John Blake Focus of Investigation [Updated @ 7pm]

Big Four Rivals College Football UNC Scandal60

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In a 92-minute telephone interview, Wichard repeatedly questioned why the NCAA would be looking into his relationship with Blake. Asked if Blake had ever been a Pro Tect employee, Wichard repeatedly stated that he hadn’t.

“No, no, no, no,” Wichard said. “John lived [in California] after he was the head coach at Oklahoma. He lived out in [Los Angeles]. We’ve socialized. We’ve been friends. His son is my godson. It has nothing to do with that. He hasn’t worked for me at all. I don’t get where that is coming from.”

After being fired from his head coaching job at Oklahoma, Blake directed a part-time “Chance to Advance” football camp from 1999-2002. However, Wichard’s statements about Blake never having been employed by his agency appear to contradict a Pro Tect Management brochure obtained by Yahoo! Sports.

Prepared for prospective clients, the brochure contains multiple pictures of players, including a handful who were selected as recently as the 2001 draft. The inner cover features large photos of both Wichard and Blake. Under Blake’s picture, his title is listed as “Vice President/Football Operations.”

Click here for the inside cover of Pro Tect Management’s brochure obtained by Yahoo Sports.

Did UNC’s Kentwan Balmer pay for Austin to attend workouts in California in the summer of 2009? I know that “Curry Math” in Chapel Hill has found a way to suspend all reality; but the generally accepted calendar that the rest of the world uses would indicate that the ‘summer of 2009’ comes before the ‘football season of 2009.’ Uh-oh.

Maybe the Tarheels’ nightmare loss in the Meineke Car Care Bowl never actually happened? At the end of the day, perhaps Carolina didn’t win a single game in 2009 while using an ineligible player?

“I spoke to him once,” Wichard said. “I told him to go back to school when Kentwan Balmer put him on the phone in January. I said go back to school and be [like] Ndamukong Suh and make some money. … I’m not even recruiting the kid. I’ve never said one word to him about the business other than football – go back to school. Now, if I wanted to represent him in January, I could have said ‘Come on out, guy. Let’s roll. Let’s make some money.’ That’s not who I am.”

“I never even talked to Marvin,” Wichard said. “Kentwan met me [at Proactive Sports] and I gave him shoes and I saw these two guys with him. They were out on the field. A couple of guys who played with him. That’s all. How did [Marvin Austin] get out here? Kentwan Balmer paid for him. They were hanging together. I can’t tell you exactly what went on from that standpoint, but they were all together.”

Asked if he spoke to Balmer on other occasions while both Balmer and Austin were in California, Wichard said he had not.

“No. Heck no,” Wichard said. “Heck no. [Kentwan] knows that I’m not interested in that.”

Big Four Rivals College Football UNC Scandal

60 Responses to John Blake Focus of Investigation [Updated @ 7pm]

  1. Alpha Wolf 08/09/2010 at 9:29 PM #

    Don’t forget that Yahoo Sports un-covered the USC misdoings when the rest of the press was not noticing anything. They weren’t like sharks drawn to blood in the water, they did some solid investigative journalism, uncovering facts that led to the NCAA investigation of one of the biggest of the big-market teams.

    This UNC story just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the leaks of info that ARE making it into the press are intriguing.

    Prepare for some spin from the local paper talking how Blake feeds starving Ethiopians, builds McMansions in Appalachia and how his name “Black Santa” comes from his propensity to give footballs to every schoolchild in Mali on 12/24.

  2. redwolf87 08/09/2010 at 9:37 PM #

    As bad as I want to see unx get it–and that’s pretty bad–I want to see Blake get it worse.

    He’s a cancer to everything he touches, and somebody that does not belong in college sports on any level.

  3. choppack1 08/09/2010 at 10:50 PM #

    If you are a UNC fan – this investigation has taken the kind of ugly turn you want to avoid.

    An NCAA investigation is kind of like biopsy. Even if they don’t find anything, it just sucks that they are digging around looking.

    For UNC the results haven’t come back – but they want to do some more looking…and like w/ the biopsy – it’s just more crap they can find.

    It’s definitely possible that nothing will come from this, but about the only good thing in this article is that no other players besides Austin are mentioned.

  4. travelwolf 08/10/2010 at 12:37 AM #

    maybe it’s a good think that TOB has plenty of opening for next year’s freshmen… if sanctions come UNC’s way, my guess is that recruits will think twice.

  5. islandbreeze 08/10/2010 at 6:48 AM #

    The NCAA always finds something.

  6. Plz2BStateFan 08/10/2010 at 6:55 AM #

    ^thats a good point. I cant remember of any investigations like this where the NCAA apologized for the inconvenience and say have a nice day.

  7. Oldwolf 08/10/2010 at 7:27 AM #

    My unc-ch friends have already started with this:

    “The next line of Tarheel defense is that they “don’t care that much about football” and are in fact upset that the football program is in the news, because they are so proud that they have won at basketball the right way and now even though they are soooo good, this Butch character is threatening to tarnish the university’s reputation”

  8. Pack05 08/10/2010 at 8:19 AM #

    I want them to nail Blake to the wall. That scumbag has been doing this for years and been Blatant as hell about it. It’s about time somebody puts a stop to it.

  9. GAWolf 08/10/2010 at 8:43 AM #

    Let’s not jump the gun completely here. It’s my understanding that once the kid’s final season of college sports is over, he can accept gifts from agents. For instance, I saw guys driving up in every type of car imaginable at the combine workout I attended in Athens, GA years ago. I asked about it, and I was told by a UGA player at the time that they were done and had already signed with an agent after their season ended. The cash/car came from the agent in anticipation of a signing bonus, contract, etc.

    That seems to make perfect sense to me.

    I haven’t read all of the posts above so it might be that this “2009” year issue could work out on that sort of scenario depending on WHEN in 2009 such action, if any, took place.

  10. Pack05 08/10/2010 at 8:47 AM #

    GAWolf – what does that have to do with Austin receiving and illegal trip per NCAA rules prior to the 2009 season at a sports agent facility?

  11. tuckerdorm1983 08/10/2010 at 8:55 AM #

    yeah what pack05 said

  12. islandbreeze 08/10/2010 at 9:13 AM #

    If Austin is declared ineligible for 2009 they might have to vacate those wins in ’09 and the Tire Bowl appearance. Technically, you can’t accept anything from agents until all your eligibility is completed but agents have ways around this.

  13. Prowling Woofie 08/10/2010 at 9:19 AM #

    Travelwolf,

    I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure we need UNC’s recruits, however talented. If they come with their hands out, expecting a payday, they don’t need to be on our doorstep !

  14. newt 08/10/2010 at 9:30 AM #

    Amazingly, Tarheels on the radio this a.m. are still talking about how this is not a big deal because the punishment should be limited to one player and the agent, you know because those sharky agents are the problem.

    If agents are so nasty, why is your defensive line coach “best friends” with the one under investigation? Is that the guy you want coaching your D-line? Well yeah, because he recruited and kept intact that vaulted defense.

  15. RegularExpression 08/10/2010 at 9:53 AM #

    As has been pointed out and documented to great effect by this site, the media reaction and coverage of this scandal continues to be the story within the story. I am eagerly awaiting the next editorial from Jim Jenkins or A.C. Snow over at the N&O. My guess is that in an effort to contain the damage, Blake will be sacrificed while being carefully portrayed as a rogue individual. It is 99% certain that Butch knew what Blake was up to but unless someone talks it will be very hard to tie this back to Butch.

    Quite frankly I think UNC has too much invested in their football program to end the “big time football experiment” that they started 3 years ago. Unless some other news breaks they are going to try to protect Butch from any fallout. What will be interesting is seeing how the bow tie types in the administration react to this. While the battle will most likely never be public, you can bet that there will be a divide between football and academics at UNC in the coming years.

  16. Prowling Woofie 08/10/2010 at 9:54 AM #

    Hole fans need to quit smokin’ the papyrus – it’s keeping them in a state of de Nile !!!

  17. StateFans 08/10/2010 at 10:14 AM #

    If Blake isn’t sacrificed before the end of the season I will be shocked. The question then becomes how they can keep telling kids that there is nothing to worry about for future consequences and how anyone could think that Butch is there after this year.

  18. newt 08/10/2010 at 10:23 AM #

    If Blake goes, you have to think recruiting will suffer, especially on the defensive side. And the fact is that thus far the only noise UNC has made in the Butch era is that they landed a bunch of highly ranked defensive players.

    So if Blake goes, there’s really nothing left to make them look like a program on the rise.

  19. packalum44 08/10/2010 at 10:25 AM #

    Let’s not forget that a recruit tweeted he was offered cash from Blake. That would be a strong quote to put into a follow up news article about Blake. Someone should forward that blog to the Yahoo guys because the N&O would never. I’ve said it before…the NCAA can dig up as much or as little as they want on Blake…the more dirt that is out in the public the deeper they will feel inclined to dig.

  20. one00_proof 08/10/2010 at 10:36 AM #

    Hell I’d be surprised if Blake isn’t sacrificed before the season starts. UNC has to know that the cat’s out of the bag and that if they don’t do something, the NCAA is not gonna take it lightly on them. UNC is essentially spitting in their face by practicing Austin, Little, and whoever else could be involved. The audacity of UNC right now is almost unbelievable and I used to think that it was just the Wal-Mart fans who couldn’t see the writing on the wall, but it seems it’s permeated throughout the administration and even to the AD. At least with USC, they were at least lying about the stuff they know was wrong. What’s scary is that it seems UNC doesn’t even THINK what they’ve done or what their players have done is wrong. I’d almost say that’s worse, at least lying about it shows you know it’s wrong. I’m not holding my breath until something happen, but you’d have to think there’s no way UNC gets out of this better than USC did.

  21. Prowling Woofie 08/10/2010 at 10:42 AM #

    ‘Loss of institutional control’ in Chapel Hole started with James Worthy’s beard… they’ve been dirty for 30 years over there !

  22. choppack1 08/10/2010 at 10:57 AM #

    Having agents involved is one thing – having coaches involved is a totally different story. IMHO, in most cases, that would rise above “institutional control” issues – as those are reserved for coaches not really paying attention to what players are doing.

    I don’t know how the NCAA will see it – however, if they determine Blake was/is involved – I would be shocked if UNC doesn’t face at least 1 year of a post season ban.

    Of course, the kicker of these things is that the NCAA doesn’t tell you what they know – and how they’re thinking. I remember watching the press conference of our NCAA investigation under V – and after going on and on about how cooperative we were and how the coaching staff didn’t do anything illegal, they then said, “And NC State will be banned from the post season in 1990.”

    We don’t know exactly what they’ve got…I suspect that best case scenario – Austin is suspended for a couple of games. The worst case scenario is what really opens if they look into Blake’s dealings.

  23. Pack05 08/10/2010 at 11:50 AM #

    This is…. AWESOME

    http://twitter.com/josephperson

    This is the beat writer for South Carolina football, tweeting Spurrier’s response in an interview I think today…

    Tweet 1:
    S. Carolina coach Steve Spurrier says he’s not surprised by article connecting UNC asst. John Blake to Calif. agent.

    Tweet 2:
    “When you’ve been in coaching as long as I have, we know the reputation of almost all the coaches that have been around a long time. …

    Tweet 3:
    “…We all have a reputation, especially guys who’ve coached 20 years or so. It’s hard to hide whatever your reputation is.”

    (The quotation marks are provided by Joe Person, so I assume that tweets 2 and 3 are direct quotes from Spurrier.)

  24. newt 08/10/2010 at 12:03 PM #

    Agents are such a problem in college athletics… http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/56820

  25. TheAliasTroll 08/10/2010 at 12:38 PM #

    I hope they don’t get to vacate their loss to us last year!!

    😛

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