Alabama Head Coach Dennis Pursley Suspended For Rest of Regular Season

Alabama head coach Dennis Pursley was not present at his team’s senior day celebration win over Emory on Saturday, and will not travel to their regular-season-closing meet against Georgia next weekend, the university announced on Saturday.

The school didn’t specify the violations, but they did refer to them as “Level 3 violations,” which is the new term the NCAA sues for “secondary violations.” The new NCAA enforcement structure has four levels of violations, with I being the most significant, and IV being the most minor.

It defines Level III violations as “A violation that is isolated or limited in nature; provides no more than a minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage; and does not include more than a minimal impermissible benefit. Multiple Level IV violations may collectively be considered a Level III violation.”

The NCAA’s violations structure, as proposed in January of 2012, can be seen here for some context about what these violations could be. Examples given by the NCAA include “Assistant women’s basketball coach telephoned a PSA prior to April of the PSA’s junior year in high school” or “Football program had personalized nameplates of PSAs hanging in locker room during PSA’s official visit.”

Pursley is in his second year as the head coach of Alabama, after a worldwide career that included most recently as the head of British Swimming.

This raises the possibility that, barring a change in the status of head coach Jack Bauerle, neither head coach will be on deck for next Saturday’s season-closing dual between Alabama and Georgia in Athens.

Pursley, at least, will be expecting a return for the SEC Champioships that begin in late February.

 

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Don'tcrosstherivertoswimtheTIDE
10 years ago

These infractions can be extremely trivial. Coach Pursley should be reinstated without penalty. A warning would have served well. I have respect for Denny and his staff. Keep up the good work. Roll Tide!

10 years ago

Could someone kindly provide several SPECIFIC examples of a Level III violation?

completelyconquered
Reply to  Roger von Oech
10 years ago

Were the two examples in the article not enough?

Reply to  completelyconquered
10 years ago

The ones cited seemed trivial (and a bit goofy) to me. Also, it would have informative to know what the coach had ACTUALLY done to run afoul of the guidelines. On the face of it, a two-meet suspension SOUNDS serious, but I’m left to believe that the offenses were not that big of a deal.

completelyconquered
Reply to  Roger von Oech
10 years ago

I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to know what exactly happened. My guess would be that either Pursley or one of his assistants talked to a recruit before they were supposed to.

ChestRockwell
Reply to  Roger von Oech
10 years ago

He was caught playing Call of Duty with a recruit.

sam
10 years ago

Swim coaches seem to be getting into more trouble than football and basketball coaches these days.

Who woulda thunk?

P-Ditty
Reply to  sam
10 years ago

no just more honor than footballers.

Bythesea
10 years ago

Reliable rumors from within program state that pursley is getting off very easy for his infractions. Additionally this was a major rule that he blatantly broke this rule to benefit.

Snake man
10 years ago

So in the recent pass we have UGA, Zona, Alabama, UVA, UTAH, and Mizzou with head coach problems. Too many

Ben
Reply to  Snake man
10 years ago

Rules are rules, but this case doesn’t shake me as much as some of the other recent head coaching issues. Maybe I’m becoming desensitized to trouble is swimming, but the definition given in the write-up for the violation makes it seem like it was a small mistake and not a mistake that put the current swimmers in any danger.

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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