_Updated at 8:35 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 2_

An NCAA ruling has placed Georgetown’s athletic program on probation for three years following an investigation that revealed that 26 baseball players received excess work-study payments totaling an estimated $61,522 over the course of seven academic years from 2000 to 2007. The ruling also levied a fine of $61,000, nixed three planned scholarships and vacated an undisclosed number of the program’s wins over the course of seven seasons.

Georgetown discovered, investigated and reported the matter to the NCAA over a year ago and, according to Paul Dee, chair of the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, it was assistant coaches – not Head Coach Pete Wilk – who were directly involved. The university and Wilk were cited for “fail[ure] to monitor the athletic program to detect the situation.” The assistant coaches involved are no longer employed by the university, according to Interim Athletic Director Daniel Porterfield. Wilk will continue to coach the team.

The infractions, though specific to the baseball team, arose from the athletic department’s failure to monitor work-study hours. As a result, the entire athletic program will be on probation for three years, meaning closer scrutiny from the NCAA.

According to Dee, the assistant coaches in question instructed baseball players with work-study jobs to put a block of time on their time cards and then neglected to ensure that the correct amount of work was done by the students. The students performed a number of tasks for the baseball team, including maintaining the team’s off-campus baseball field as well as equipment and uniforms, according a summary of the report Georgetown submitted to the NCAA.

“During the 2000-2001 through 2006-2007 academic years, the assistant baseball coaches responsible for work-study supervision instructed student-athletes to record blocks of time totaling not more than 20 hours a week on their time card,” Dee said in a conference call. “This was under the assumption that sufficient work would be assigned to justify the hours. Student-athletes recorded and were paid up to 20 hours a week but were not always assigned and did not always perform the work for which they were compensated.”

The program also received a public reprimand and censure from the NCAA. The team must vacate any games in which the 26 student-athletes played while ineligible. In the seven seasons in question, the baseball team posted 135 wins and 246 losses.

The program was scheduled to receive three additional scholarships to bring its total to eight, but did not receive those scholarships in the past two academic years as a self-imposed penalty. The NCAA sanction states that the team will be limited to five scholarships through 2012.

Georgetown also repaid $36,932.39 to the U.S. Department of Education for the portion of the excess wages paid with federal funds.

Dee said that the percentage of pay actually earned by the 26 players varied over the course of the seven years. At the lowest, at least one player earned only 10 percent of the money he was paid, while at the highest, a player earned 92 percent of his paid wage. Georgetown reported to the NCAA that students were led to believe that they did not have to track their specific hours.

“The NCAA takes these issues seriously, so does Georgetown,” Porterfield said. “The matter involves only the baseball program, and our investigation found no other infractions in any other sports.”

Porterfield added that the individuals involved did not intend to break the rules and that the team gained no competitive advantage from the violations.

The university says it has taken a number of corrective steps to attempt to remedy the work study program in the summary of the Georgetown’s report to the NCAA. Beginning with the 2007-2008 academic year, no student was allowed to hold a work-study position for his or her own team, and the field maintenance the baseball players performed is now done by an outside company. Coaches and employees involved in the work-study program have more requirements and must attend more educational sessions regarding the program.

According to the summary, the university added a member to the Athletics Compliance Office staff and created positions in the Office of the Registrar and the Office of Student Financial Services specifically with athletics compliance responsibilities.

“I am disappointed that it occurred but pleased with our comprehensive response,” University President John J. DeGioia said in a written letter on the athletic department’s Web site. “I would like to commend colleagues in Athletics and the University for their swift and comprehensive responses upon discovering these problems. We reported these violations to the NCAA in April 2008, after then-Director of Athletics Bernard Muir and then-Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance Samantha Huge found them as part of their routine compliance efforts.”

Wilk has been the head coach for the Hoyas since June of 1999.

“Both our investigation and the NCAA investigation concluded that [Coach Wilk] did not have any preexisting knowledge of [the violations],” Porterfield said. “He has admitted responsibility and we feel that though he made a mistake in management, that he has been candid and forthright and cooperative.”

The coach issued the following statement to the NCAA: “Any problems in the work-study program involving my players are ultimately my responsibility. I regret deeply that these violations occurred. They besmirch my reputation and the reputation of the institution I love.”

The university first discovered the violations in the summer of 2007 and conducted an internal investigation from June 2007 to March 2008. It informed the NCAA of a potential problem in August 2007 and reported the violations uncovered by the investigation on April 29, 2008.

Porterfield said the infractions were related to the suspension of four seniors for 10 games at the beginning of the 2008 season for violating the NCAA’s extra benefits rule.

“During the course of the investigation that we did, we determined that some student-athletes had eligibility issues that resulted in their suspensions,” Porterfield said. “We petitioned the NCAA for their reinstatement, and at that time they were reinstated.”

Porterfield added: “The case that’s in front of the NCAA is not about individual student-athletes; it’s about the institution’s responsibility for essentially a way of managing ourselves and work study that should have been better.”

Georgetown will not appeal the NCAA ruling.”