University of Tennessee Probe Leads Investigators to South Florida

By Thomas Francis Wed., Dec. 9 2009 at 4:38 PM

Categories: Broward, Palm Beach, Sports

Flickr: imnatron

Cheerleaders are OK; but is the University of Tennessee using its female student body for football recruiting?

Tennessee Volunteers head football coach Lane Kiffin loves South Florida football players -- we told you how he bought a billboard in their honor, which you can see here. But now the question for NCAA investigators is whether he and his staff encourage the university's female students to show a forbidden form of love to those prospective recruits.

The New York Times is reporting that Kiffin is at the center of an NCAA investigation based on potentially improper contact between Volunteer football recruits and a group of "hostesses" -- in essence, attractive representatives of the student body.

If those hostesses are deemed by investigators to be "representatives" of the university and if they're

being encouraged to use their feminine wiles to recruit football players, then Kiffin and his Volunteers are in big trouble.

Among the visits made by collegiate athletic investigators, Pahokee. That's where one Volunteer recruit, wide receiver Chris Dunkley, goes to school. If this investigation grows, don't be surprised to hear more names from South Florida.