An Enforcer Can't Be Everyone's Friend

By Brandi Worley
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Joshua L. Halley Compliance coordinator Deborah Paul enters a list of graduating athletes to update the Southern University Athletics Department's graduation rate.

By Brandi Worley
Black College Wire

Running down the hallway. Sleeping on the desk. Cutting class. It happens. Young people sometimes say rules are made to be broken. But Deborah Paul, compliance coordinator for the Southern University Athletics Department, follows and knows every rule. It’s her job as an enforcer.

“It requires you to be a stickler to the rules, because if you break the rules you have to report it to the NCAA,” said Paul. “You have to read and interpret the rules. In some instances you have to tell coaches and students ‘no.’”

“You can’t come in and be everybody’s friend,” she said.

Paul’s job requires her to monitor recruiting, academic and support services; to ensure that students are not practicing more than 20 hours a week; and to send in NCAA records on time. The university must follow gender equity rules.

For example, if male athletes are allowed steak on the road, the women must be also. Or if the men travel in a luxury bus, so should the women. No one is to be wedged in a scruffy van all the time.

On the business side, Paul spends every Monday and Tuesday in meetings with the director of athletics, the associate director and coaches to review the week.

Outside Paul’s office hangs a flier listing the dates for class scheduling, and a several-page list, on an already-crowded bulletin board, with honor-student athletes. Paul, a Southern alumna and communications major, also monitors grades.

Upon graduation, athletes complete exit interviews evaluating their experience as a student athlete. The information helps guide future prospects.

Being athletic compliance coordinator is a tedious job that requires reporting to the NCAA regularly, lest the program risk probation or suspension.

In February, Florida A&M University Athletics was placed on four years' probation for violating more than 200 NCAA rules from 1998 to 2004, the student newspaper, the Famuan, reported. According to the report, the university replaced the compliance coordinator and four athletic advisers.

At the University of Colorado at Boulder, months of investigation resulted in allegations that alcohol and sex were used to recruit football players. Sexual assault allegations had been made by nine women against athletes since 1997, according to the university Web site.

“Quite often, she’ll have to tell a coach ‘no’,” said Athletic Director Greg LaFleur, speaking of Paul. “And from an athletic director's standpoint, I have to stand by her. . . . things move so fast I have to rely on her.”

Paul, 43, hails from Ville Platte, La., a city of approximately 8,200. She worked as a communications manager for the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance for nine years.

Paul said she wanted to work closer to students. She came back to her roots at Southern, but stayed for only one year as a financial aid counselor. She transferred to Louisiana State University, working three years there as a student aid counselor, and then as assistant director for loans.

However, she couldn’t stay away for long, and now works in a huge corner office with two windows. Throughout her day or evening -- she might stay after practices -- Paul, with five years on the job, delivers the news to coaches and players about eligibility:

It pays to follow the rules.

“I tell them don’t kill the messenger,” Paul said. “I’m just the message.”

Brandi Worley, a student at Southern University, writes for the Southern Digest.

Posted April 24, 2006