UK reports student-athletes falsified hours worked at hospital job

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - We obtained a letter to the NCAA from the University of Kentucky, self-reporting a violation of a bylaw.

On the field, things couldn’t be going any better for the Cats who are unbeaten and all the way up to number 8 in the country. However, despite a limited release of information on Saturday, there are still nagging questions about the Cats’ star running back, Chris Rodriguez.

UK sent out a heavily redacted document titled a “reinstatement request” which was sent to the NCAA on September 3.

The way the NCAA works is that, once a potential violation is found, the student-athlete is declared ineligible until evidence is presented which causes the NCAA and the school to “reinstate” their eligibility.

All summer long, sources were telling us there was an issue with UK student-athletes getting paid for work they didn’t do at UK Hospital and this document confirms that.

UK football players were paid as “patient transporters” at UK Hospital. According to video evidence at the hospital, they would arrive, clock in, leave and, in some cases, come back hours later to clock out.

Additionally, we had heard that some players may have been clocked in during games and, in its letter to the NCAA, UK said “the compliance office determined hours recorded as worked that conflicted with players’ class schedules, the 24 hours immediately before or after a game or time when surveillance video showed the players leaving the hospital had not been worked.

Multiple players were involved and, according to sources, some are no longer with the program.

However, outside linebacker Jordan Wright missed the opener and, last week, it was announced that UK star running back Chris Rodriguez would be suspended for the first four games before being eligible to return on Oct. 1 at Ole Miss.

Among the things we don’t know, what was the NCAA’s response to Kentucky and is the NCAA and/or UK going back to check the work hours of others in the program that began in 2017 and has Rodriguez been punished for the DUI he plead guilty to in July.

This is a developing story.

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