BATON ROUGE ? LSU acknowledged Tuesday that it has begun an internal investigation into whether baseball players received improper housing benefits under former coaches Skip Bertman and Smoke Laval. The Advocate of Baton Rouge reported Tuesday that a probe began more than six weeks ago and has included several interviews with former LSU coaches and staff members. Topics included LSU's housing policies for baseball players and whether they received discounts not available to other students ? and whether those advantages were part of LSU's recruiting strategy, the newspaper reported. "LSU baseball has achieved great success on the foundation of excellence and integrity," Bertman, now LSU athletic director, said in a statement issued by the university. "But during the course of the transition of coaching staffs, we discovered some inconsistencies in the management of housing arrangements for our baseball players." LSU compliance director Chris Howard will determine whether there were any violations of NCAA regulations, Bertman said. Bertman coached LSU from 1984 to 2001 before choosing Laval, his top assistant from 1984-1993, to succeed him. Laval was fired after the last season and replaced by Paul Mainieri, who came from Notre Dame. The Tigers won two of their five national championships with Laval working for Bertman. Laval spent nine seasons at the Louisiana-Monroe before returning to Baton Rouge before the 2001 season to work as Bertman's administrative assistant. He became head coach in 2002. Link To Original Article
