How Jeremy Pruitt’s wife Casey went from NCAA rule enforcer to rule breaker at Tennessee
About a decade before Casey Pruitt allegedly broke NCAA recruiting rules for her husband, former Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt, coaches asked her for guidance about those same rules.
In 2009 at Troy University, coaches came to her to find out if they could contact a prospect or bring them to campus for an official visit within NCAA rules.
As a graduate assistant in the athletic compliance office, sometimes Casey Pruitt had to tell them no. But she had a knack for doing it with sympathy and sternness.
"Casey would deliver bad news with a smile in a way that could disarm a coach," said Kit Alewine, the former director of compliance at Troy, where Casey said she fell in love with working in NCAA rules.
Casey Pruitt's past makes her perhaps the most peculiar part of the Tennessee football recruiting scandal.
And that’s saying a lot, considering a complicit babysitter, free pedicures and a cash-stuffed Chick-fil-A bag are also part of the case.
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But the irony of her involvement is hard to ignore. And Tennessee cited her participation to support its claim that Jeremy Pruitt deceived the university and should be held responsible.
"(Jeremy) Pruitt was directly involved in serious violations … including violations committed by his wife (Casey) Pruitt carried out at their home in Knoxville," UT said in its response to NCAA allegations.
‘It’s really a cautionary tale’
Casey Pruitt worked in NCAA compliance at Troy, Oklahoma and Florida State from 2009-13. Then she married an up-and-coming football coach in 2014 and allegedly helped him cheat at Tennessee, an NCAA investigation found.
"If true, it’s not the Casey I knew," Alewine said. "It’s really a cautionary tale about the allure of winning at all costs."
During her career in NCAA compliance, she went by Casey East, her maiden name.
In its response to NCAA allegations, Tennessee referred to her as a “representative of the institution's athletics interests and (Jeremy) Pruitt’s wife."
Regardless of what she’s called, Casey Pruitt is a puzzling piece of the NCAA case.
Jeremy and Casey Pruitt could not be reached for comment. Records show they denied wrongdoing to NCAA investigators.
Alewine, now an associate commissioner for Division II Conference Carolinas, spoke to Knox News about Casey Pruitt's training and experience in compliance.
Oklahoma compliance director Jason Leonard, her second boss in the field, declined an interview request because he is on the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
Requests were made to five of Casey Pruitt's former compliance colleagues at Florida State. Two still work at Florida State. Two are at other jobs in college athletics. One runs a prep basketball academy in Canada. None responded to numerous interview requests.
Why Casey Pruitt’s name appeared 38 times in investigation
Recent records shed more light on Casey Pruitt's involvement in the Vols recruiting scandal.
In July, her name appeared four times in the NCAA’s 51-page notice of allegations. But her name appeared 38 times in Tennessee’s 108-page response to the NCAA, which Knox News obtained on Nov. 24.
The latter document is more detailed. It provides evidence from the university’s internal investigation and context gleaned from an interview with Casey Pruitt by NCAA enforcement staff on March 7, 2022, more than a year after her husband was fired for cause.
Jeremy Pruitt allegedly is the primary culprit in the case. His name appeared 195 times in Tennessee’s response to the NCAA allegations.
Three assistant coaches, three recruiting staff members and an unnamed booster also are alleged to have committed 18 Level 1 violations – the most serious in the NCAA’s four-tier system – for providing almost $60,000 of cash or gifts to players and their families from 2018-21.
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They were fired in January 2021 in a house-cleaning measure by Tennessee. And the NCAA charged the university with a “failure to monitor” violation, which Tennessee disputes. The NCAA is scheduled to respond to that contention by late January.
But allegations of some of the most serious violations involve Casey Pruitt, and they relate to her training in NCAA rules.
What rules the NCAA said Casey Pruitt broke
In 2009, Casey Pruitt landed a graduate assistant position in compliance at Troy, her alma mater.
Learning basic NCAA rules and creating PowerPoint presentations to teach them to coaches were among her first tasks.
Early on, her specialty was financial aid, which offsets expenses for athletes and their families. At Tennessee, Casey Pruitt allegedly paid for cars and rent for recruits, players and their families.
In 2018, Jeremy and Casey Pruitt paid $6,000 to a recruit’s mother for a down payment on a 2017 Nissan Armada. He promised the payment during a recruiting visit in fall 2018 and paid the $6,000 on Dec. 26, 2018, UT’s response alleged.
The recruit enrolled at UT to play football. And from Jan. 28, 2019, to March 26, 2021, the Pruitts paid 25 monthly payments of $500 for the car.
The player’s mother told investigators that she received the money from Casey or the Pruitts’ babysitter at the Pruitts’ home. Also, Casey occasionally delivered the money to her residence.
In a separate incident, a player’s mother told investigators that Casey Pruitt paid her $1,600 cash for a security deposit on a Knoxville rental home and also arranged for assistant coach Brian Niedermeyer to deliver a second payment of $1,600 because she was out of town.
People with redacted names provided documentation to support their account. According to UT’s response to the NCAA, Casey Pruitt told investigators that she “could have” been present when the player’s mother toured the rental home, but she didn’t recall. She denied giving her money.
‘She had a knack for the compliance industry’
Casey Pruitt earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English. But working in compliance at Troy from 2009-10 as a graduate assistant piqued her interest in the field, and she appeared to have the right skills for it.
"Casey was driven, very organized," Alewine said. "She had a knack for the compliance industry."
Casey Pruitt landed an entry level full-time job in compliance in the Oklahoma athletic department. She worked there from 2011-12, gaining more experience and knowledge of NCAA rules.
Then Casey went to Florida State as director of initial eligibility, admissions and student services, just as Jeremy Pruitt was hired as the Seminoles’ defensive coordinator.
Jeremy Pruitt had been on Alabama coach Nick Saban’s coaching staff the previous six years. He built a reputation of bringing top-notch talent to the Crimson Tide for three national titles. In 2012, he was named 247Sports National Recruiter of the Year.
"I was really heavily involved in recruiting at Florida State, and I think he liked how I talked to the players and the parents," Casey Pruitt told Knox News in 2018. "I joke that the only reason he married me is because I'm a good recruiter."
Once they were engaged in 2013, Casey Pruitt ended her career in compliance.
"I never wanted there to be a conflict of interest because I was engaged to the defensive coordinator," Casey Pruitt said. "That was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do."
Calls, texts between Casey Pruitt and Niedermeyer built case
During their engagement, Florida State won the 2013 national title with Jeremy Pruitt running the defense.
They were married in May 2014 after he became defensive coordinator at Georgia. Two years later, he returned to Alabama as Saban’s defensive coordinator.
Niedermeyer followed the Pruitts each step. He was Jeremy’s defensive graduate assistant at Georgia and Alabama.
And when Alabama won the 2017 national title, Niedermeyer was its assistant director of recruiting operations. So when Jeremy Pruitt was named the coach of Tennessee, he brought Niedermeyer with him to lure talent to the Vols.
That history is notable because Casey Pruitt and Niedermeyer were linked in numerous violations, according to UT’s response to the NCAA. And their communication was used as evidence against them and the other accused parties.
Casey Pruitt and Niedermeyer allegedly worked together to pay the rent for the player’s mother. Phone records showed they exchanged multiple calls on the move-in date, and the player’s mother said that was to arrange payment while Casey Pruitt was in Florida.
During a COVID dead period for recruiting in November 2020, Niedermeyer paid for an impermissible meal of a recruit in Gatlinburg. Then Jeremy Pruitt talked to the recruit via FaceTime when he wasn’t allowed to contact him.
The FaceTime call was made between Niedermeyer’s personal cell phone and Casey Pruitt’s phone. Text messages between them to set up the call were cited as evidence in UT’s report.
In 2019, Niedermeyer was named the 247Sports National Recruiter of the Year at Tennessee, the same award Jeremy Pruitt received for helping to build Alabama’s talented roster.
When asked what made Niedermeyer such an effective recruiter, Jeremy Pruitt said that “he uses the resources that we have here.”
Casey Pruitt held firm to NCAA rules in her career
Casey Pruitt can’t be blamed solely for what her husband and his staff members did, even if she was involved. But it’s clear she had deep knowledge about the rules they are accused of breaking.
Alewine recalls Troy coaches coming to Casey Pruitt with “elementary questions” on NCAA rules about navigating recruiting dead periods and contact periods. Those are the rules that she and Niedermeyer helped Jeremy Pruitt violate, according to the NCAA.
As a compliance staffer, Casey Pruitt had access to the NCAA Legislative Services Database, which includes bylaws and rules interpretations.
If it said a coach could not host or contact a recruit or pay their expenses in a particular situation, she told them the bad news. Sometimes that could mean a coach lost a recruit to a competitor. But Casey Pruitt stood her ground.
"Casey did a good job of handling it when a coach would get upset in the heat of the moment (because she declined their request)," Alewine said. "The coach would apologize later. She could be disarming."
Casey Pruitt may save Tennessee from repeat of Bruce Pearl BBQ
Curiously, a text message from Casey to Jeremy Pruitt may lessen the degree of one violation.
According to the NCAA report, the Pruitts hosted high school coaches at their home in July 2020 during a dead period. At least one of them coached a player Tennessee was recruiting, but their names are redacted.
UT conceded it was a violation because of the impermissible contact, which coaches confirmed to investigators. But in its response to the NCAA, UT argued that the Pruitts did not feed the coaches, which would’ve added an impermissible benefit to the violation.
UT’s counter evidence was a text message from Casey to Jeremy Pruitt, which said: “(E)veryone is coming up to eat, should I order something?”
It was sent at 9:47 p.m., which seems late to order food for a dinner party.
"Based on the lack of context surrounding this text, coupled with the fact that the message was sent later in the evening, it is not conclusive that food was provided to the high school coaches," UT said in its response.
Granted, that’s a minor detail in the case. But it might remind Tennessee fans of the barbecue that ultimately got former basketball coach Bruce Pearl in trouble with the NCAA.
In 2008, Pearl hosted recruits at his home during a dead period and then lied about it to NCAA investigators. He received a show-cause penalty from the NCAA.
Jeremy Pruitt could meet the same fate, but it won’t be merely because he fed a few high school coaches. The case is ongoing for Tennessee and Pruitts.
Follow Adam Sparks on Twitter @AdamSparks.