NCAA hits LIU athletics with three-year probation following report into widespread student-athlete eligibility violations
The report called the violations extensive in nature and said the school failed to monitor its eligibility certification process.
Long Island University allowed more than 1,000 student-athletes to compete or practice while ineligible to do so, a newly released report from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) found.
The investigation determined that the school improperly certified hundreds of student-athletes in over 30 sports between the 2020-21 and 2023-24 academic years.
In total, initial eligibility certifications for 240 student-athletes were not completed before they practiced and of those, 176 impermissibly received benefits.
An additional 658 student-athletes competed and 111 practiced without having the required forms.
The report found the violations occurred mainly following the 2020-21 merger between Long Island University-Brooklyn and Long Island University-Post, which left one compliance staff member responsible for managing eligibility for 35 sports.
The NCAA also found that the athletics department was split between two locations, resulting in communications inefficiencies between coaches and compliance staff about team rosters, that the school did not have a formal process in place to certify initial eligibility and that there were no checks and balances because no university departments outside of athletics were involved in student-athletes' eligibility statuses.
The report came the same week the softball team won its second consecutive NEC regular-season title, two months after the men's basketball team made it to the big dance and six months after the football team made history by defeating Eastern Michigan for the program's first-ever FBS win.
According to the report, Long Island University self-reported the issues back in the summer of 2024.
The school and NCAA agreed to several penalties including three years of probation, vacation of team and individual records in sports in which ineligible players competed during the four years, including baseball, football, men's basketball, men’s golf, men’s soccer, softball, men’s indoor and outfield track and field, women’s indoor and outdoor track and field, and women’s volleyball, a $30,000 fine plus 3% of the budgets for the four highest-budgeted sports programs involved in the violations and a two-week ban on all recruiting for each sport during the first year of probation.
The probationary period does not include a ban on the postseason or television appearances, according to the NCAA report.
According to the university, the penalties will have no impact on the men's basketball team making the tournament, the softball team winning back-to-back regular season conference titles or the football team's first FBS win last fall because they fall within the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, which were not under review.
A university spokesperson provided News 12 with the following statement:
"Long Island University identified these eligibility certification matters through its compliance systems during a routine, university-wide review and promptly self-reported them to the NCAA. The issues date back several years and occurred during a period of operational disruption amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA recognized the University’s collaborative approach throughout the review, and we worked closely with the NCAA while fully cooperating at every stage of the process. LIU maintains a strong, institution-wide culture of compliance. LIU’s current athletic compliance leadership and staff bring decades of Division I experience and are supported by comprehensive oversight systems. We are confident in our compliance structure and remain fully committed to operating with integrity and in full compliance with NCAA standards.”
