UCF baseball accused of tampering with bats, Lovelady denies

A former player for UCF baseball accuses the team of cheating by tampering with bats. Head coach Greg Lovelady denied the accusations on Tuesday, saying they "have no evidence."

The UCF baseball team has been accused by a former player of cheating by tampering with bats, according to a statement from head coach Greg Lovelady.

In the statement from UCF Athletics, first obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, Lovelady said the former player who recently quit had a video of a current UCF player who allegedly had removed a tamper-proof sticker from a certified bat and placed it on a bat that had not been certified.

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

The player in the video was suspended for two games. The team has discussed the matter and reviewed conduct and expectations, and the matter was discussed with the AAC which “accepted and supported” the disciplinary action taken, he said.

“After meeting with the student-athlete shown and viewing the limited-context video, we imposed a two-game suspension,” Lovelady said in the statement. “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.”

The former player’s accusations recently came to light when an interview with Lovelady by Trace Trylko from the Sons of UCF Podcast caused plenty of stir throughout Twitter. In the clip posted by Trylko on Monday, Trylko asked Lovelady about allegations of altering bats made by a former player who quit the team earlier in the season.

Lovelady does not deny the allegations in the interview, but later denied them in his statement.

“There (are) things that we feel like we need to do better at and some things that you just have no control over what other people say, whether they be true or not true,” Lovelady said in the video.

When pressed again by the interviewer about the potential validity of the allegations, Lovelady said he felt uncomfortable answering because he didn’t know all of the information that was circulating.

“I don’t know exactly everything that’s out there so I don’t know if I feel comfortable answering it because I’m not 100% sure exactly,” Lovelady said.

The interviewer clarified that he was looking for a response about the allegations about altering bats.

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

Lovelady also said he was in contact with the American Athletic Conference and received support for the action they took in addressing the matter.

“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.”

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