Notre Dame’s athletics division on Thursday banned its males’s swimming group for one yr for violating NCAA and the college’s sports activities playing guidelines.
The College of Notre Dame has suspended its males’s swimming group for a season after an investigation decided {that a} majority of the group’s swimmers participated in a rogue sports activities betting pool. Gamers on the group are free to switch in the course of the one-year ban. (Picture: Shutterstock)
An inner investigation led by a personal legislation agency concluded {that a} majority of the lads’s swimmers on the Combating Irish’s varsity group participated in an unlawful betting pool. Investigators decided that the group engaged in wagering amongst themselves, and generally wager on their particular person performances and meet outcomes.
As a way to be certain that this habits ends and to rebuild a tradition of dignity, respect, and exemplary conduct, we’ve got determined to droop the lads’s swimming program for at the very least one educational yr,” stated Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua.
The NCAA prohibits student-athletes from collaborating in sports activities betting, no matter whether or not it’s via authorized sportsbooks in regulated sports activities betting states or via an offshore operator. Faculty gamers are moreover banned from collaborating in betting swimming pools and different social betting actions like Tremendous Bowl squares.
There was no proof that any members of the ladies’s or diving groups partook within the betting.
Coaches Unaware
The Notre Dame probe didn’t flip up any proof that males’s swimming coach Chris Lindauer was conscious of the group’s betting actions. The investigators reported that nobody on Lindauer’s employees was additionally in on the sport.
“The evaluation discovered that the employees was not conscious of playing or the scope and extent of different troubling behaviors as a result of group members successfully hid such behaviors from the coaches and employees via concerted efforts,” Bevacqua stated. “In line with the evaluation, when the employees grew to become conscious of sure remoted incidents of unacceptable conduct, they handled them severely and professionally.”
Lindauer solely lately returned from Paris the place he was an assistant coach for USA Swimming and helped his Combating Irish swimmer Chris Guiliano win a gold medal as a part of the lads’s 400-meter freestyle relay group. The Notre Dame athletics division stated Guiliano was among the many minority on the Combating Irish group who didn’t have interaction within the betting ring.
Bevacqua grew to become Notre Dame’s athletics director in June 2023. He beforehand served as chair of NBC Sports activities and the CEO of the PGA of America
Expensive Final result
Notre Dame’s determination to ban its males’s swimming group for one yr comes with detrimental prices. The Combating Irish completed the 2023-24 season ranked eleventh within the nation and was anticipated to compete for a nationwide title this winter with seven incoming transfers.
With the group banned from competitors for a yr, NCAA guidelines enable gamers to switch out of Notre Dame. Nonetheless, any forthcoming suspension the NCAA locations on people for collaborating within the betting pool would comply with them to their new faculty.
The NCAA is reviewing Notre Dame’s males’s swimming ban and dealing with faculty officers to find out if particular participant suspensions are warranted.
“The nationwide workplace is conscious that Notre Dame has declared a number of student-athletes ineligible in mild of potential violations of sports activities betting guidelines,” an NCAA spokesperson instructed the media. “We proceed to work with the college because it determines what occurred. The NCAA doesn’t touch upon particular eligibility circumstances because of pupil privateness legal guidelines, and we’ve got no additional remark right now.”
