April 30, 2007: The Lone Star Conference completed a compliance review conducted by Lori Ebihara, an outside consultant to the LSC and Jay Poerner, LSC assistant commissioner. According to this report, the compliance program at Eastern New Mexico University did not appear to be fully engaged and functioning. ENMU was encouraged to develop a formal compliance manual that addressed all areas of compliance, and to participate in the NCAA Compliance Blueprint Program. The review was sent to Mike Maguire.
July 16, 2007: Kayne Gutierrez was hired as compliance coordinator. Gutierrez says he was never provided a copy of the LSC compliance review.
Oct. 3, 2011: Lone Star Conference’s Jay Poerner notified ENMU that an LSC compliance review would be conducted on campus on Dec. 5, 2011. The compliance review notification requested material from the institution’s previous review and a list of all improvements the institution had to complete or progress made regarding all plans for enhancement based upon the recommendations from the institution’s previous review. ENMU could not locate the 2007 compliance review.
Dec. 5, 2011: LSC compliance review conducted by Mary Ellen Jones, assistant athletic director of Texas State University-San Marcos, and Jay Poerner.
March 22, 2012: ENMU receives the written review report. None of the written institutional responses requested in the 2007 review were provided by ENMU for this review. Some of the reviewer’s assessments acknowledge improvements. Despite these improvements, the 2011 review revealed numerous weaknesses in ENMU’s NCAA institutional compliance system, many of which were cited in the 2007 report.
May 2012: Compliance Coordinator Kayne Gutierrez resigned for reasons unrelated to student-athlete compliance issues.
June 4, 2012: Kristen Schmidt officially began her duties as compliance coordinator.
July 2012: Jay Poerner said on a conference call that the due date was approaching for the previous year’s (2011-2012) participation reports and squad list. Schmidt could not find the 2010-2011 templates to use as a guide with former athletes. A phone call to Jay Poerner revealed that no 2010-2011 reports had been turned in; 2011-2012 would be started from scratch, and the 2011-2012 squad lists that existed were incorrect.
August 2012: Schmidt finds that none of the certification reports were 100 percent accurate although Gutierrez told coaches that players were “good to go.”
Aug. 28, 2012: Student-athletes began being declared ineligible due to lack of certification in the NCAA Eligibility Center. Schmidt began the process of reinstatement. There was concern about electives and progress toward degree, so Linda Elliot, who oversaw athletic eligibility at West Texas A&M, was hired as a consultant.
Sept. 6, 2012: Linda Elliott came to ENMU and spent the day with Crystal Creekmore, Kristen Schmidt, and De Lynn Bargas. ENMU learned that it was not certifying student-athletes correctly and immediately started its own self-detection process. This prompted the review of all current student-athletes, starting with the Fall 2012 rosters.
September 2012-May 2013: Schmidt and Creekmore printed all the student-athletes’ academic information and went through each file to fill out the eligibility report correctly. During this massive audit, they found violations and immediately shut down student-athletes who did not meet eligibility requirements. Schmidt began student-athlete reinstatements.
July 2013: Schmidt and Creekmore completed summaries for all sports. There were 386 student-athletes reviewed who are on 2012-13 rosters. There were 113 of the 2012-2013 student-athletes with violations.
July 24, 2013: ENMU sends an Infractions Preliminary Report to the NCAA.