Phone records: Hugh Freeze had hundreds of phone calls with Mississippi booster in NCAA case

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption How the Hugh Freeze scandal unfolded and what we can learn from it USA TODAY Sports Dan Wolken reveals how he broke the Hugh Freeze scandal and explains what the college football world can learn from it.

Former Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze and disassociated booster Lee Harris, who allegedly gave a recruit cash and free food at his Oxford, Miss., restaurant, called each other at least 200 times between January 2015 and the end of Freeze’s tenure last month, according to records reviewed by USA TODAY Sports.

The phone calls included the period in which Harris became a part of the NCAA’s investigation into Ole Miss and continued before and after his interview with the NCAA on Nov. 16, 2016, in which he provided information that was determined to be false.

Freeze was not named or deemed culpable in the specific NCAA allegation related to Harris, and it is not publicly known what the two men discussed in the calls. According to Freeze’s attorney, W.G. Watkins, Freeze and Harris met by “happenstance” sitting next to each other at church at some point after Harris’ alleged violations occurred, formed a relationship and played golf together. Watkins said Freeze never discussed the NCAA case with Harris, which would potentially be a violation of bylaw 10.1 relating to unethical conduct.

“I believe that unequivocally,” Watkins said. “One thing Hugh Freeze has done throughout this is not discuss the case with anyone. Part of the problem with NCAA rules is the school can’t talk about the case with Hugh Freeze and he can’t talk about the case with his coaches or players. He’s isolated in all this. That’s why I can say categorically he didn’t talk about the case.”

Harris didn’t respond to multiple phone and text messages left by USA TODAY Sports.

In response to a request for comment about the frequency of the communication, Ole Miss athletics director Ross Bjork told USA TODAY Sports: “Our position on the matter and our actions with regards to Lee Harris are clear in our official response.”

Frequent communication between the head coach and a booster who allegedly violated NCAA rules, however, raises additional questions about whether Ole Miss administrators sufficiently monitored Freeze’s phone calls during his tenure.

Freeze resigned on July 20 after the school found a pattern of improper phone calls, an investigation prompted by questions about a one-minute phone call to an escort service that was uncovered during an unrelated lawsuit.

The school subsequently released records from Freeze’s university-issued phone this week, albeit in a heavily redacted format after granting Freeze the option to remove personal calls.

That decision has been questioned by First Amendment experts and Thomas Mars, the lawyer for former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt, who uncovered the escort service call while putting together a lawsuit claiming breach of contract. Nutt’s lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge on jurisdictional grounds. It is expected to be re-filed in Mississippi state court next week.

Though the phone records are incomplete, the documented calls between Freeze and Harris are noteworthy due to the booster's role in Ole Miss’ NCAA case.

The NCAA alleges that Harris, who owns Funkys Pizza and Daiquiri Bar in downtown Oxford and was a season ticket holder for Ole Miss football and basketball, provided recruiting inducements to linebacker Leo Lewis, who wound up signing with Mississippi State. The allegation was deemed a Level 1 violation, the most severe in the NCAA’s four-tiered system.

Claims made by Lewis, who was granted limited immunity by the NCAA in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation, form the basis for some of the most serious allegations against Ole Miss. The university has contested Lewis’ accounts during his three NCAA interviews, calling them inconsistent.

Lewis is expected to be present for Ole Miss’ Committee on Infractions hearing on Sept. 11 just outside of Cincinnati.

NCAA investigators, however, claim that Lewis is a credible witness, citing, among other things, his ability to physically describe Harris, according to its response to Ole Miss made public last week. Lewis, who said he met Harris at the Ole Miss football complex, told NCAA investigators that Harris gave him “two or three cash payments of between $100 and $200 during visits to Funkys" in addition to free food and drinks for him and his family.

Phone records Harris turned over to Ole Miss revealed that he had texted Lewis shortly before national signing day in 2015 and had made phone calls to him despite previously telling investigators he had not communicated with him. Ole Miss also acknowledged the records showed communication with members of the coaching staff around the same time period.

Though Ole Miss disputes the claim that a cash exchange took place, citing lack of corroborating evidence, the inconsistency of Harris’ account led the school to disassociate him from the program during the period of its NCAA probation.

Ole Miss self-imposed a bowl ban on Feb. 23, 2017, shortly after receiving a Notice of Allegations that included a lack of institutional control charge.

Harris’ cell phone number first shows up in Freeze’s phone records in January 2015, but the logs show no more calls between them until July and only sporadic communication through the rest of 2015.

The following year, however, they called each other 158 times, including stretches from March through July 2016 in which they communicated almost every day, and often several times per day.

The frequency of the calls, however, slowed precipitously late last year when the NCAA began to zero in on Harris.

The call logs show a three-minute conversation the night of Nov. 8, roughly eight days before Harris’ NCAA interview, and then not again until Dec. 7 when he called Freeze at 12:53 p.m. and they spoke for three minutes. They spoke again two days later for five minutes.

On Dec. 28 — one week after Ole Miss officials met with the NCAA in Indianapolis for a conference prior to receiving the Notice of Allegations — Freeze and Harris spoke for eight minutes. The following afternoon, they spoke for 11 minutes in a Freeze-initiated call. Those were the two longest calls among the 200 documented communications between them.

Harris placed four calls to Freeze on Feb. 18, 2017, four days before Ole Miss received the Notice of Allegations, and then again for six minutes on Feb. 27. There were only 15 communications between them in the log for 2017.

Asked why they stopped communicating as much toward the end of 2016, Watkins said, “I don’t know. I think their relationship grew over time.”

Given the stakes of the NCAA investigation, their close personal relationship and frequent communication could have raised a red flag with Ole Miss and the NCAA.

According to NCAA bylaws, “knowingly furnishing or knowingly influencing others to furnish the NCAA or the individual’s institution false or misleading information concerning an individual’s involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an NCAA regulation” constitutes unethical conduct.

Freeze has been charged with failure to monitor, an alleged violation both he and the school are contesting even though he is no longer the football coach.