The external review into an abusive culture in the University of Maryland’s football program provided perhaps the most in-depth look yet at the athletic department’s payment for the legal representation of two football players being investigated for sexual misconduct.
The report details attempts by staffers, including current athletic director Damon Evans, to push the payment through by lying about its purpose.
The report also reveals that the university has retained an outside law firm through the attorney general’s office to look into “allegations of undue influence and/or pressure” from athletics officials over the course of the university’s sexual misconduct investigation.
The school ultimately found one of the athletes responsible, and the other not responsible. But both left the school in the aftermath.
[Read more: Following the investigation into Maryland football’s culture]
The report also said that the student who reported the assault was “affiliated with athletics,” something that university President Wallace Loh found particularly concerning.
“Dr. Loh found it disturbing that Mr. Anderson provided financial resources to the accused, while the complainant, who was also a student affiliated with the Athletics Department, was not provided with any assistance,” the report stated.
Loh would push Anderson — who signed off on the payment — out the door, the report stated, but only after allowing him a six-month sabbatical. He did this for fear of speculations linking Anderson’s departure to the basketball bribery scandal that’s still entangling the school.
But Loh told commission members that he regretted this in hindsight, stating “he wished he had moved sooner to change leadership.”
[Read more: DJ Durkin, Damon Evans, Wallace Loh attend Board of Regents meeting about Maryland football investigation]
The report, produced by an eight-member commission and overseen by the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents, was created to look into reports of a “toxic” culture in the football program after Jordan McNair died from heatstroke he suffered at a team workout. But it also painted a picture of an athletic department riddled with dysfunction.
Confusion about reporting structure among athletics staffers and Anderson’s “turf battles” with his No. 2 all contributed to an uncertain environment at the department, which wasn’t helped by Anderson’s six-month absence before his departure.
The sexual misconduct investigation into the two players, one of whom was ultimately found responsible, began in late June 2017 with an initial assessment from the school’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct.
Around then, Catherine Carroll, the office’s director at the time, met with Durkin and another athletics staffer to alert them to the allegations.
Once the office opted to conduct a full-fledged investigation, Anderson and other executive staff members met to discuss it. Several people in attendance told commissioners that, during this meeting, Evans recommended Anderson not get involved with the investigation, which Anderson denied.
The decision to hire the lawyer, Donald Jackson of The Sports Group, originated when the two players approached football coach DJ Durkin. The players specifically requesting Jackson, who’d worked with other Maryland athletes in the past, Durkin told the commissioners.
Loh described Durkin as relatively naive to the consequences of hiring the lawyer, calling him a “babe in the woods.”
The university’s internal report indicated that “either Mr. Anderson or Mr. Durkin, or both, ‘solicited and facilitated payment to a law firm to represent the accused players,’” the commission’s report stated.
The lawyer was ultimately paid $15,000 from the University of Maryland College Park Foundation’s donor funds. But the report found Jackson wasn’t given an engagement letter, which is required for the usage of those funds. The general counsel’s office wasn’t consulted on the decision, either, as is required.
“By all accounts, that protocol was not followed for Mr. Jackson’s representation of the two football players,” the report stated.
What followed were several attempts at “subterfuge” from athletics officials to hide the payment’s true purpose, the report said.
In August 2017, an assistant athletic director — who wasn’t named in the report — used his spouse’s personal email account to email Jackson and ask for an invoice. He requested “your fee for speaking at Maryland.”
Anderson told commissioners he didn’t know about this plan to misrepresent the invoice’s purpose until Evans asked him to authorize the payment, and that he rejected the payment.
The university’s internal investigation report said that upon receiving the request for the $15,000, a university employee flagged it for Evans, who then went to Loh.
“Upon receiving this information, the President instructed the former AD to end the relationship with the attorney, which the former AD attempted to do in an email to [Mr. Jackson],” the commission’s report said.
But, Jackson would continue working with the players. He would tell The Baltimore Sun it was because he felt a sense of duty to continue helping them.
The invoice was then adjusted to state that it was for an “eligibility consultation.” The NCAA typically permits universities to pay for legal consultations about athletes’ participation in school sports.
Evans told the commission Anderson instructed him to pay Jackson “as quickly as possible,” and the donor money was wired to his account in early September — a payment signed by Anderson, as well as two other athletics officials.
On Sept. 29, a school hearing found one of the football players responsible, and the other not responsible, but both would leave the university in the aftermath.
In late September 2017, Loh commissioned the general counsel’s office to investigate what happened, at which point he suspended Anderson with pay.
In October 2017, the university and Anderson reached an agreement: he’d go on a six-month sabbatical and resign at its conclusion, unless he could find another athletic director position in the interim.
The sabbatical, though, created a leadership void and “an atmosphere of uncertainty” in athletics, according to the report. A 2017 workplace survey indicated declining confidence in leadership, as staffers were unsure whether Anderson would return, and Evans was unsure whether he’d replace Anderson.
That added to existing issues concerning Anderson’s mismanagement of the department, which permitted many officials — including some in the football program — to operate with impunity, the report found.
