ESPN’s Joe Schad: NCAA Investigation Into UNC Concerns Agents

Big Four Rivals Football Recruiting UNC Scandal42

Joe Schad, ESPN’s senior college football writer, has been updating what he discovers about the NCAA’s visit to UNC via his Twitter feed.  Here’s his feed, newest from the top:

  1. UNC DL Marvin Austin was asked why he was seen driving the vehicle of 49er Kentwan Balmer and if he stayed at Balmer’s apartment about 9 hours ago via web
  2. Two sources described the amount of agent activity in Chapel Hill this offseason as “hectic.” about 11 hours ago via web
  3. UNC players were asked by the NCAA who was paying for their rent. about 11 hours ago via web
  4. Marvin Austin was asked by the NCAA who paid for his recent trip to Miami. And players were asked about travel. about 11 hours ago via web
  5. UNC football players were asked by the NCAA to provide phone records to prove which agents they had spoken with. about 11 hours ago via web
  6. One person said UNC’s star football players such as Marvin Austin were among those interviewed by the NCAA about 11 hours ago via web
  7. One person said the questions from the NCAA to UNC players were intended to “make sure no Reggie Bush stuff is going on.”

As I told you yesterday, be careful in who you believe concerning this ongoing story.  A visit to WRAL’s or Inside Carolina’s forums may as well be a trip to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus for all of the truth that one will find there.  This much is a fact: a bunch of people there are claiming to have a personal “inside source” who knows the whole story and told the poster this or that.  Of course, what those folks are posting varies wildly with little if any consistency.  That tells me that they are talking out of the boxer shorts and that their “inside source” is the one inside their own head.

These matters take time, and in time, all of the relevant facts will come out.  It’s intriguing in the meantime, but this is a case where waiting what the professional journalists who do have multiple contacts inside the UNC football camp report is without doubt the best route to separating fact from fiction.

Some interesting Twitter feeds to follow are:

http://twitter.com/ArmstrongWTVD – Mark Armstrong of WTVD

http://twitter.com/schadjoe – Joe Schad of ESPN

http://twitter.com/joeovies – Joe Ovies of 99.9 FM

A great source for Carolina information without the typical noise:

Tar Heel Fan

Big Four Rivals Football Recruiting UNC Scandal

42 Responses to ESPN’s Joe Schad: NCAA Investigation Into UNC Concerns Agents

  1. Sam92 07/16/2010 at 2:06 PM #

    just wondering — is there any restraint on the agents?

    i know it’s an NCAA violation for the players to accept $$, but are the agents completely free to offer it?

  2. Alpha Wolf 07/16/2010 at 2:20 PM #

    ^ In some states, it is against the law, IIRC. I don’t know about NC law.

  3. choppack1 07/16/2010 at 2:28 PM #

    I also think the NFL may have something to say about this as well. I wouldn’t think that the NFL would want the kind of person who is going to break the source of talent pool’s rules to represent their employees.

  4. newt 07/16/2010 at 3:04 PM #

    It is against federal and NC state law for an agent to pay an unsigned athlete. The new “voice of sports agents” who has the aforelinked blog wrote a paper on it…

    http://works.bepress.com/darren_heitner/1/

  5. highstick 07/16/2010 at 3:04 PM #

    Lack of institutional control! Burn them and give them Lee Fowler for 30 years!

  6. Rick 07/16/2010 at 3:59 PM #

    “UNC asked for this when they brought Butch on board.”

    Everyone on the Buzz keeps saying he is the one that cleaned Miami up.

    snort

  7. graywolf 07/16/2010 at 4:00 PM #

    The longer this drags on the worse it will be for Carolina. I hope the investigation is still ongoing in Jan. when they are playing in their bowl game and that its the last bowl game they participate in for some time.

  8. GoldenChain 07/16/2010 at 4:14 PM #

    “…they may have to forfeit previous victories.”

    Problem is that don’t have any to forfeit to us!

    NFL coach, promising to use his connections to help recruits, several 5*/4* recruits come for that promise, coach has been at one of the most historically dirty programs……of course BD wasn’t “hooking them up” or bending the rules.

    As I said in the forum, this could get ugly for unx since the NCAA is under a lot of heat. They nail unx in f’ball and its no blood but they get credit for punishing a high profile school (if it was basketball it would be different).
    And the whole agent thing is pretty no-no.

  9. bradleyb123 07/16/2010 at 4:27 PM #

    The longer this drags on the worse it will be for Carolina. I hope the investigation is still ongoing in Jan. when they are playing in their bowl game and that its the last bowl game they participate in for some time.

    graywolf, don’t you mean their bowl game in early December?

    Or are you referring to their national championship bowl game that they should be in, despite having a bad QB and an inept offense.

    🙂

  10. StateFans 07/16/2010 at 5:43 PM #

    Imagine how much trouble they would be in if their kids sold some sneakers and tickets to the games?

    Or, worse yet, if an assistant basketball coach played in a pickup basketball game with one of their freshmen basketball players over the summer?

  11. tuckerdorm1983 07/16/2010 at 6:07 PM #

    Like in the Duke Lacrosse case I will wait until all the facts are in. It would be great for BD and his crew to go down in flames. Still, we just don’t know. After the game last year at CFS those tarholes showed what they are really like (a bunch of thugs). As the line goes in the best disco song ever written “burn baby burn”.

  12. McCallum 07/16/2010 at 8:16 PM #

    Folks…….folks.

    Repeat after me: the carolina way.

    Now, that feels really good does it not?

    The pipeline over there is full of this trash. My inside sources have been telling me this stuff for a number of months. One last swipe, Dwight Jones would also be involved were he not in the 2nd summer session of “catch the thumb”.

    A delightful night in Georgia. Dawgs in trouble with the law, tarholes getting bloodied and they did not sell out of eggs and brains at the corner store.

    McCallum

  13. GAWolf 07/16/2010 at 8:22 PM #

    I went to my mailbox this evening to discover the new July/August 2010 edition of the Carolina Alumni Review. My wofe is a grad. As I always do I feel the need to preface this with the fact that I’m not a Carolina hater…that being Carolina the University. I love Chapel Hill and I would be completely fine if not thrilled if my son got accepted and went to UNC_CH. I see the value in the place and there’s a lot of it to see. However, I want to share something that made me chuckle tonight as I perused the magazine. The title of this edition is “Sumertime and the Livin’ is Easy.” The irony is crushing e as I try to hold back a grin while typing this. Page 6 is a two page spread picture of Kenan Stadium, open-ended,with the ruins in the foreground of the raized Kenan Field House. The quote thereon reads: “Not since the days when they used dynammite to break up the boulders and mule-drawn carts to haul them out could you look at Kenan Stadium quite this way. The 83 year old Kenan Field House went to dust in June to clear space for a new east end enclosure.” Again, the irony here is ridiculous. I think what they were shooting for was the image of progress, but in light of todays events it’s perhaps the destruction of the old, untouchable, holier-than-though status quo that was at least 83 years in the making. And then I get to the real kicker as I choke back laughter at this point. Ther on page 21 is a picture of and blurb about a newly released UNC Press Book called Bowled Over. The book jacket features none other than the USC Trojan’s stadium filled with rowdy game day faithful. The book is written by Michael Oriand, a former Notre Dame and KC Chiefs player, and allegedly “examines at least five different, legitimate concerns about current-day college football.” Further, “unlike some knee-jerk criticisms of college athletics, I would call this one constructively critical and thought-provoking” says Jack Evans. All that is in the Aluni magazine that arrived at UNC homes all across the nation TODAY!

    Sadly enough I noticed these three things as I was trying to actually absorb the fantastic articles therein about Chapel Hill’s amazing music heritage, Jason Kilar the leader of Hulu who has an amazoing story of success, pictures and stories about people I adire greatly such as Wade Smith (a man who if you ever get the chance to meet you should take time to do so because in moments he can share bits of wisdom that will serve you well forever), James (not Lawrence) Taylor, Lewis Black, Larry Stogner, Charles Kuralt, Andy Griffith and the best yet… Mr.Randall Bramlett. Certainly the legions of aluni from UNC are amazingly impressive. And yet here in this magazine is a touch into the irony of so much that has become UNC Football with its neverending sense of entitlement that could very well be bringing it to its knees before our very eyes.

    Oh the irony.

  14. GAWolf 07/16/2010 at 8:33 PM #

    Sorry for the errors up there. I typed that on the mobile. I realize trojans’ is appropriate and I can spell better when some letters don’t miss a beat or show up as sommething else altogether.

  15. Plz2BStateFan 07/16/2010 at 9:52 PM #

    [image]http://i.imgur.com/tZk92.gif[/image]

    thats all I can say really cant imbed it >:(

  16. GAWolf 07/17/2010 at 6:11 PM #

    Nonsequitar: You busting my chops there? If so…touche.

  17. whope90 07/18/2010 at 7:05 PM #

    If the NCAA is investigating UNC then there must be some serious violations going on because they would not go after the holy grail of college teams unless something was obvious. They asked for this when they hired Butch Davis. Wasn’t funny that he walked in and signed the best recruit in the country at defensive tackle? Then UNC is getting players that they have not gotten since the Bill Dooley days? I just wonder how it will turn out and what actions will be taken? But, there is some serious smoke here, i just hope they can go after the basketball team. I mean, just look at the UNC Alumni books. All or most of the basketball players whom graduate received a degree in communications? I mean, if UCONN cheats and UCLA cheats and Kentucky cheats and we all know Duke cheated(Corey Maggettie), then UNC has as well especially in basketball. Only due to the biased media of the state and nationally have they gotten away with this for so long.

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