College Notes: Abuses alleged at Grambling

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Grambling State violated its own rules in awarding scholarships and cannot account for over $100,000 in football tickets and athletic department expenditures, a state audit shows.

The report by the legislative auditor, released Monday, also detailed the illegal use of a university credit card by the son of Grambling's former athletic director and thefts of air conditioners and computers.

The audit comes days after football coach Eddie Robinson was granted a final season so he could try to leave on a winning note. Robinson, 77, college football's career victory leader with 405, is coming off consecutive losing seasons for the first time ever.

It also follows the admission to NCAA investigators that quarterback Michael Kornblau took part in an illegal tryout for Robinson. Further complicating matters are an NCAA investigation into other possible rules violations, reports of improper grade changes for athletes, and the arrest of four football players and a former player accused of raping a teen-age girl.

In response to the audit, university officials said corrective action was being taken in all of the cited areas and the school was cooperating with investigators in probes of the criminal allegations.

The report was based on a review of Grambling records for the 1995-96 fiscal year, which ended June 30. Among the findings:

* Eleven scholarships were granted under two programs to students who either did not meet the minimum grade-point average or were not supported by a recommendation letter from their high school principals.

* The university cannot fully account for unsold tickets, totaling about $62,000, for the 1995 Red River game Arkansas-Pine Bluff. In addition, the university could not account for $58,117 in game-related expenses.

* In the fall of 1995, a school gasoline credit card was used to illegally charge $5,290 of gasoline, alcohol, tobacco and other products. The credit card was issued to then-athletic director Fred Hobdy and was stolen by his son, an employee in the university's physical plant department, the report said.

* CORNHUSKER ARRESTED: A drunken driving arrest has brought an early end to the career of another Nebraska football player. Starting wide receiver Jon Vedral was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and negligent driving early Sunday near downtown Lincoln. Vedral apparently drove his vehicle into a curb twice. "We will suspend him and he will not play in the bowl game or make the trip to the Orange Bowl," coach Tom Osborne said. The Dec. 31 bowl game against Virginia Tech would have been the senior's last game.

* MICHIGAN PLAYER ACCUSED: A University of Michigan football player, accused of beating his mother's ex-husband with a baseball bat, was ordered to stand trial on charges of assault with intent to murder. Charles Winters originally was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But District Judge Deborah Lewis Langston ordered Monday that Winters stand trial on the more serious charge, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Winters, 22, a senior defensive back, is accused of attacking Horace Davis, 42, on Nov. 12. According to testimony during Winters' preliminary hearing, he allegedly knocked Davis down with the bat and then struck him another five or six times.

* VIRGINIA TECH PLAYERS CHARGED: Two Virginia Tech football players were arrested and charged with raping a woman in an investigation that attorneys for the players said was a witch hunt by local police. Starting fullback Brian Edmonds and reserve wide receiver James Crawford were charged with one count each of rape and attempted sodomy, Blacksburg police chief Bill Brown said Monday. Brown said the charges stemmed from a woman's claim that she was raped early Saturday in a Blacksburg apartment, then treated for minor injuries at the Montgomery County hospital.