In the latest allegation to come to light involving the abuse of accommodations provided to learning-disabled players at the University of Tennessee, a former athletic department tutor cited offensive lineman Chad Clifton as having received improper help on an English paper in 1995.

	Chad Clifton was a four-year starter and member of the Vols' national championship team.

Clifton, an all-Southeastern Conference tackle last season, was a freshman when he received what tutor Dale Bailey considered "ethically and pedagogically questionable" assistance from another tutor who allegedly co-wrote a paper with him.

The athletic department's refusal to address the matter was one of the reasons Bailey resigned four days later, according to a copy of the resignation letter acquired by ESPN.com. In the Nov. 6, 1995, note, he also said he was verbally and physically abused by players.

Bailey, now an English instructor on campus, declined to comment when reached by ESPN.com. He said he feels obligated to cooperate with university or NCAA investigators but neither have called.

"The letter speaks for itself," Bailey said. "It says everything I could say anyway."

NCAA investigator Ron Barker has been interviewing witnesses in the Tennessee case since Oct. 28, when the school concluded its own internal review of allegations of improper tutoring going back to 1995. That year the English Department threatened to bring up the athletic department on charges of institutional plagiarism.

Rough job

In his resignation letter to Gerry Dickey, Dale Bailey described an atmosphere in the athletic department that was hostile to some tutors. Many of the athletes, he wrote, have "shown profound disdain and disrespect for my position as tutor and for me as an individual. These problems, as you know, came to a head on the evening of October 25, 1995, when I was verbally abused by one athlete and pushed by another." Bailey did not name the two players. Tennessee athletic director Doug Dickey declined to reveal their identities and said no players have been punished for physical or verbal abuse of tutors in his 14 years with the Vols. "We have no problem with that," Dickey said. He contends an investigation of the Bailey case is "unnecessary." Bailey is the second member of the tutoring staff to allege abuse for trying to do their job. Robin Wright, former coordinator of academic programs, wrote in October 1998 that Roderick Moore, a former football player overseeing the study hall, tried to physically intimidate her when she objected to improper aid he was giving players. Moore denied the charge.

Tennessee argued in its two-page report that no NCAA rules were broken by athletes or administrators.

In his resignation letter to his boss, Gerry Dickey, Bailey wrote that Clifton came to the tutoring area without the standard rough draft to work from. He said that a female athletic department employee "worked at the computer and typed the essay, using Chad's verbal instructions and making substantial contributions of her own to the essay, both in style and content. Chad, meanwhile, copied the essay from the computer screen into his notebook so he would have a 'rough draft' to show his instructor."

Bailey wrote that when he registered his concern about the incident to Dickey, "you assured me that such assistance was allowable due to the student's documented learning disability." Bailey felt that, nonetheless, the assistance went beyond what was allowable.

Doug Dickey, Tennessee athletic director, said he became aware of the letter within the past week. He said he has no intention of requesting an investigation into the matter of academic improprieties, or the allegations of physical and verbal abuse by players.

"I'll take Gerry Dickey's word for it" that there was no wrongdoing, said Doug Dickey, who is unrelated to Gerry Dickey.

Gerry Dickey, now with the University of Mississippi, did not returned phone calls.

Clifton, who is preparing for the NFL draft, denied any knowledge of the academic-abuse incident described by Bailey. He said he paid tutors to type his papers at Tennessee but that they always worked off his rough drafts.

"I don't know what that guy (Bailey) is talking about," Clifton said.

The Clifton situation represents the second case from 1995 in which instructors trained in English alleged that the athletic department had been overzealous in its application of services due to athletes with learning disabilities. Earlier that year, center Spencer Riley -- like Clifton a co-captain on the 1999 team -- had been cited for having a paper essentially written for him by tutor Lois Prislovsky, who allegedly turned his oral dictation into a paper that also included significant input from her.

Allegations of improper tutoring of learning-disabled students who are football players also were leveled in 1998 by Robin Wright, former coordinator of academic programs in the Tennessee athletic department.

Students with some documented disabilities are permitted to have tutors take oral dictation, said Dard Miller, co-chair of the Learning Disabilities Committee of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletes. But this type of service is an area open to abuse because of the potential for untrained or overzealous tutors to end up doing the work for the student, rather than helping the student learn to write his own paper.

"When you interject content and style changes, you're treading into territory that violates academic integrity," Miller said. She also termed as "questionable" the practice of writing down a rough draft of the paper after it had been typed by a tutor, for the sake of presenting something raw to a teacher.

Bailey's letter

To read the two-page resignation letter of former Tennessee athletic tutor Dale Bailey, click on the following for page one and page two. ESPN.com confirmed that the player cited is Chad Clifton, whose name is blacked out in the letter because of student confidentiality laws. For a timeline of all events and allegations, and to read more memos relating to the academic fraud concerns at Tennessee that were originally brought to public light in an ESPN.com investigation, click here.

Dickey received the Bailey letter from university lawyer Ronald C. Leadbetter, who confirmed that he has been in possession of it for several months but decided not to investigate the matter during the school's internal review. He declined to offer a specific reason why he did not contact Bailey, other than to say he had to make "judgment calls" on which witnesses might have information relevant to potential NCAA violations.

"You can't talk to everybody," Leadbetter said. "Generally, if I thought there was evidence of inappropriate conduct and reliable evidence, I would follow up on it."

The Clifton incident represents the second case in which Leadbetter had documented information alleging improper tutoring of a football player, but declined to follow up. The other involved Riley, who like Clifton was a four-year starter and member of the Volunteers' national championship team from the 1998 season.

Leadbetter said that allegations from years ago also generally affect his decision on whether to investigate. "Obviously, time is a factor," he said.

NCAA rules, however, state that generally any allegation made within four years can count as a violation. In the case of Bailey's letter, Leadbetter became aware of it before Nov. 6, 1999, placing the discovery within the four-year time frame. Officially, the school became aware of the letter as early as November 1995 when Bailey wrote the letter to Dickey.

Linda Bensel-Meyers, an English Department official in charge of monitoring part of the tutoring program in the athletic department, said she is not surprised the school refuses to investigate the incidents or even talk to Bailey.

"That's blatant evidence of lack of institutional control and the disrespect that the athletic department has for the faculty," Bensel-Meyers said.

Bensel-Meyers said she met with Bailey after each alleged incident during 1995 and calls him an educator of the highest academic integrity.

"What he witnessed had to have been extreme violations or he wouldn't have called attention to them," she said. "I trust him completely, because he's not one to cause problems where they don't exist."

In his letter, Bailey cited a second incident of improper tutoring of an athlete but did not name the player or tutor.

The question of whether the Volunteers face any penalties may come down to the NCAA's interpretation of its own rules. Tennessee has stated that none of the players they looked into received fraudulent credit for any of the work allegedly done by overzealous tutors, due to Wright and others who flagged the work before it was turned in.

However, the NCAA can cite any program for "lack of institutional control," if it believes the school failed to handle its matters in a proper way -- such as failing to investigate potential NCAA violations when the school learned of them, or failing to follow its school procedures, among other ethical violations.

The NCAA does not comment on pending investigations.