When an Elmhurst, Ill., police officer rolled up on a red Honda Civic around 2 a.m. early in June 2012, she shined her spotlight in the car's backseat and captured Spiro Lempesis, the former baseball coach at Concordia University-Chicago, with a frail teenage boy, his sweatshirt hood pulled tightly around his face. The coach had tucked his car, its windows now heavily fogged, in the back of a Korean church's parking lot. His blue Fruit of the Loom boxers lay behind the passenger seat.

Lempesis told police he was counseling the teenager about colleges, suggesting the two first met at a baseball camp. He mentioned providing the 5-foot-9, 128-pound youngster private baseball lessons, though the teenager told police he wasn't on a team. According to the police report, the teenager later said he and the coach had been engaged in oral sex in the car and had carried on a sexual relationship for more than a month.

The allegation led to the coach being arrested on suspicion of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving a minor. Ultimately, Lempesis, 47, walked free of charges after it was determined the 16-year-old had misled the coach about his age.

Baseball coach Spiro Lempesis was fired by Concordia University-Chicago after at least one player complained to university officials the coach enticed the player to make pornographic videos in exchange for relieving debt. Courtesy of OakPark.com.

As this scene played out in the Chicago suburb, NCAA president Mark Emmert and key advisers in Indianapolis were preparing to learn the fate of another former college coach: Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, whose trial for sexually abusing at least 10 boys was about to begin. Sandusky, of course, would be convicted amid immense media attention. A damning investigation -- the Freeh report -- into how Penn State handled the Sandusky saga would be released the next month. The report prompted Emmert to put himself into the spotlight and announce unprecedented sanctions -- enacted a year ago Tuesday -- that many people believe came just short of shutting down the Nittany Lions' once model football program: a $60 million fine, a four-year bowl ban, scholarship losses and the vacating of wins.

NCAA officials could say they were appalled and even shocked by what transpired at Penn State. Not so much when it came to Concordia and its former coach.

Two years prior, when Lempesis was still Concordia's coach, top NCAA enforcement officials were informed by the university of alleged inappropriate sexual conduct on his part involving at least one of his college athletes -- as well as potential NCAA rules violations -- but were content with the school's prompt firing of Lempesis and walked away without ever investigating, "Outside the Lines" has found.

The "Outside the Lines" investigation of the Concordia issue is not about comparing sex scandals involving university athletic programs -- the Sandusky case is incomparable, after all -- rather, it provides an example of what has led to fans' and university administrators' angst and confusion about the state of the NCAA enforcement process, about the mixed signals of what rises to a potential violation and what triggers an investigation. Consider the findings:

• Concordia self-reported suspected violations to the NCAA.

• Allegations of on-campus sexual impropriety did not draw the interest of the NCAA, which was satisfied enough with the school's prompt firing of the coach and the fact that no minors were involved.

• The NCAA did not pursue the matter, despite a blatant failure to adhere to the association's Principles of Student-Athlete Well-Being: providing a safe environment for student-athletes, fostering a positive coach-athlete relationship, and coaches exhibiting fairness and honesty with athletes.

• There was no law enforcement or NCAA investigation despite initial allegations the coach boasted of selling videos filmed in his office to a friend in the porn industry in California. A video collection was found in his office after he was fired.

• Campus security did not ask the River Forest Police Department to investigate, but rather sought the counsel of a deputy chief who was a Concordia graduate and former campus security staffer.

The scandal at Penn State was headline news for the NCAA. The situation at Concordia, a private Lutheran university of almost 1,500 undergraduates, never registered.

Videos paid for equipment, team travel

Anthony Collaro, a right-handed pitcher who graduated from Concordia in 2011, told "Outside the Lines" that Lempesis approached him at the end of his freshman year with a proposition to perform in porn videos in exchange for paying off baseball-related debts such as equipment and travel, and a promise that the coach would ensure pro scouts would take notice of him as a player. He said the coach told him, "I have a guy in the porn industry in California. If you help me do this and do this for me and help me make extra money on the side, you'll make some, too."

Given that Collaro's dream was to get drafted by a pro team, his coach's access to scouts was the real draw, he said.

Anthony Collaro, who graduated in 2011, said his Concordia baseball coach approached him at the end of his freshman year with a proposition to perform in porn videos in exchange for paying off baseball-related debts such as equipment and travel. Courtesy of Anthony Collaro

Over the next year or so, Collaro estimates he participated in "between 20 and 25" on-campus video shoots in the coach's Geiseman Gym office. "He would put a sign on his office saying: 'Filming session in progress, please do not disturb,'" Collaro said. Behind the closed door, Collaro said he performed individual sex acts recorded by the coach. Collaro, an all-conference pitcher, said he called it quits when the coach told him his porn friend "wanted to watch him have sex with me."

According to Collaro, the coach's porn operation was exposed after a teammate, upset about being approached by Lempesis to participate, told an assistant coach. Shortly after, in September 2010, Collaro said he told the dean of students, during an interview in the president's office, everything, including allegations of a handful of potential NCAA violations. All of it was passed along on to NCAA investigators by the school: the free pitching lessons received on campus while in high school; the coach forgiving debt incurred for equipment and team trips to Arizona in turn for his video performance; and the coach running Concordia baseball finances through two separate accounts, including one outside the control of the university, the type of financial operation that routinely gets the attention of investigators.

Collaro said school officials didn't offer him counseling or provide any information other than that they planned on firing Lempesis.

"Spiro told me he had other people in the past make money doing this," Collaro said. "He helped them get ahead in their careers and everything. … Basically, he would say, 'OK, well, I'm getting $700 from [the video]. You owe me X amount of dollars. So I am going to keep $600, and here is $100 for spending money.' I'd have to turn around and give the money right back to pay off my debt."

Lempesis told "Outside the Lines" that he made a "huge mistake in judgment," but broke no laws or NCAA rules.

"There were no NCAA violations, per se, that would be worth noting at Division III," the coach said. "Was there a videotape that was made between two consenting adults in a relationship? That there was, yes. Was there something that was being sold for profit? Absolutely not. That never happened and that was a joke."

When Lempesis was fired, he left campus with the most coaching victories in school history. His last team was nationally ranked after posting a 31-9 record, its third straight season of 30-plus victories. These days, he is bitter about the way the school cast him aside in 2010 without even an offer of counseling. And he's guarded about any comparison to Sandusky or Penn State.

"I'm not going to get in a discussion about Penn State and my situation," he told "Outside the Lines." "It is not even in the same universe."

Neither the coach nor Collaro has ever heard from NCAA investigators, though, and with good reason: A decision was made not to open a case or investigate, despite the school itself having acknowledged possible rules violations to NCAA investigators. "My recollection was that they came to us and we looked at it in terms of whether there were NCAA violations that occurred," said David Price, then the NCAA's vice president of enforcement. "And I came to the conclusion that there were no NCAA violations, though it was a very unsavory case. We took no action."

Mixed messages from Emmert and the NCAA

Concordia passed its findings to the NCAA in November 2010 -- a month before Price retired. His top assistant then and eventual replacement, Julie Roe Lach, who was fired this year after overseeing a bungled University of Miami investigation that ran afoul of the NCAA's own procedures, declined comment when reached by "Outside the Lines."

One agency known to have at least sniffed around the edges, however, is the FBI. An agent interviewed someone familiar with the case as recently as last fall, "Outside the Lines" has learned.