that another dealer, who didn't have the truck that Hall wanted, got the vehicle from Frank Z in a trade and leased it. Chuck Hall declined comment. Hart said the truck was "not an issue in the university inquiry." Mathile made personal loans to Chuck Hall last summer to help him take care of bills so he could qualify for a mortgage from a bank, Mathile told the newspaper. He said he didn't realize the loans were improper at the time. The mortgage came from KeyBank, where Dayton trustee Mervyn Alphonso is the district president. Alphonso declined comment. Mathile said he began having doubts about the propriety of the personal loans and informed the university, prompting an internal investigation last fall. KeyBank also granted Chuck Hall a second mortgage to help him repay the personal loans to Mathile before the university submitted its report to the NCAA, the newspaper said. On Dec. 17, Dayton sent a report to the NCAA admitting to two violations: an improper loan from Mathile and impermissible contact between a booster and the family of a recruit. The school characterized the infractions as "inadvertent."
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