(This story has been updated with new information.)
The Florida Gulf Coast University athletic department was placed on two years probation and received a $25,000 fine after the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions and the university negotiated a settlement over student-athletes receiving impermissible benefits and competing before completing eligibility requirements, FGCU announced on April 25.
Wins from selected contests in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years will be vacated across several sports, including women’s basketball, men’s basketball, baseball, women’s golf, men’s soccer, softball and tennis, according to FGCU Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Colin Hargis.
The vacated wins could extend to championships and milestones within some of these programs, Hargis said during a Friday press conference.
“That should be finalized in the coming weeks with the NCAA,” he said, adding that any championships affected will be part of an ongoing conversation with the Atlantic Sun Conference.
The investigation began with former FGCU men’s tennis coach Davidson Kozlowski, who violated multiple NCAA rules when recruiting Bucknell University student Harrison Gold after the coach’s hiring from Drake University in June 2023. The Eagles fired Kozlowski in February 2024 before he coached a match after discovering Gold was taking classes at Bucknell while living in Southwest Florida and training with FGCU, among other violations. Gold stayed in a hotel and ran up $10,000 in costs that Kozlowski promised to pay but didn’t.
While investigating Kozlowski, the university conducted a review that revealed 18 athletes across 10 sports during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years practiced and/or played before their eligibility or amateurism was appropriately certified. One athlete competed in five contests before it was discovered he did not graduate from his two-year school before transferring to FGCU, and another competed after using five seasons of eligibility during 2023-24.
“In order for a student-athlete to compete, they have to go through a certification checklist, and it involves a variety of things — academic certification, NCAA amateur eligibility certification, there’s even a sports medicine component,” Hargis said. “As that process goes through, there’s multiples areas that have to be checked off on, multiple steps.
“What came to our attention is that student-athletes were deemed eligible even though one of those areas was not actually certified and correct, so the student-athletes themselves and our coaches received wrong information.”
The university reported the errors and cooperated with the NCAA during a 16-month review, which concluded with the resolution on Friday.
“Our student-athletes did nothing wrong, our coaches did nothing wrong in this situation,” Hargis said. “They received incorrect information about the eligibility status of those student athletes.”
Hargis stated that 17 of the 18 student-athletes were reinstated once the clerical issues were discovered.
Hargis was hired in April 2024 to replace longtime athletic director Ken Kavanagh, who resigned in December 2023. Hargis said he learned of the men’s tennis investigation on “day one.”
In a statement, FGCU said the employees responsible for the eligibility errors are no longer with the university. Dan Teliski was hired as the assistant athletic director of compliance in June 2024.
“As we went through the 2024-25 certification process, he started to notice some things weren’t checking out,” Hargis said. “Some things were brought to our attention.”
The athletic department put together a list of corrective actions with the NCAA that includes a more comprehensive education plan for coaches and staff members throughout the department and more detailed admissions and initial eligibility information for incoming student-athletes.
“We’re already in a position to move forward because there’s no forward-facing penalties for the men’s tennis program or any other program or our student athletes,” Hargis said. “I think, to me, that is the most crucial part – this is going to be in the past. We’re going to move beyond it, and we already have.”
Kozlowski, who according to his X profile is working at a tennis and pickleball club in Delaware, was also punished by the NCAA. He received a show-cause order prohibiting him from participating in team-related activities for one year if he were hired for another college coaching position.
The probationary period means the NCAA will keep a closer eye on the FGCU athletic department for the next two years.
“We’ll provide them some more documentation just to show them that we’re doing the things that we said we would do,” Hargis said.
The 10 FGCU programs impacted must also notify every recruit in writing that the university is on probation for two years and detail the violations committed.
The process of verifying wins and records of the affected teams will be completed in the next 7-to-10 days, Hargis said, and the department will work to comply with removing public references to vacated results in the coming months.
“I think the key part of it is the increased collaboration, coordination of checks and balances – both between our athletic department, our compliance staff and the folks on campus, whether it’s financial aid, academics – making sure that there’s multiple eyes and multiple individuals and offices that are a part of that process,” Hargis said.
“It’s hard for me to say what did or didn’t take place in the past … but I do know that we’re here to do it the right way. We’re here to operate in a compliant manner and I have full confidence that our department, our university leadership and our staff are handling it the right way, and we have the right checks and balances in place now.”
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