The official in charge of football recruiting for the University of Colorado during the events that set off a recruiting scandal broke his long silence Thursday, saying money for football camps run by ex-head coach Gary Barnett was handled properly and that a new claim about rigged drug tests is inconceivable.
“Gary always had the university’s best interest in mind and the players’ best interest in mind and the team’s best interest in mind,” said Brian McNeely, CU’s former football recruiting coordinator.
McNeely spoke in the hours before Barnett was forced out of his job. He said he was prompted to speak after seeing his name in an anonymous letter that surfaced this week, accusing him of “numerous questionable recruiting moves directed by Barnett.”
Written to a private detective hired by an independent commission formed by CU in 2004, the letter offered a litany of allegations, including misuse of money by the football camps that McNeely helped administer, intimidation of witnesses, no consequences for star players who acted up and questionable payments to coaches.
The detective, Steven Snyder, received the letter in October and forwarded it to CU president Hank Brown.
Brown said Thursday that he thought it was nothing new and handed the letter over to attorneys to include in their records. “It’s something that’s 3 or 4 years old and has been investigated three or four times,” Brown said. “The person who passed it on is anonymous and not willing to come forward and give evidence. It makes it a challenge.”
Though McNeely is featured in the beginning of the letter, he said he has not been contacted by Snyder or by CU’s attorneys. He said he had been unaware of the letter until Thursday.
McNeely dismissed the claims it made that mentioned events that occurred during his tenure. McNeely left in January 2002.
“A lot of the information that’s been alluded to has a small amount of truth in terms of a time and place, but is off in fact,” McNeely said.
A good example, he said, was that it was true recruits were taken to a Nuggets game and shown a luxury box as part of a larger tour of the Pepsi Center. But the few minutes spent in the box was not an untoward party in a private setting meant to lure the teens to sign.
Many of the letter’s claims were familiar. But there were some surprises.
“Random drug tests that are not random,” the letter said. “Players are often added to the ‘list.”‘
McNeely said it would be impossible for CU to alert players that the tests were coming.
His account of the tests, largely verified by an NCAA contractor, is that the department’s trainer is called by testers less than 48 hours prior to their arrival and told that they will be on campus.
The testers decide which players to test. McNeely said the players are required to be tested within hours.
But Baine Kerr, a lawyer representing a former CU student in a stalled-out lawsuit blaming CU for two alleged sexual assaults in 2001, said the list of allegations may indicate NCAA rules violations or even new hope for the civil action.
One claim of interest to Kerr was the charge that Barnett “intimidated” his former secretary “to change her story” in a deposition.
If U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn’s ruling stopping the lawsuit’s progress was “based on false testimony, that’s extremely important,” Kerr said.
The secretary, Jane Ankney, formerly Jane Barry, called the letter’s claim about her sworn statements a lie.
“That person is a coward,” Ankney said. “If they want to make accusations, have the courage … (to) sign their name to the letter.”
Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-820-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
