After a ‘lull’ in news flow of a few days, followers the University of North Carolina’s multi-pronged investigations into academic fraud and athletic improprieties experienced quite an uptick in activity this evening. And, things aren’t going so well in Chapel Hill.
Around 11pm tonight, NFL Draft analyst, Aaron Aloysius reported the following on his Twitter account @AaronAloysius
Sources tell Tony Pauline that the NCAA is in Chapel Hill right now investigating Robert Quinn. http://bit.ly/d0kS2x
Also, a source has told Pauline that Quinn is “acting sort of like a guy who knows he’s going to be suspended for the year”
Rumors have been rampant for a couple of weeks that Robert Quinn has been shelved to the year – along with Marvin Austin, Greg Little, Kendrick Burney and Charles Brown. But, you’ll never get a straight answer from Butch Davis or the misinformation ministry in Chapel Hill…so, most people have just stopped asking the questions.
The folks from SynrgySports took a moment to throw their two cents into the ‘Tweetverse’:
Pandora’s box, has definitely had its lid blown off, but the focus is still primarily on the players. That will change soon enough.
Chris Hawkins Arrested in 2009 On Felony Drug Charges
It was previously learned today that a former North Carolina football player central to the NCAA’s four game suspension of University of Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green is now facing major felony drug charges in Georgia. Chris Hawkins, a former Tar Heel player and roommate of former UNC running back Willie Parker, is said to be a frequent visitor to the UNC football facilities is also accused by the NCAA of purchasing a game-worn University of Georgia jersey from Green, an NCAA violation that will force Green to sit out a total of 4 games this season.
As has become standard with the current situation in Chapel Hill, it is a national media outlet – not a local paper of record – that scooped the breaking news.
ESPN reports that:
Hawkins, who played at North Carolina from 2001-03 before finishing his college career at Marshall, was arrested by Georgia State Patrol officers on April 23, 2009 on felony charges of trafficking cocaine and misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana.
According to a police report obtained by ESPN.com on Wednesday, Hawkins was pulled over by a Georgia State Patrol officer while driving a U-haul moving truck on I-20 near Madison, Ga., which is about 60 miles east of Atlanta. The report said Hawkins was cited for driving without wearing a seat belt, and officers later discovered a small amount of marijuana in his pocket.
After Hawkins refused to allow officers to search the contents of the moving truck, a drug-detecting dog indicated drugs were in the back of the box truck. According to the police report, officers discovered a paper sack containing a baseball-sized amount of base cocaine, which weighed about three ounces and was covered in peanut butter and pepper.
Hawkins, from Kinston, N.C., spent 20 days in the Morgan County (Ga.) Detention Center until he was released on $50,000 bail. Hawkins is scheduled to appear in Morgan County Superior Court on Oct. 18.
It is good to know that peanut butter and pepper do not fool police drug dogs! Those dogs are way to smart for that trick! However, if Hunter remembers Beverly Hills Cop, he no doubt knows that Axle Foley says that coffee grounds can throw off the drug dogs. So next time perhaps he will try that.
It’s believed that AJ Green was introduced to Hawkins by current UNC defensive end Robert Quinn, who developed a relationship on Facebook. Robert Quinn. Interesting. His name has appeared somewhere else today.
Given the shady nature of Hawkins, it’s pretty easy to see why former UNC head coach John Bunting – a man known for his long patience with scofflaw players – finally reached the end of his proverbial rope and ultimately cut Hawkins loose from his program.
If you read the second half of this entry from last Friday, you can educated yourself on Hawkins’ extremely deep and intimate connection to Davis’ current UNC program. An excerpt from the ESPN article linked in that piece was quoted by us then and seems even more germane now:
A UNC official said Thursday Hawkins has frequently visited North Carolina’s football facility during the past few years, including a visit this summer in which he worked out with Parker in the team’s weight room. The school official said Hawkins often described himself as Parker’s manager.
The Million Dollar Question is this: given Hawkins’ history with UNC, why did Butch Davis give him the run of UNC’s football center? Did he visit there after his arrest on felony drug charges that are almost certain to gain him guest status in the Georgia Penal System? The quote from the ESPN article seems to indicate so! Wow! How out of control was it over there!?
Surely John Bunting’s number is on Davis’s speed-dial. After all, Bunting is a UNC alumnus and has many informal ties with the UNC Athletic Department if not Davis himself. No doubt Bunting would have given Davis and/or any member of Davis’s staff enough information to give them great pause when someone like Chris Hawkins showed up at their football fortress.
Ask yourself this simple question: if you had kids, even kids in college, would you want a man who was an accused drug mule hanging around your house with your kids? Of course you wouldn’t. No responsible parent would. Davis, a man who in the past has stated that he is like a father to his players, apparently didn’t mind, however. Either he didn’t do his homework or he didn’t care. Either way, the record is showing more and more that he was asleep at the wheel.
As we wrap tonight, we’ll leave you with some more tweets from SynrgySports originally posted last week when the original story on Chris Hawkins’ connections to AJ Green and the UNC program broke:
Here’s the truth: Hawkins situation is scary & cld be enough alone to do damage to UNC, but Blake situation makes Hawkins look like an angel
Food 4 thought: If Hawkins says it’s no big deal 2 throw ‘pocket change’ ($1000) @ AJ Green, what r chances he threw pocket change @ others? 9:27 AM Sep 13th via web
What r implications 4 UNC re Hawkins? He’s been working out in their facilities, courting their plyrs, & travlng w them 2 meet agents. Scary
Yahoo! article on Hawkins indicates that he HAS been asking for extra bennies. Make sense why the NCAA found him to be an ‘agent’ now?
From Yahoo! article: “Per our sources, Hawkins has been arranging meetings for players with agents and has requested extra benefits.”
Given the tornado of trouble surrounding Hawkins and his association with current UNC players, once again, asking the question of whether there was a profound “lack of institutional control” by the adults ostensibly in control of UNC Football is a very legitimate one.
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