Georgia Tech was put on four years of probation on Thursday for violations by the Yellow Jackets’ football and men’s basketball programs.

The NCAA vacated the football team’s final three games of the 2009 season, including the Yellow Jackets’ loss to Iowa in the Orange Bowl. The team will not lose scholarships or postseason games.

A report filed by the NCAA said Georgia Tech was informed on November 2009 an athlete may have jeopardized his eligibility by accepting improper benefits. The athlete was allowed to play in the final three games of the season — a regular-season game, the ACC championship game, and the Orange Bowl.

The athlete, who remains officially unidentified, was eventually found guilty of accepting $312 worth of clothing, a gift considered an impermissible benefit.

According to the NCAA, the problem was compounded by university officials’ refusal to cooperate with the investigation.

"Georgia Tech officials disobeyed explicit instructions from the enforcement staff to protect the integrity of the investigation," the NCAA said in its report. "The institution compromised the investigation when it shared with a student-athlete … information relating to potential violations about which he was to be questioned by the enforcement staff in a future interview."

The university must clear its records of the three games (only one of which, the ACC championship, resulted in a Georgia Tech win), and the individual records of the athlete in question will be vacated as well.

Georgia Tech was also fined $100,000.

— by Seth Roberts