Web of rule-bending emerges from data.

It was perhaps the University of Minnesota basketball program's finest moment. The NCAA Tournament quarterfinals. A national television audience. An 80-72 victory over UCLA. The Gophers advance to their first Final Four.

Minnesota's leading scorer that magical day in San Antonio? Bobby Jackson with 18 points. Its leading rebounder? Jackson with nine. The player who made eight free throws in the closing minutes to seal the victory? Jackson again.

But what did Jackson sacrifice in academics for moments like that?

An extensive analysis of documents obtained by the Pioneer Press sheds light on the academic travails of the star basketball player and gives insight into alleged academic improprieties at the university.

Among them:

• The school awarded Jackson credits for a course earlier than school rules allow so that he would be eligible to compete as an incoming transfer.
• An instructor gave Jackson an "A" in a directed-study course in which the only assignment was to type the word "basketball" into a university database and list the articles that appeared.
• Jackson was never enrolled in courses that would fill basic requirements he needed to graduate, such as math and a foreign language.
• Academic advisers allowed Jackson to take so many elective courses that he remains approximately 76 credits (about 18 classes) short of a degree despite having earned 184.4 credits, 1.6 short of the minimum to graduate.
• Faced with the possibility of being ruled ineligible for the 1996-97 season, Jackson was permitted to change his major so he could play, even though the move made it impossible for him to graduate at the end of five college years, a requirement for college athletes.

Jackson is one of at least 21 players whose coursework is being investigated by the university to determine whether papers, take-home exams and other material was done for them by a former office manager. And with the basketball program under fire for having the lowest graduation rate in the Big Ten, Jackson is among the latest in a series of Gophers to complete their playing careers without earning a degree.

Jackson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has previously said no course work was done for him. He said it was only typed for him. Athletic department officials declined to comment on the specifics of Jackson's case, citing privacy laws.

When Jackson, now playing for the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves, arrived in the Twin Cities after three years at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff, coach Clem Haskins raved about his basketball abilities and hinted he could be the Gophers' best player.

Documents show that Jackson brought something more to the school than playing talent: an academic problem.

According to documents obtained by the Pioneer Press, Jackson had earned 110.4 credits while in junior college. While that was enough to satisfy NCAA eligibility requirements, Jackson was short of the 117 credits he needed to to compete in the fall under Big Ten Conference guidelines.

Under NCAA rules, academic counselors are not allowed to begin working with basketball players until they are full-time students or, in the case of football, until practice begins.

But Jan Gangelhoff, the woman at the center of allegations of academic improprieties, says Alonzo Newby, the academic counselor for basketball, approached her in the summer, before Jackson enrolled, and asked her what courses Jackson could quickly take to make up the difference.

Newby declined comment for this story through his attorney, Ron Rosenbaum.

"I remember Alonzo saying that Bobby needed credits badly," Gangelhoff said.

Gangelhoff said that because she had already done course work for other players in two independent study courses in history, Jackson signed up for those classes, History 3910 and 3812, making it easy for her to provide course work for him, too.

In independent study courses, students are given reading and writing assignments, then turn them into the office of independent and distant learning, which passes the materials on to instructors for grading. No classes are ever held.

But students must meet a requirement to spend at least six weeks between the time they turn in their first assignment and the time the complete the independent-study class.

In a letter dated Aug. 25, 1995, that Gangelhoff says she wrote for Jackson, he tells professor Rudolph Vecoli that he needed to take History 3910 to be eligible to "practice and compete with my teammates" and to gain admission to the school.

"I would also very much appreciate it if you could submit a grade as soon as possible so that I can begin the University's admission process," states the letter. "As you can see, the first two assignments are enclosed."

It is unclear if Jackson's admission to the university and its College of Education and Human Development was also contingent on the completion of summer-school classes. One admissions office document dated June 15, 1995, states that Jackson was admitted as a Recreation major with missing information -- his high school transcript. But according to the office of the registrar, Jackson was not admitted to the university until Nov. 9, more than halfway through his first quarter as a member of the Gophers team.

Regardless of his admission date, Jackson needed to earn eight credits by Sept. 21, the first day of classes and the deadline for credits to count toward fall eligibility.

But if Jackson did not turn in his first assignment until Aug. 25, as the letter states, he should not have received a grade and the credits for that course until Oct. 8. University rules specify that independent study courses cannot be completed in less than six weeks from the date the first assignment is turned in.

According to University College, however, Jackson's grade for History 3910 was posted Sept. 28. That means Jackson received credits for the course in violation of school policy and a benefit unavailable to other students, which is against NCAA rules.

When asked how an athlete can have a grade posted so quickly, Debbie Hillengass, director of independent study, initially told the Pioneer Press the six-week rule was not put in until 1996, after a campaign for the rule led by Elayne Donahue, then academic counseling director .

But Donahue said she campaigned for the rule in the late 1980s, at which time it was implemented. When told of Donahue's comments, Hillengass said her earlier statements were incorrect and that the rule had been in effect since 1989.

Asked who would be responsible for submitting a grade earlier than the six weeks, Hillengass said she could not comment because of the ongoing investigation at the university. She did say, however, that her department "did not allow special exemptions."

A copy of the form the university sends to the Big Ten Conference to certify eligibility shows that athletic director Mark Dienhart and an official in the registrar's office signed off on Jackson's eligibility even before the grade for History 3910 had been posted.

"Bobby needed the credits and Alonzo got them for him," Gangelhoff said. "It was that simple."

The university's faculty representative, Norm Chervany, is allowed to make an exception for athletes who have completed work before the eligibility deadline, Sept. 21 in Jackson's case, but who have not yet received a grade because of delays in "normal administrative procedures," according to the Big Ten handbook.

However, both Rick Marsden, a one-time academic counselor for the hockey and basketball teams, and Donahue said that exception is not meant to circumvent the six-week rule and that student-athletes are given a document at the start of the year that outlines that fact.

"The exception is meant for students who might be waiting for credits they took from a class at, say, a junior college to transfer," Marsden said. "There are often delays with things like that. But with independent study courses, a student cannot complete the course in less than six weeks. A student might be able to get the work done, but they cannot get the credits."

Vecoli, whose named is spelled "Vercoli" in the letter, said he designed course 3910 in the 1980s but he did not teach the class in 1995. He speculated that the letter might have been addressed to him because his name is included in the course description.

The instructor for History 3910 for the 1995 second summer session was Anna Kirchman, now a history professor at Eastern Connecticut State. She said she had Jackson as a student for that course but she never received the letter.

She declined further comment.

Another possible problem for the university is the issue of who paid for the classes. Investigators looking into the academic fraud allegation asked Gangelhoff in an interview last month if she knew who paid for the two history courses.

NCAA rules prohibit an institution from paying for classes or housing for a junior-college transfer until the athlete is enrolled full-time.

"I told them I didn't know," Gangelhoff said.

Jackson was injured shortly after practice began that fall and only played in five games that December.

Jackson began taking classes full-time in the fall of 1995, but the task of keeping him eligible had just begun.

A comparison of copies of course work kept by Gangelhoff and other documents appear to show she did work for him in nine of the 10 classes he took during fall, winter and spring quarters his first academic year.

In his first full quarter at the U, Jackson even enrolled in the same public health course as Gangelhoff, and she allegedly provided course work that she says she did and Jackson turned in.

Gangelhoff also allegedly did assignments for Jackson in all six recreation courses he took that year, which were in his major.

Jackson's course selection that first year was not atypical. He mixed courses in his major with those that would count toward the numerous other requirements he needed to graduate.

However, his scheduling changed abruptly during the two summer sessions in 1996. He signed up for three courses -- a business law course, a management course from which he later withdrew, and a directed studies class taught by African-American Studies professor John Taborn.

None of those classes fulfilled his major or the university prerequisites he needed if he hoped to be on track toward a degree at the start of fall quarter 1996.

The main example of that, Gangelhoff claims, is the directed-study class taught by Taborn. Directed-study courses allow the instructor to design the curriculum. According to Gangelhoff, Jackson's only assignment for the four-credit course was to do a search on the word "basketball" on a database at the university library and compile an annotated bibliography.

"And I did it for Bobby," Gangelhoff said. "I could do the search at (the academic counseling office), so I typed in basketball and put together an annotated bibliography of the articles that came up on the search. Bobby turned it in. That was it. That was all Bobby had to do for the class."

Jackson received an "A" for the course, according to documents.

Taborn could not be reached Thursday and on Friday he did not respond to repeated messages.

On June 11, 1996, Jackson applied to the College of Education and Human Development to change his major from Recreation to Sports Studies. Donahue said the change of major was likely what kept Jackson eligible for the 1997-98 season.

Big Ten rules specify that a player must prove at the start of his fifth season that he can graduate at the end of the school year, which is considered to be the end of the second summer session.

By the end of that session in 1996, Jackson was approximately 80 credits, or about 16 classes, from earning a degree, according to his academic progress report.

"If he needed that many credits then it is unlikely he would have been eligible (for the 1996-97 season)," said Marsden. "It would be impossible for a student-athlete in season to get that many credits done. The registrar's office would have noticed that and not certified him."

The change pushed Jackson further from a degree -- approximately 100 credits (about 26 courses) -- but it kept him eligible. Under Big Ten rules, if an athlete changes his major he has one year to meet eligibility requirements. Even though he had no eligibility remaining after that season, Jackson's change gave him another year to meet those standards.

"That rule is met for an athlete who, say, wanted to change his or her major to architecture, because it would be extremely difficult for a student to get on course to graduate with a major such as that," Donahue said. "It is not meant to be used to keep players eligible.

The change in major rendered the six recreation courses Jackson took useless. They counted toward a degree only as electives, as did the two independent-study history courses, Taborn's directed-study course and the business law class. But more electives were the last thing Jackson needed.

He already transferred 10 courses from junior college that counted only as electives, and, with the change in his major, that number jumped to 21 courses, or 80 credits. Going into fall 1996, Jackson had 79.4 credits that counted toward his major.

"That is unbelievable," Marsden said.

Although Jackson was close to the 186 minimum credits needed to earn a degree, he was still far from a diploma because of scheduling that Donahue said "shows that there was no real interest in helping the athlete make progress toward a degree."

In order for Jackson to earn a diploma, he would have to tackle a subject that had been a problem throughout his academic career -- mathematics.

Jackson had been admitted to the university without two high school preparatory requirements, including intermediate algebra. He never enrolled in an algebra course at the University of Minnesota. Jackson also never tried to take a language course. He was deficient in that subject coming out of high school also and needed to take three quarters of a second language to meet graduation requirements.

"Sometimes with an athlete, you will wait until later in their career to enroll them in a math or language course because then they would be mature enough to handle it," Donahue said. "But you obviously can't use that excuse with Bobby, he was going into his fifth year of college."

In fall 1996, the beginning of Jackson's final year and the start of the Final Four season, he enrolled in a child psychology course that met a requirement, and four sports studies courses. Gangelhoff's documents included work for all five of those classes.

He took four more sports studies courses in the fall, getting an incomplete in one and passing the others. Two classes included work Gangelhoff said she did.

In spring 1997, Gophers fans were celebrating the trip to the Final Four and Jackson was closing out his academic career. He enrolled in four classes in his major but withdrew from two and was given incompletes in the others.

He left the university with 184.4 credits, only 1.6 short of the minimum needed to graduate but, according to records, about 76 credits short of his requirement for his major. Of 22 courses he completed, Gangelhoff says she turned in course work for 18.

"There probably isn't a better example of how a basketball player could play but never really get close to a degree," Donahue said. "It is sad."