UCF baseball coach Greg Lovelady denies bat alterations

A former UCF baseball player has made allegations of cheating against Greg Lovelady’s program.

The player, who is no longer with the team, sent out various emails to a number of teams and made claims that a teammate had altered his baseball bat, among other allegations.

The emails included a short video taken inside the UCF baseball locker room showing the teammate seemingly switching a sticker from one bat to another in an attempt to use an allegedly altered bat.

In a statement provided to the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday night, Lovelady said UCF has found no evidence of using illegal bats following an internal investigation and discussion with the AAC.

“After meeting with the student-athlete shown and viewing the limited-context video, we imposed a two-game suspension,” Lovelady told the Sentinel. “I’ve addressed the matter with our team on multiple occasions and made it abundantly clear what both the letter and spirit of the rules are when it comes to bats.”

Initial explanation unclear

When first pressed by Trace Trylko from the Sons of UCF sports podcast on the rumors that were circulating throughout the baseball community, Lovelady didn’t provide a clear answer as to what exactly happened.

On Tuesday, Trylko posted a two-minute video from his interview with Lovelady, which quickly went viral on Twitter. As of Wednesday night, the video has nearly 900,000 impressions on the social media platform and has been retweeted nearly 200 times.

Below is a full transcript of the questions asked by Trylko and answered by Lovelady in the video:

Trylko: “This stretch comes amidst a former player of yours circulating some statements about altering bats. How have you responded to them?”

Lovelady: “Yeah, I mean, we just — there are some things that you can control and some things that you can’t control. We just handled everything internally. There [are] things that we feel like we need to do better at and some things you just have no control over what other people say, whether they be true or not true. [If] there are things that you feel like you need to address internally then we addressed them and make sure that those things don’t happen and the things that we don’t need to address, then we don’t obviously address them. [It is] unfortunate, but just part of it, part of the process of just handling our things and then go onto handle the next day the best we can.”

Trylko: “Have you conducted an internal investigation of this?”

Lovelady: “We’ve handled everything we needed to handle internally and done everything that we can to make sure that we know what is going on inside and make sure that whatever needs to not happen again doesn’t happen again. And things that are not things that we need to worry about then we don’t.”

Trylko: “So, there is some validity to the allegations?”

Lovelady: “I don’t know exactly everything that is out there so I don’t know if I feel comfortable answering it because I’m not 100% sure exactly but I know the things that we’ve handled —”

Trylko: “Altering bats?”

Lovelady: “There are a lot of layers into that so I just don’t really want to get into all of it but there are a lot of layers that go into that of bat protocols, all that kind of stuff that we just need to make sure that we stay with what is supposed to happen and follow the rules and do what we can to be the best team that we can.”

Trylko: “Have you had to make any disciplinary action with any current players?”

Lovelady: “Yeah, I have. Definitely. And we’ve handled it and we’ve moved on.”

More context provided

In his statement provided to the Sentinel, Lovelady said he wanted to “clarify some previous comments I made on this subject and provide additional detail.”

The UCF coach said several weeks ago a player left the team. When Lovelady met with the player, he indicated to Lovelady that he was frustrated with his role.

The player “subsequently made allegations — which included a brief video — suggesting another member of the team had interfered with the bat certification process.”

According to NCAA protocol, all nonwood bats used during a competition must be reviewed by baseball bat testing conducted prior to each regular season series or single date of the game. The purpose of this testing is to ensure that legal equipment is used in competition.

The bat testing is done between both teams in a private location. To show that a bat has passed the testing, a tamper-proof sticker is placed on the bat.

The short video, which is 15 seconds long, shows a player allegedly removing the sticker from one bat to another. It’s unclear when the video was taken.

The video, which was viewed by the Sentinel, also blurs the face of the player who is shown.

After meeting with the player shown in the video, Lovelady suspended him for two games and has since spoken to the team multiple times about the incident.

“This incident falls under the code of sportsmanship of the American Athletic Conference,” Lovelady said in the statement. “We made a recommendation to the league, and the AAC accepted and supported the action we took.

“We have no evidence of the use of illegal bats.”

What’s next for UCF

The Knights opened the season 15-5 but have since fallen to 18-15 overall, including 1-5 in conference action.

They won Tuesday at Stetson after dropping four straight games and losing 10 of 12.

UCF hosts Memphis in a three-game series that starts Friday before facing Stetson again next week at home.

Email Jason Beede at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @therealBeede.

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