The NCAA announced violations by former Millersville coach Kyle Almoney, leading to probation for the program, a fine, and the vacation of records.
Almoney was the head women’s swimming & diving coach at Millersville from 2006 to 2018. According to the NCAA, Almoney offered a recruit a scholarship that included housing-related aid, but later found out that the prospect was not qualified to receive that aid. The student-athlete ultimately ended up $3,000 short of what Almoney had promised in scholarship money, and the NCAA says Almoney paid $3,000 to the athlete’s mother – an impermissible payment that violated NCAA rules and made the student-athlete ineligible.
You can read the full NCAA decision document here.
The NCAA says the student-athlete “participated in 39 dates of competition” while ineligible, and all of those records will be vacated. It’s unclear how long the student-athlete competed while ineligible, but the NCAA says the payment happened in August of 2016. Millersville went 3-2 in dual meets in 2016-2017, along with a 10th-place finish at the PSAC Championships.
Here are the punishments to Millersville due to the violation:
- A year of probation (through April 9, 2021)
- A $2500 fine
- A vacation of records in meets where the student-athlete competed while ineligible
- A three-year “show-cause” order for Almoney, meaning any school that hires him will have to show the NCAA why Almoney shouldn’t carry any restrictions with him
Also of note: the NCAA decision document says Almoney sent the $3000 via wire transfer from his club swim team. That’s notable because Almoney already settled a felony lawsuit in which he was accused of stealing from a swim club he started while at Millersville.
Almoney left Millersville in the fall of 2018, taking a head coaching job at Saint Francis University, also in Pennsylvania. But he was only there for a year before resigning, as news broke that he was being charged with the theft of nearly $40,000 from the Marauder Aquatic Club, which he founded while coaching the Millersville Marauders college program. Almoney later settled the case by repaying more than $37,000. He was accused of using club funds on a trip to Hawaii for him and his wife, going to bars, making Amazon purchases, and for “costs related to his position as the head coach of the Millersville University women’s swimming team.”
File this under episode 10,745 of the worlds stupidest criminals…..”Millersville went 3-2 in dual meets in 2016-2017, along with a 10th-place finish at the PSAC Championships.” I can hear the cheers in Kutztown, Juniata and Lock Haven today as this horrible wrong was righted. I have to quote Fifty Cent here “go big or go home.”
for the record https://millersvilleathletics.com/sports/womens-swimming-and-diving/schedule/2016-2017
Lock Haven will take it!
I think the word you wanted to use was vacating of records, not vacation of records.
Vacation is correct, as in “an act or an instance of vacating.”
It sounds a bit strange, but “vacation” of records is the specific term the NCAA used in its document, and is a correct word choice for ‘the act of vacating.’
GrammarGrammared
Jared, I’m the “incoming president” referenced in the NCAA document. Thank you for this accurate, insightful, and well written article.