“You heard Brandyn Curry and Kyle Casey’s name over and over again,” Stearns said. “I felt badly for those two individuals.”

REACTING FROM WITHIN

WIth the fates of accused athletes uncertain as season openers approached, coaches started to prepare for the worst. Many were forced to try to predict the outcome of various investigations with little to no knowledge of an end date. Though none of the coaches asked for comment were willing to discuss the specifics of this procedure, Green applauded their professionalism in the middle of an unexpected situation.

“I am proud of our coaches for upholding high academic standards and for their understanding of how the College was going to handle the matter,” Green wrote. “Faced with some unanticipated roster changes, they were 100 percent  professional in a very difficult time.”

Beyond the struggles faced by particular teams in the aftermath of the announcement, the Athletic Department immediately confronted internal communications decisions and an external public relations crisis.

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Gov 1310 Timeline

The Athletic Department faced the challenge of disseminating clear and accurate information to coaches, accused students, and administrators regarding the specific considerations facing student-athletes implicated in the scandal.

Student-athletes interviewed for this story said the Athletic Department informed all of the varsity coaches of the scope of the investigation in a single briefing, though the context in which the brief was conducted could not be confirmed. Sources in the Athletic Department neither confirmed nor denied that the briefing was delivered in a meeting, stating that department-wide meetings are fairly common and such a topic could have been on the agenda.

On Aug. 16 of last year, Ellison sent an email to the resident deans advising them on how to counsel student-athletes implicated in the scandal. Though the content of the email only contained general advising recommendations, the email helped set into motion a series of events that had reverberations far beyond the scope of the cheating scandal. A leak of Ellison’s email to The Crimson was part of administrators’ justification for secret searches of resident deans’ email accounts that some have suggested led to the resignation of former Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds, though she has disputed that account.

Throughout it all, the Athletic Department opted for official silence on the issue. In the year since the scandal broke, the department has maintained a stance of no comment on the incident, and a handful of coaches interviewed by Crimson sports reporters over the past year have declined to talk on the record about implications of the scandal for their team’s season.

Even a year later, sources within the Athletic Department informed The Crimson that an email was sent to all 42 varsity coaches instructing them to refer all inquiries regarding this Crimson article to Tim Williamson, director of athletic communications. Williamson did not respond to requests for comment, though he referred questions regarding athletic eligibility to the Ivy League Office.

LOOKING FORWARD

More than a year after the announcement of the investigation, Green suggested that it is time to move past the scandal.

“Now that time has passed and the students who withdrew have returned to campus, I think we should warmly welcome them back,” Green wrote. “There are many lessons to be learned from this episode and I hope that we will keep these lessons in mind as we move forward.”

Yet not all athletes feel warmly welcomed back. One athlete told The Crimson she feels uncomfortable telling her professors that she is an athlete due to fears that she will be treated differently in the classroom.

John E. Dowling, neuroscience professor and member of the Faculty Standing Committee on Athletic Sports, disputed the idea that faculty members are treating student-athletes any differently in the wake of Government 1310.