Michigan State has faced major NCAA investigations before, in 1976 and 1996

It is not new ground for Michigan State.

But this is not about illegal gifts and extras, like in 1976. It is not about grade tampering and boosters paying recruits, like in 1996.

This is about Spartan women’s athletes who say they were sexually abused by former sports medicine doctor Larry Nassar.

The latest NCAA investigation into the university’s athletic department – into the role MSU played in sexual assaults by Nassar – by far is its most significant in scope and national visibility. 

Athletic director Mark Hollis received a letter of inquiry from Oliver F. Luck, the NCAA’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs and strategic partnerships, on Tuesday. In it, Luck called the assaults Nassar pleaded guilty to “heinous and appalling” and cited NCAA bylaw 20.9.1.6 on “The Commitment to Student-Athlete Well-Being" as the reason.

“While it’s understandable that various investigations must run their courses and criminal and civil matters will take time to conclude,” Luck wrote, “we do not believe that a wait-and-see approach is proper in this matter.”

The NCAA found a number of men’s and women’s sports at the university over the decades, mostly minor transgressions, which happens at most member schools. Two investigations delivered major sanctions to the football program in both 1976 and 1996, the most prominent athletic department issues in school history up until this point.

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MSU’s first significant football case began in April 1975 under then-coach Denny Stolz. In January 1976, the NCAA revealed the Spartans’ football program employed illegal recruiting practices and illegal fundraising. Also among the 70 charges were that MSU gave players use of cars and coaches gave recruits gifts.

The football program, which denied many of the charges, received a severe punishment – three years of probation that prevented the Spartans from playing on television and suffering a bowl ban that prevented MSU from going to the 1978 Rose Bowl after winning a share of the Big Ten championship. The Spartans also lost 10 scholarships for 1976, then five over each of the following three years. The university also was required to forfeit any money received from the Big Ten for television appearances of other member schools.

“The university acknowledges that some violations took place but we regret that the NCAA Council was unable to accept our proof of innocence in the matters appealed to it,” then-MSU president Clifton Wharton told The Associated Press at the time.

Stolz and then-athletic director Burt Smith were forced out by Wharton less than two months after the NCAA’s findings. Jack Breslin, who the Spartans’ basketball arena is named after, also resigned his role with MSU athletics. His son, Brian, is currently an MSU Board of Trustee chairman who announced last week he will not seek re-election; his term expires Jan. 1, 2019. 

Nearly 20 years later, the university found itself again in the NCAA crosshairs.

MSU came under investigation in 1994 during current Board of Trustee George Perles’ final season as head football coach. A former player, Roosevelt Wagner, began by contacting the NCAA about illegal payments and academic fraud.

No evidence was found that Perles, who was fired after this season, knew about the misdeeds. MSU was deemed to have a lack of institutional control, received four years of probation and lost seven football scholarships under Perles’ successor, Nick Saban. They did not receive a bowl or TV ban, but the university forfeited the five wins during Perles’ final season.

Perles told the Free Press after the verdict in September 1996 that he “challenged anyone to investigate a program with a 12-year coach and not find some problems.”

The NCAA investigation cost MSU nearly $800,000, which included a vast self-released report by the university in April 1996.

“The process worked,” then-MSU president Peter McPherson said. “The NCAA generally agreed with the findings of our investigation and the self-imposed actions we took against ourselves last year.”

MSU’s wrestling and women’s track and field programs also both had highly publicized cases that resulted in NCAA violations in the 1990s.

The Nassar case, however, is much broader than those previous instances.

Nassar, 54, of Holt, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison on Wednesday as part of a plea deal on seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving more than 160 girls and women over more than two decades. Nassar, the once-heralded sports medicine doctor whose abuse extended to USA Gymnastics and to MSU, already was facing 60 years in prison on three federal charges related to child pornography.

At least a dozen former Spartan athletes – from the gymnastics, volleyball, rowing, softball and track and field programs – were among the 153 women and girls who gave victim impact statements during the former sports medicine doctor’s sentencing hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court the past two weeks.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!