OCC appeals sanctions
Orange Coast College has officially appealed sanctions by the state governing body for community college athletics that would ban all OCC sports teams from postseason competition in the 2016-17 academic year.
In a 10-page document signed by OCC President Dennis Harkins stating grounds for its appeal, OCC called the postseason ban unfair, unreasonable, inappropriate, unjustified and disproportionate. It also challenged an assertion of a lack of institutional oversight by OCC over its athletic program regarding the six violations cited behind the sanctions, dating back to 2009.
OCC also said the procedures by which the sanctions were handed down violated the school’s due process under the California Community College Athletic Assn. constitution and bylaws.
OCC said further that there was bias on the part of individuals within the CCCAA and the Orange Empire Conference that severely prejudiced the rights of OCC, its staff and its students.
Doug Bennett, OCC’s executive director of college advancement and the school’s spokesperson for this matter, said the school has been informed by CCCAA President Carlyle Carter that the process of hearing the appeal would begin no later than early April.
OCC continues to state that sanctions, as well as steps to avoid future violations, have already occurred involving all but one violation, in which two assistant football coaches provided improper benefits including $60 for a rent deposit, food, furniture and transportation. No sanction(s) for the football violations have been announced.
OCC fired one assistant football coach involved and Bennett said Tuesday that the second coach involved quit.
A footnote in OCC’s letter of appeal to the CCCAA included OCC’s suggestion that its football program be placed on probation for two years, and be banned from postseason competition for one season.
Representatives from the Orange Empire Conference and Southern California Football Assn. (which oversees only football), as well as the CCCAA have said there was a pattern of violations that showed a lack of institutional oversight over athletics by the school.
OCC’s appeal also stated that it may explore judicial options should its appeal not be resolved to its satisfaction.
