Chat with Loren Tate here.

CHAMPAIGN – The NCAA enforcement staff is facing a stampede of improprieties as earth-shaking as the Southwest's illegal alien problem.

If you follow the news, you can't escape the feeling that cheating is more rampant than ever. Especially when the commissioner of the Big Ten, Jim Delany, acknowledges "the corruption of the youth basketball program" and talks about the "buying of players, either through third parties or through coaches ... make no mistake, it's happening."

While many college-age athletes surely respect the rules of amateurism, there are those less concerned about regulations than having enough loose change for the weekend and, perhaps, help for parents back home. And there are alumni, agents and others willing to provide that help, regardless of complicated and archaic NCAA rules.

So when the Chicago Sun-Times submitted (and pulled back) a story that the father of Chicago basketball star Anthony Davis had his hand out – and that Kentucky was involved to the tune of $200,000 – few doubted the authenticity.

"Just because the passage of cash can't be proved doesn't mean it didn't happen," is the popular reasoning.

Hitting home

Why would anything surprise us? Haven't USC and Reggie Bush hogged the negative headlines for years? Isn't Carolina tackle Marvin Austin in trouble? Aren't we aware that the NCAA is looking into agent excesses throughout the SEC, that West Virginia is dealing with five football violations similar to those that stunned Michigan, that Oklahoma State and Kansas have problems, that these may be the mere tip of the iceberg.

And here sits the UI, striving to avoid such problems after a debilitating quarter-century (from 1966 through the early 1990s) in which the Illini slid from the "slush fund" into a probation-laced succession of run-ins that rocked the football and basketball programs.

The UI athletic department has gone from "bad boy" to a model program.

Now, in a quick look back, we are reminded of the 1980s when the compliance staff was composed of one person, Rick Allen, and the entire academic staff was Terry Cole. Today, in numbers that indicate athletic director Ron Guenther's expanded emphasis, Ryan Squire heads a five-person compliance organization with Chris Byron, Sandy Long, Alexis Fink and Sarah McPhee. Up on Fourth Street, Tom Michael has eight full-time counselors, not to mention two learning specialists, one grants-in-aid person, a secretary, a part-time sports nutritionist and two grad assistants in the expanded academic building.

Learning process

Illinois is trying to do things right. And to hear Squire tell it, that takes some doing.

"What we're observing is the NCAA stepping up enforcement by adding staff and becoming more sophisticated in the way they follow up information received on compliance issues," he said. "They have created a five-person focus group tied strictly to men's basketball, and they're more proactive in studying things like camps, outside influences and recruiting. They follow leads aggressively. They've been particularly active throughout the Southeast this summer ... Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama."

The NCAA also has a unit called AGA – Agents, Gambling and Amateurism – that follows leads like the one where agents reportedly made impermissible contact with Carolina's Austin and others. That situation is deemed so serious that the state of North Carolina has put all 107 agents in the state on alert, reminding that violations are a Class I felony.

"For us, it only takes one athlete selfish and willing to break the rules," Squire said. "Our approach is to educate them so they know what they can and can't do. We require agents to register before talking to any UI athlete with eligibility remaining. From there, our policy is to monitor any meetings that they have with athletes and families. We monitor ticket lists and who is around the program. We are in the locker room on game day."

If this seems extreme, consider that Michigan and West Virginia were charged and could pay a heavy price for a failure to monitor.

"There are a great number of things that we are watchful for," Squire said. "There are always issues to worry about."

A tough job

Football coach Ron Zook's staffers, like all the UI coaches, are required to submit expense vouchers from recruiting trips. They tell which athletes and coaches were visited, and where they traveled. Every move is documented. Looking back at the debilitating Deon Thomas case two decades ago, the main allegations were dropped but the UI received sanctions in part due to poor documentation of trips by then-assistant Jimmy Collins.

For all the ongoing UI efforts, Squire estimates that each year he will uncover and turn in between 25 and 35 secondary violations, which he calls "typical for a Big Ten institution." It could be a telephone call beyond the prescribed limit, an unplanned "bump" into a prospect, or any of 100 things.

"Given the breadth of the manual, we are always at risk," Squire said. "We see Miami of Florida being investigated for text message and phone call issues. It is more of a challenge every year for people sitting in my chair to try to manage all that."

In some cases, this creates an adversarial relationship between the compliance department and the coaches. And that is especially true when coaches come from smaller programs that let a lot of things pass. For example, while Squire received much of his training at Illinois, he went to Bowling Green in 2007 as a one-man show and, after two years, returned. All those one-person shops around the country can only do so much sleuthing.

"I hope our coaches don't look at me in a negative way," Squire said. "I hope we have mutual respect. I understand the coaches' livelihood depends on winning and losing. We want our programs to be as competitive as possible, but I also have the interest of our athletic director, our president and our institution at heart. We are the insurance policy against anything bad happening."

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.