The president of Tennessee State University, James A. Hefner, used his position to get free Super Bowl tickets and then lied about it, and he inappropriately awarded scholarships to students using money from the university's private foundation, according to two state audits released last week.

"There are some serious issues that these reports have identified," Charles W. Manning, chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, said on Friday. "We have to do some things to correct the situation." Mr. Manning, who is Mr. Hefner's immediate supervisor, said that the board had not yet reviewed the audits but would take action soon.

Mr. Hefner, who has been Tennessee State's president for 13 years, could not be reached for comment on Friday because the university was closed for the holiday, Good Friday. However, his lawyer, Tom Lee, released to The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper, on Saturday the text of a letter that the president planned to send to people on the campus today.

"I deeply regret if anything I have done has cast this office or Tennessee State University in unflattering light," Mr. Hefner wrote in the three-page letter. "I have never sought to use my office for any purpose other than to lift up the students, faculty, staff, and alumni."

The president said that he had followed the auditors' recommendations regarding financial reporting and scholarships. He added that he also planned to ask the foundation's board to take steps to create separate accounting for foundation funds.

Mr. Hefner's letter did not give any explanation of why he lied to the auditors about the Super Bowl tickets.

Both audits were released on Thursday. In one, a routine annual look at the university's financial reporting, the auditors found that the president had awarded honors scholarships to students who were not qualified to receive them, at a time when the Tennessee State University Foundation lacked the funds to cover the awards. The result was a $2.7-million deficit in the foundation's scholarship accounts that accrued from 1998 until last June.

To remedy the deficit, the president "exceeded his authority" by improperly entering into an agreement with the foundation that extended the university's credit by waiving immediate payment of the foundation's obligations, the 68-page audit said. Under Board of Regents rules, such transactions require the chancellor's approval.

Tennessee State also submitted incorrect student-aid data in a report to the U.S. Department of Education last October and in a revision of an earlier report submitted in December 2002, the audit said. Among other inaccuracies, the university overstated its number of undergraduate students and its amount of Pell Grant expenditures.

The university, in a written comment to the auditors, said that it had submitted corrections to the Education Department last December in response to the auditors' findings. Even so, the university could face a federal audit and fines, in addition to having to repay the amount misstated in the reports, plus interest.

Mr. Hefner has run into trouble over honors students in the past. In 1999, the regents censured him for allowing too many out-of-state students to enroll in the university's honors program at the in-state tuition rate. The regents said the president had violated a pledge to them to limit the number of out-of-state students. Mr. Hefner at the time defended his actions by saying that the university needed to award many in-state vouchers to out-of-state students in order to attract good students.

The other audit was prompted by accusations made in 2001 by James L. Smith after he was fired as the university's athletics director. Mr. Smith accused the president and other university officials of accepting kickbacks and improper gifts and profiting from thefts.

Soon after Mr. Smith became athletics director in 1999, the university was placed on probation for three years by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for problems that predated his arrival. Those included athletes' receiving more scholarship money than they were allowed under NCAA rules and a lack of institutional control. The university's basketball program was placed on another three years' probation last fall, after an investigation revealed rules violations in recruitment and off-season practices.

The 140-page athletics audit found no evidence of any kickbacks or thefts benefiting university officials. But the auditors did find that the Aramark Corporation, the university's food-service vendor, had paid for Mr. Hefner to attend the 2001 Super Bowl, in Florida. Company officials said that they had paid $5,000 for Mr. Hefner's four tickets to the game and had neither discussed nor expected repayment from the president.

Mr. Hefner "exploited his position, the university's relationship with Aramark, and his familiarity with Aramark officials to obtain an improper benefit for him and his family," the audit states.

Mr. Hefner also initially lied to the auditors by telling them that he had received only two tickets and had paid $200 for them. He later revised his statement when the auditors confronted him with documentation from Aramark that contradicted him.

J. Stanley Rogers, vice chairman of the Board of Regents, said on Friday that Mr. Hefner's lack of forthrightness with the auditors was "disturbing," although the president did not violate any board policies by accepting the tickets.

The audit recommended that the board revise its conflict-of-interest and purchasing policies to prohibit university officials from accepting gifts from vendors. Mr. Rogers said that the board plans to review the conflict-of-interest policy at its next meeting.