In 2000, Morehouse's part-time soccer coach, Augustine Konneh, signed two Nigerian-born players to play for the Maroon Tigers even though they'd played professionally for the Atlanta Ruckus of the A-League two years earlier. Konneh had lobbied to get soccer elevated from intramural to varsity status in 1998. They also played a few games before they actually enrolled at the school. Even though the school's then-athletic director got word that the two players might have been ineligible, they were allowed to play in 2001 as well. Although Konneh was replaced as coach in 2001, numerous other violationsincluding a player being allowed to compete without proper paperworkled Morehouse to cancel the 2003 season. In November 2003, the NCAA barred Morehouse from fielding a soccer team again until 2006. It also slapped Morehouse with five years' probationtied for the longest probation ever. USA Today called it the harshest penalty ever handed down to a collegiate program. The NCAA came down particularly hard on Morehouse due to a lack of institutional control; for a time the athletic department didn't know the soccer program even existed. While this was Morehouse's first major infractions case ever, the NCAA felt compelled to impose the death penalty due to what it called "a complete failure" to keep the program in compliance.[12] Soccer at Morehouse has since reverted to intramural status; school officials had planned to shutter varsity soccer for an indefinite period even before the NCAA acted.
