Court order temporarily returns player his eligibility

  UCLA Sports Info Adam Wright

By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

UCLA men’s water polo player Adam Wright, who was declared
ineligible by the university on Oct. 31, had his eligibility
restored Friday by a temporary restraining order granted by the Los
Angeles County Superior Court.

Wright, a fifth-year senior and the team’s leading scorer
with 39 goals, was declared ineligible when it was revealed that he
played in one quarter of the first game his true freshman year. He
thought he had a medical redshirt that year, but due to an
inaccurate assumption by coach Guy Baker, the request for the
redshirt was never filed. Baker thought that a medical redshirt was
automatically granted if the injury occurred during the first 20
percent of the season’s contests.

“It was just a mistake on my part,” Baker said.
“I made a mistake of understanding the (20 percent)
rule.”

According to the medical hardship rule, if athletes play less
than 20 percent of the season and then suffer a season-ending
injury in the first half of the season, they can get a medical
redshirt that year and regain that season of eligibility. For a
normal redshirt year, athletes don’t have to file anything,
but medical redshirts must provide documentation of their injury.
During Wright’s freshman year, Baker did not know that.

“Adam had paperwork and he had seen a doctor, but I
didn’t know that you needed to file at that point in
time,” Baker said.

When UCLA learned that Wright didn’t officially redshirt,
it declared him ineligible and presented a medical hardship request
to the Pac-10 Conference Faculty Athletic Representatives on Nov.
15, which was denied. On Nov. 16 UCLA appealed to the NCAA
Administrative Review Subcommittee and was denied again.

UCLA then declared Wright permanently ineligible, whereupon
Wright sought private legal counsel.

The Pac-10 did not grant Wright a medical redshirt because his
doctor at the time of the injury was not a UCLA doctor.

“They refused to accept the medical information that UCLA
submitted that proved Adam (had) an athletic-related injury …
because the doctor treating Adam wasn’t a UCLA doctor,”
said Wright’s lawyer, Julian Bailey, who is also the father
of Wright’s teammate Andy Bailey.

Bailey pointed out that this ruling was different from what had
been done in other medical redshirt cases.

“The Pac-10 applied rules that were different than have
been applied in similar cases in the past,” he said.
“There was never any precedent for … applying the rule that
way.”

In a conference call Friday morning, the Pac-10 ruled that UCLA
had to forfeit any game Wright played in that the Bruins won by
three goals or less. That totals four games: a 10-7 win over Cal
(Sept. 17), a 7-5 win over USC (Oct. 7), an 8-7 win over Stanford
(Oct. 15), and an 11-9 win over USC (Oct. 21).

However, Friday afternoon the temporary restraining order was
laid down. The order, which names UCLA, the NCAA, the Pac-10 and
the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (UCLA’s conference in
men’s water polo) as defendants, states that the defendants
are “restrained … from taking any action to prevent Wright
from competing in intercollegiate athletic events sanctioned by the
NCAA, MPSF and the Pacific-10 Conference.”

It also states that the other defendants are prohibited from
“taking any action … against UCLA, the UCLA men’s
water polo team or any coach or administrator associated with the
men’s water polo team” for complying with the
order.

Thus, the Pac-10’s penalty could not be enforced because
of the restraining order. Coming into this weekend’s MPSF
tournament the Bruins will retain the No. 2 seed that their 7-1
conference record merits.

On Monday the NCAA took steps to disqualify the judge who
granted the restraining order, saying that he is prejudiced against
the NCAA.

There will be a hearing for a continuance of the order on Dec.
4, after the men’s water polo NCAA championship game on Dec.
2.

According to Baker, the No. 3 Bruins are happy about
Wright’s return. “Everyone’s glad that Adam gets
to finish his season,” he said.