The Glenn Cyprien File ...

[NewsCopy]

Over the years Cyprien's Bio cited degree

LOUISIANA La. — UL was not the only university that believed Glynn Cyprien’s claim of a bachelor’s degree from Texas-San Antonio.

The Ragin’ Cajun basketball coach was terminated by the university Friday after it was discovered that Cyprien did not possess a degree from an accredited four-year university. His resume’ and the official university biography from his May hiring claimed a bachelor’s degree from Texas-San Antonio.

An employee of the UTSA registrar’s office said Friday that Cyprien attended the Texas university from 1987 to 1990 but did not earn a degree.

“We were told that another resume’ was later sent that did not list that degree,” said UL Lafayette athletic director Nelson Schexnayder. “But we have no record of that and we relied on the first resume’ when we hired him.”

Biographies obtained from the other five universities where the New Orleans native had served on basketball staffs also listed a degree from UTSA in his educational background.

Cyprien, hired by UL Lafayette in May, had previously coached for four years at Oklahoma State and prior to that had served on the staffs at Nevada-Las Vegas, Western Kentucky, Jacksonville and Lamar.

OSU’s official biography prior to the 2003-04 basketball season listed a bachelor’s degree in education from UTSA in 1990 and a master’s degree in physical education from LaCrosse University in 2002. LaCrosse is a on-line program based out of Bay St. Louis, Miss., that is not accredited by the state and other major accreditation agencies.

“This is highly unfortunate for Glynn and his family,” said long-time Oklahoma State head coach Eddie Sutton. “In the four years he coached here, Glynn did an exemplary job, both as a coach as well as a mentor who encouraged our players to obtain their degrees.”

Former UL Lafayette athletic director Terry Don Phillips was the athletic director at OSU when Cyprien was hired.

“When Nelson called me yesterday (Thursday), I was totally shocked, absolutely flabbergasted,” Phillips said. “Glynn is someone who I always held in very high regard, and I enjoyed being around him. We accepted what he said.”

His hiring there preceded the nationwide flap over George O’Leary’s resignation as head football coach at Notre Dame, after he admitted he lied about his academic and athletic background on his resume’.

Cyprien joined the UNLV staff in 1995 and coached there for five years, the last of those seasons as associate head coach. His biography page from that year’s media guide stated that he graduated from UTSA in 1990 and also played collegiately there, but UTSA’s basketball records have no listing of him as a player there.

He was at Jacksonville for two seasons in 1992-94 and at Western Kentucky for one season in 1991-92, both of those schools members of the Sun Belt Conference and UL Lafayette opponents at the time. At both places, he was an assistant coach under Matt Kilcullen.

Both of those schools’ media guides list him as receiving a bachelor’s degree from UTSA in 1989, one year earlier than the biographies at both UNLV and Oklahoma State.

Efforts to reach Kilcullen Friday were unsuccessful, but Kilcullen — now head coach at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville — gave a glowing recommendation when Cyprien was hired in early May.

“He is one of the best young coaches around,” Kilcullen said in a phone interview. “Recruiting was his main thing when he worked for me, but he also established himself as someone who could help young people reach their potential. He was someone who was a great liaison between the players and myself.”

Cyprien was on the Lamar staff for one year in 1990-91, and the first paragraph of his media guide biography there stated that he joined the Cardinal staff in June of 1990 after earning his bachelor’s degree in health and physical education from UTSA in May.

But then-Lamar head coach Mike Newell said Friday that information wasn’t accurate.

“He was with me for a year at Lamar as a student assistant,” Newell said. “He was doing work to finish his degree at UTSA. To my knowledge, he was doing course work from UTSA at the time.

“I had just taken the Lamar job and (former UTSA head coach) Ken Burmeister had just been relieved, and he called me and said he had a young man who needed to finish his degree and was looking for a job. I don’t know if we called it part-time or not then, but he was basically a student assistant.”

Newell said that Cyprien didn’t start at Lamar until late in the summer because he was finishing up course work, and left in March to take the Jacksonville job.

“It totally shocks me,” Newell said when informed of Cyprien’s termination. “I had known him before, and I had kept up with him pretty well and talked to him on occasion. It hurts me to hear that.”

The Texas-San Antonio press guide from the 1988-89 season listed Cyprien as a part-time assistant coach, stating he was in his second season in that role and said that while completing his undergraduate studies he would assist in recruiting, scouting, film study, player academics and on-court practice sessions.

Original source of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com

[NewsCopy]

Pink slip for ‘Cyp’
Lee to lead Cajuns’ program after dismissal of Cyprien

LOUISIANA La. — The Glynn Cyprien Era of UL Lafayette basketball lasted 72 days, and ended on Friday before he ever took the floor with the Ragin’ Cajuns.

Cyprien, the former Oklahoma State assistant coach who was hired on May 5 to be the school’s 11th head coach, was terminated after a University investigation found incorrect degree information in his resume.

Nine-year assistant coach Robert Lee, a finalist for the position awarded to Cyprien, will assume head coaching duties.

“We got some calls indicating Cyprien did not have the degrees he claimed to have,” Schexnayder said. “We began looking into it, and found that he does have degrees, but not degrees that are acceptable to the University.”

Cyprien’s resume claimed a bachelor’s degree in physical education from the University of Texas-San Antonio after attending Southern University and, from 1987-90, UTSA.

The National Student Clearinghouse has verified that Cyprien did not earn a UTSA degree.

Cyprien attained a bachelor’s degree in 2000 in educational counseling and a master’s degree, cum laude, in physical education in 2002 from LaCrosse University, an online school based in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

The Louisiana State Board of Regents voted unanimously in 2002 not to renew LaCrosse’s license in the state, prior to its move to Mississippi.

“I relied upon information from his prior positions,” Schexnayder said of Cyprien, who previously coached at Nevada-Las Vegas, Western Kentucky, Jacksonville and Lamar before Oklahoma State and got glowing recommendations from former UL and OSU athletic director Terry Don Phillips, among others.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

Committee chair calls for change

LOUISIANA La. — UL faculty members expressed surprise, shock and embarrassment Friday at the news that head basketball coach Glynn Cyprien had been fired. The reason: His résumé listed a degree he didn’t really have.

Assistant Robert Lee has been named the new head coach. Wayne Andrepont, president of the University Athletic Committee, felt that a new policy requiring credential evaluations should have been in place before the next coach was named.

“In academics, those credentials are thoroughly checked, and obviously in athletics they are not,” said Andrepont, the assistant dean of the UL Lafayette College of Sciences. “We need to establish a policy to prevent this from happening.”

Because faculty members are required to have a bachelor’s degree, it is important to look at a person’s educational background, he said.

“There is no reason we shouldn’t check our athletic hires they way we check our academic hires,” Andrepont said.

“With all the academic problems we have had with the basketball department, we need to have a representative on that search committee,” Andrepont said.

Gerald Carlson, dean of the UL Lafayette College of Education, said specific standards are used to hire faculty members. “They have to submit a set of transcripts, official transcripts, then it is reviewed by the office of faculty development to make sure it is from a regionally accredited university,” Carlson said.

The rest of the story

Sebreana Domingue
sdomingue@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

You figured George O'Leary and Notre Dame would be the last ones, and that the humiliation and shame reverberated strongly enough to shake every coach who had ever fudged a sentence in his biography and every program that had ever hired a coach before fully investigating him.

Certainly, you theorized that, minimally, every coach on every level in every sport would clean up his or her résumé, remove any factual enhancements, apologize for having listed the "error" and ask forgiveness for the "unintended" addition. And that every employer would peruse the backgrounds of coaching candidates with vigor best described as "dogged."

So where, you must ask, were Glynn Cyprien and Louisiana-Lafayette hiding in December 2001?

Where was Cyprien, a New Orleans native, when O'Leary was hired by Notre Dame and forced to resign as football coach five days later because he fictitiously claimed to have earned a master's degree in education from New York University in 1972 and to have played three years of college football at New Hampshire? And where were ULL athletic officials, who obviously are a little too trusting for their own good?

Obviously, neither was paying much attention. Otherwise, both might not have been disgraced Friday, when Cyprien was fired as men's basketball coach at ULL about two months after receiving the job.

ULL made a decision that might not have been made if not for a newspaper's inquiries. And it's a decision the school wouldn't have needed to make if a decent background check had been completed.

The rest of the story

John DeShazier can be reached at jdeshazier@timespicayune.com
(504) 826-3410.

[NewsCopy]

Verification of credentials leads to ULL coach's firing
School finds inaccuracies concerning Cyprien's résumé, level of education


LOUISIANA La. -- University of Louisiana-Lafayette basketball coach Glynn Cyprien, hired in May to bolster the program's academic record, was fired Friday because his educational credentials did not satisfy the school's minimum standards.

Taking full responsibility for not verifying the information on Cyprien's résumé, ULL athletic director Nelson Schexnayder terminated the coach's employment two months after he was hired.

Schexnayder determined this week that Cyprien, a 37-year-old New Orleans native and a graduate of Jesuit High School, does not hold a degree from a university with accreditation recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, a requirement to coach at ULL. After being questioned, Cyprien admitted that he did not graduate from the University of Texas-San Antonio as he previously had claimed, Schexnayder said.

Left with no choice but to move on, Schexnayder acted quickly, announcing Friday that nine-year ULL assistant coach Robert Lee likely will take over the program, barring any last-minute complications.

Most of the athletic director's press conference, however, was simply an apology.

"I made a poor choice," Schexnayder said. "I relied on Coach Cyprien's prior employment history, and I assumed that what he told us was correct. That was a poor assumption on my part."

Schexnayder said that Cyprien recalled submitting a second résumé to ULL before he was hired on which he says he did not list himself as a UTSA graduate. The ULL athletic department, however, did not have any record of that document.

"Had we relied on a second résumé, he would not have been qualified anyway," Schexnayder said.

The rest of the story

Jeff Eisenberg can be reached at
sports@timespicayune.com
(504) 826-3405.

[NewsCopy]

ULL fires basketball coach in resume flap

LOUISIANA La. -- The Glynn Cyprien "era" ended abruptly Friday before he coached a game of men's basketball at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

School officials said they fired Cyprien after they realized he had not earned a degree from the accredited college indicated on his resume.

Athletic Director Nelson Schexnayder said during a news conference ULL assistant Robert Lee will be named head basketball coach to replace Cyprien.

According to Schexnayder, the resume ULL used when hiring Cyprien erroneously stated Cyprien had earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Texas-San Antonio.

Cyprien was hired in early May to replace Jessie Evans, who accepted the head coaching position at the University of San Francisco.

Immediately before coming to ULL, Cyprien was an assistant at Oklahoma State.

Schexnayder said he used Cyprien's resume sent to ULL from OSU during the hiring process.

"We relied upon his prior employment history at other colleges where he had been employed," Schexnayder said. "I assumed they were the same requirements as we have to be employed (at ULL).

"That was a poor assumption on my part."

During a Friday evening interview with Lafayette television station KATC, Cyprien said he handed Schexnayder a corrected resume before ULL hired him.

Cyprien said an OSU clerical worker initially faxed ULL a copy of the resume which showed he had a Texas-San Antonio degree.

The rest of the story

By BOBBY ARDOIN
Special to The Advocate

[NewsCopy]

Cyprien liked, not qualified

Misery loves company, and Nelson Schexnayder could have used some company at the podium on Friday.

The UL Lafayette athletic director certainly looked miserable as he detailed the termination of Glynn Cyprien as the school’s head basketball coach before he ever hit the court with the Ragin’ Cajuns.

When he introduced Cyprien on May 5, Schexnayder thought he had the right coach to direct a Cajun program that had become academically lax under departed coach Jessie Evans.

Glowing recommendations poured in from those Cyprien had worked for, including such names as Terry Don Phillips, Eddie Sutton and Bill Self.

What Schexnayder got instead was someone whose bachelor’s degree from Texas-San Antonio was never achieved, effectively voiding his application to coach at UL.

In fact, since Cyprien’s acknowledged degrees come from unaccredited, online LaCrosse University of Bay St. Louis, Miss., he would have work to do before he could coach at a public high school in the state.

“It’s not good,” Schexnayder said. “I should have done better.”

Apparently, after the George O’Leary incident at Notre Dame in 2001, athletic directors need to be skeptics, even if it is in their nature to trust people at their word.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone who dislikes Cyprien, who refused to comment on the situation to The Advertiser on Friday.

But the fact remains he did not have the proper credentials for the job he sought.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[Hammer58]

"So where, you must ask, were Glynn Cyprien and Louisiana-Lafayette hiding in December 2001? "

No, I ask where has DeShazier and the TP been when we do something good like getting to the NCAA tournement or the softball regionals? We are lucky to get a paragraph when we achieve something good. But let them smell any hint of scandal and they put us on the front page.

[bigearl]

he should feel miserable, this is a major f-up for our school that he is partially responsible for.

[Turbine]

Originally posted by CAJUNGURU
Thank you Turbine! Someone finally get's it. Considering the history of this program, this was important to get out now. Again, I will support this new coach, but the whole picture needed to be put out for all of us to examine.

Now that coach Cyprien has been fired for lying on his resume, it is clear it was you who "got" it. It seems that other than looking at who Cyprien had been associated with professionally, no investigation was done of any kind, on any level. This firing might have even nipped one.

I think your underlying point is ultra clear now, more investigation was needed, and it didn't happen.

[CajunGuru]

Originally posted by Turbine
Now that coach Cyprien has been fired for lying on his resume, it is clear it was you who "got" it. It seems that other than looking at who Cyprien had been associated with professionally, no investigation was done of any kind, on any level. This firing might have even nipped one.

I think your underlying point is ultra clear now, more investigation was needed, and it didn't happen.

Thanks Turbine, but there is no need to bring this up now. Anyone that knows me personally, knows I only wanted what's best for this program. For those that thought I had some agenda, they will now understand the point I was trying to make back then. I'm not happy the way it ended.

[NewsCopy]

Ex-OSU coach fired for resume mistake

Three years ago, as an Oklahoma State basketball assistant coach, Glynn Cyprien had a chance to correct any inaccuracies on his resume. Apparently he didn't.

On Friday, Cyprien was fired as head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette for falsely claiming to have a degree.

After George O'Leary left Georgia Tech to become Notre Dame football coach and then resigned following a resume scandal in 2001, then-OSU athletic director Terry Don Phillips sent a memo to all OSU coaches. If they wanted to correct any inaccuracies on their resumes, they could be changed no questions asked.

One coach responded, Phillips said, and it wasn't Cyprien.

"When we hired Glynn, that was pre-Georgia Tech days," said Phillips, now the athletic director at Clemson. "Maybe I dropped the ball. But back then we accepted (resumes) at face value. Now everyone checks on resumes."

According to Cyprien's bio, he graduated from Texas-San Antonio in 1990 and owns a master's degree from Lacrosse University. Cyprien did not receive a diploma from Texas-San Antonio. Lacrosse is an online school in Bay St. Louis, Miss., that is not recognized by major accreditation agencies.

ULL officials said a bachelor's degree from an accredited university is required to be head basketball coach.

Cyprien, 37, was hired at ULL in May and signed a five-year deal for $180,000 a season. The Ragin' Cajuns are expected to promote Robert Lee, an assistant at ULL the last eight years.

"I hate for Louisiana-Lafayette to go through this, and I've always held Glynn in high regard," Phillips said. "I feel Glynn would have done a good job."

OSU coach Eddie Sutton and athletic director Harry Birdwell declined comment Friday but released comments in a prepared statement.

The rest of the story

By Mike Baldwin
The Oklahoman