Iowa Error in Not Letting Tate Keep Prize

You might recall last summer when Iowa's Drew Tate was playing in a charity golf tournament and made a hole-in-one that earned him $25,000 toward the purchase of a new Dodge.

Word quickly reached then-Iowa athletic director Bob Bowlsby, who told the quarterback that if he accepted the prize, he would be ineligible for his senior season.

It turns out that Tate could have kept the prize and maintained his eligibility. This according to Wally Renfro, senior advisor to NCAA president Myles Brand.

"It is my understanding that it is not a violation to accept the car. Iowa wouldn't let him keep it, not the NCAA," Renfro told the site Money Players.

This wasn't the first time Renfro offered this opinion. He told Darren Rovell of CNBC.com that same thing in March. Rovell was in New York to cover the IMG World Congress of Sports when Brand said he wasn't opposed to student-athletes filling out NCAA brackets as long as it wasn't for money. "A student-athlete can walk into the a supermarket and be the millionth customer and win a prize."

Wrote Rovell: "I was surprised by Brand's comments because I remember the University of Iowa forced their quarterback Drew Tate to give back the $25,000 he won by hitting a hole-in-one at a charity golf tournament because they said it would sacrifice his final year of eligibility. After Brand finished speaking, I spoke with the NCAA's Wally Renfro, who told me that he didn't believe that Tate's accepting of the prize was against NCAA rules. Sorry Drew."