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 'These are extremely serious charges' Minnesota president to talk with Haskins about allegations
Posted: Monday March 22, 1999 03:11 PM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof says he wants to talk to basketball coach Clem Haskins about allegations that Haskins gave cash to a former player before kicking him off the team. "I do want to talk to him myself because of the gravity of the allegations," Yudof said Sunday. "These are extremely serious charges. If there is any bright line in the NCAA rules, it's payments to athletes, but I don't know that Clem did it." Cash payments could bring severe NCAA penalties for Haskins as well as the basketball program. Haskins did not return several phone messages left for him Sunday. He has denied any knowledge of academic misconduct. Allegations by former player Russ Archambault, who made a verbal commitment in January to attend Montana State University, will become part of the overall investigation beginning Monday into academic fraud allegations in the men's basketball program, a university spokeswoman said. "I don't have any information about this claim," said Sandra Gardebring, vice president for institutional relations at the university. "We will treat it like all the other claims and turn it over to the team investigating the charges. They will interview all witnesses and gather related evidence." The university has hired a Minneapolis lawyer and the Kansas law firm of Bond, Schoeneck and King to investigate. Archambault told the Star Tribune on Saturday that Haskins gave him cash -- $200 to $300 at a time -- while he was a member of the team from 1996 through February of 1998, when he was dismissed by Haskins for leaving his hotel after curfew the night before a Big Ten game at Illinois. Archambault said he specifically remembered receiving two payments during the Christmas seasons of 1996 and 1997. One of those occasions was confirmed in part by his former tutor Jeanne Payer, who said she drove Archambault to a Twin Cities mall after he told her he received one of the payments. Payer is a sister of Jan Gangelhoff, whose claims that she wrote papers and did course work for at least 20 current and former Golden Gopher players triggered an investigation into academic fraud at the university. Payer said Saturday that she also helped with course work for three Gophers players. Archambault's mother, Charlotte, of Fort Yates, N.D., confirmed that her son bought her jeans and boots for Christmas in 1997. She said her son didn't say where he got the money, but she learned recently about alleged payments from Haskins. Archambault, 22, is attending Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation near Rapid City, S.D.
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