LSU found guilty of major violation, gets year probation
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The NCAA accepted LSU's self-imposed reduction of two scholarships, as well as a 10 percent reduction in official visits and reductions in recruiting calls. The reduction in visits, which LSU already began during the 2010-11 academic year, also applies to 2011-12.
McCarthy resigned in December 2009. Hicks never played for the Tigers before he left LSU.
The violations reported in the case also included more than 3,600 phone calls that three non-coaching staff members either made to or received from high school coaches and administrators, prospects and family members of prospective students.
LSU has said those calls were clerical and resulted from a misinterpretation of NCAA rules.
NCAA Committee on Infractions chairman Dennis Thomas said LSU's violations were considered "major." He stressed that punishment could have been more severe if not for the efforts of LSU's compliance department.
He pointed specifically to senior associate athletic director Miriam Segar, who became suspicious of Hicks' living arrangements from the time he arrived in Baton Rouge.
According to an earlier LSU report on the matter, Segar spent weeks pressing for answers and made the decision to bar Hicks from traveling to LSU's 2009 season-opening game at Washington because she was unsatisfied with the information she had received.
"That was critical," said Thomas, who is also the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. "If that had not been done, the institution could have really been under more severe and serious penalties as well."
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