![Drury Swimming & Diving Head Coach Issued Public Reprimand by NCAA [Updated with Statement from Drury]](https://swimswam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/NCAAFlagsImage.jpg)
A “public reprimand” and “certain penalties” have been issued against Drury head coach Brian Reynolds for misconduct during the 2013 Division II Swimming and Diving Championships, the NCAA announced on Tuesday.
“The men’s and women’s swimming and diving committee was disappointed with the actions taken by the coach to include an ineligible student-athlete for consideration in selections to the championship,” said Marie Scovron, chair of the Division II Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Committee and associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at Florida Southern College. “We believe this behavior served to discredit the selection process of the championship.”
The Drury men and women are the dominant team in Division II swimming, and each won their respective National Championships this year.
The NCAA did not name a team, however there was one swimmer, Yuri Fernandes, who was originally entered in the 400 free relay when the lists were first released, and then no longer appeared on the revised lists after the meet was reseeded. That 400 free relay was then forced to be optionally entered. Fernandes is no longer listed on the Drury roster. We have asked for clarification from Drury if this swimmer was the relevant one for the infraction.
The relay ultimately was unhindered, as they swam a 2:55.26 and broke the Division II National Record. As quoted above from Ms. Scovron, however, the committee was concerned about the integrity of the selection process and any possible gamesmanship that could have been in play, or could be in play in the future in this situation, given the caps on the number of swimmers entered in the meet.
Updated with statement from Drury:
“When entering the 2013 NCAA-II Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships, Drury University inadvertently entered an ineligible student-athlete. When Drury University was notified of this mistake, our coaching staff immediately notified the NCAA-II Swimming and Diving Committee of the error. Unfortunately, the entry mistake [affected] the selection process and caused a re-selection of the meet. While Drury University regrets this mistake, we believe the intention of our coaching staff was not to deceive or influence the selection process to the NCAA-II Championships. We are working with our coaching staff to [ensure] that this mistake does not occur again.”
Drury people get over it! Take a good look at the roster. Foreign swimmers up the wazoo! Some way older than most. That in itself is not fair. If you think it doesn’t come down to Winning, you should wake up and at least recognize it for what it is. The buck stops at the coach, so all of you man up and let him take responsibility for his actions.
So all these detractors (haters) have nothing? Just doesn’t make sense to me to do it at all unless it was an error.
Maxim – nobody is answering your question, because your obviously one of these drury diehards who don’t want to hear it, given that your question was actually already answered in the comments you claim to have read through.
Potential benefits to entering this ineligible swimmer specifically include:
Keeping another team’s swimmer (and therefore potential scorer) out of the meet
Ensuring the top seed for the relay
There are other benefits that a team could gain from entering an ineligible swimmer in other situations as well.
my name says it all!!
Just got around to reading through this and the comments, and could someone explain to me what the advantage would be to entering an ineligible athlete? Not sure if I buy that there’s malice here, but some seem to think there was an agenda.
***Correction Jason Owen to Jason Hite…didn’t mean to switch those up.
Goodness this is all really ridiculous. Slap his hand and shake your heads. There are many many other things out there to worry about than a minor(human) mistake Brian might have made. I swam under Brian and I have also worked along side of him. He is one of the best coaches I have ever swam under or worked with. I transferred to Drury and it was by far the best decision I have ever made.
Brian does things by the book, no question about that. This year there were some changes in the Drury swim program a new assistant coach was just one of those changes. Anyone who knows Brian knows he tends to get a little side… Read more »
I’m pretty sure the overreactive defenses started before any questioning of morals ever began.
That escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand, fast!
🙂
It’s uncanny that so many Drury supporters are big swimswam.com fans. You’re right, too! They came in with the gratuitous praises even before anyone fired a salvo.
Well said Luke. Brian, Jason, and Richard are not only the highest quality of coaches but have the highest moral character. If you don’t know them personally, to question their morals is just absurd.