Revised Reporting Process for Level II Secondary Violations
January 2006
After completing the first summer under the new Level I / Level II secondary infractions reporting process, it is clear that the new reporting process did not work as well as was expected.
There were numerous problems with the annual reports of Level II secondary violations. The main problematic areas involved:
In addition, the response rate for those institutions submitting annual Level II reports was lower than expected. Only approximately 67 percent of Division I institutions, 27 percent of Division II institutions, and 24 percent of Division III institutions submitted annual Level II reports. These percentages included those institutions that submitted a reporting form indicating they had no Level II violations. Given the amount of education and information that was provided regarding the new process and self-reporting in general, the percentage of institutions submitting annual reports of Level II violations was expected to have been much higher, especially among Division II and III institutions.
Even with the less than expected receipt of Level II reports this summer, the secondary infractions staff was overwhelmed in trying to stay on top of the tracking and reviewing of the reports. Further, many institutions and conferences complained that the new secondary infractions reporting process was confusing and that they were not comfortable ?holding? reports of Level II violations for up to one year before submitting them to the enforcement staff.
As a result of these factors, a change has been made to the Level II secondary violation reporting process: Level II violations continue to be processed by institutions and/or their conferences, but instead of holding Level II violations and submitting a Level II violations report to the enforcement staff on an annual basis, Level II violations will be submitted to the institution?s conference and/or enforcement staff as they occur and are discovered. If the conference reviews and processes Level II reports, the conference should submit the reports to the enforcement staff at least once every three months. If the institution?s conference does not review and process Level II violations, then the institution should submit Level II violations directly to the enforcement staff as those violations occur and are discovered.
The staff will continue to review the Level II violations as they are submitted, but no formal processing of these reports will occur. In addition, Level II violations still will not require institutions to seek reinstatement of eligibility for any involved prospective or enrolled student-athletes, as all Level II violations are considered to be de minimis or restitution violations.
Currently, the NCAA national office IT staff is creating an electronic reporting system that will allow institutions and conferences to submit waiver requests, student-athlete reinstatement requests and self-reports of secondary violations electronically via the NCAA Web site. The system for allowing electronic submission of secondary violations was scheduled to be up and running around the beginning of the 2006 calendar year. However, due to some technical difficulties and other issues, that date now has been pushed back to October 2006. Once implemented, the electronic reporting system will allow institutions to submit violation reports electronically to conference offices, and for conference offices to submit reports electronically to the enforcement staff. Accordingly, conferences may still require their institutions to submit Level II violations to the conference office. Those conferences that process Level II violations should not hold Level II violations for more than three months before submitting the violations to the NCAA enforcement staff. Conferences that do not process Level II violations should instruct their institutions to submit Level II violations to the enforcement staff as they occur and are discovered.
Even though the electronic reporting option will not be available until October, these changes to the reporting process are effective immediately.
Things to remember about the new process:
1. Level II violations are still violations for which institutions are responsible.
2. The definitions of secondary and major violations still apply, and violations designated as Level II
secondary violations could be considered major under certain circumstances. In addition, multiple
Level II violations could be taken together and considered major.
3. It is the institution's responsibility to ensure that it is processing only Level II violations under the new
process and that the violations do not affect eligibility.
4. You will want to check the secondary infractions Web site often to make sure some violation has not
been changed from a Level II to a Level I, or vice versa, or that other changes have not taken place.
Institutions should check with their conference offices to determine whether their conference is requiring a specific reporting procedure. For example, some conferences may require their member institutions to report all violations (both Level I and Level II) to the conference office as the violations occur. The conference office would then forward the Level II violations reports to the enforcement staff on the institutions' behalf at least once every three months. Other conferences may require that Level II violations be reported to the conference, and that the conference be copied on Level I violation reports. Still other conference offices may require only that they be copied on Level I reports, as well as the Level II violations reports.
| Level I Violations | Level II Violations |
| Division I | Division I |
| Division II | Division II |
| Division III | Division III |
| Optional Reporting Form (RTF**) | Reporting Form for Level II Violations (RTF**) |
Please continue to check this Web site for more information regarding the secondary infractions reporting process.
** Rich Text Format (RTF) files can be used in most word-processing programs.
© The National Collegiate Athletic Association