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It should be a very busy morning in light of the story that broke last night detailing extensive communication via cell phone and text messages between former UNC coach John Blake and sports agent Gary Wichard. Since this story broke, ABCers have been waiting for the local media to make a break in this story and give it the amount of coverage many people feel the scandal in Chapel Hill deserves. Of course, the local media still has yet to make a call for a truly independent investigation of the UNC athletic department despite obvious conflicts of interest the local media has pointed out (even if it was late in the course of the investigation).
Still, this flood of stories and columns may represent a turn in the UNC scandal. Yesterday, one national media pundit called for Butch’s job. Now the local media has discovered questionable conduct by a football coach and a potential lack of institutional controls both in the hiring processes at UNC and the monitoring of staff member activities. Of course, we have already detailed a possible lack of institutional controls on social networking site issues extensively despite UNC’s vast experience with the problems participation on these sites can create and a working knowledge of student-athlete rights to participate versus the need for institutional control.
Updated(8:21 am)
Hannah Gage, the chairwoman of the UNC System Board of Governors, says the board is prepared to step in if UNC-Chapel Hill administrators are unable to handle the ongoing investigations into the Tar Heel football program.
In a letter to the board, UNC-system President Erskine Bowles said Thorp, Baddour, UNC-CH football coach Butch Davis and an investigative team were working together to get all of the facts.
“The University, under the leadership of our chancellor, will continue to investigate this matter and to take appropriate action until we are sure we have gotten to the bottom of this and done everything possible to make sure it never happens again,†Bowles said in the letter.
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Oh! So NOW it is an investigation!? Good to know! When did it move from “review” to “investigation,” just so we will know?
Important note: Hannah Gage is a 1975 graduate of UNC. Thorp is 1986 graduate of UNC and longtime UNC employee. Baddour began his career at UNC in 1967. And of course, Bowles is also a UNC graduate.
–Butch’s hiring process of Blake in question:
Davis has known him since Blake was a student at Sand Springs High in Oklahoma in the late 1970s. Davis was an assistant coach and a biology teacher at Sand Springs. Davis and Blake, 49, also coached together with the Dallas Cowboys in 1993 and 1994.
“You have to put it into context: I coached John Blake for two years in high school,” Davis said. “Then there was at least a 12-year period of time when I didn’t see him until he was minority intern to the Dallas Cowboys for one summer and then came back the following year for two years as defensive line coach. Then when I went to Miami, from 1995 until here, another 12 years, between our relationship.”
–Butch expects to finish 2010 season:
Two days after his top assistant abruptly resigned as the NCAA continues to investigate his program, North Carolina football coach Butch Davis renewed his commitment to the program.
Asked Tuesday if he believes he will be the Tar Heels coach for the rest of the 2010 season, Davis said, “I do. Absolutely.”
Full link to column from Tom Sorenson here.
For decades the Tar Heels have claimed the high moral ground, big-time football’s dirt and grime never rubbing against the hem of their freshly pressed khaki pants.So what if they failed to compete for national football championships? At least they didn’t cheat. Therefore North Carolina was entitled to make fun of Florida State and the SEC and everybody else accused of winning the wrong way.
No more. The Tar Heels have forfeited, for years if not for decades, the right to condescend.
The next time people complain about an out-of-control program in which rules are little more than a mild suggestion, they probably are talking about North Carolina.
Blake’s possible role in the probe related to improper player contacts with agents hardly was sorted out, either.
That aspect of the situation actually became more confusing when Raleigh lawyer and former UNC player Wade Smith, who has been assisting the coach, would not answer question about whether Blake was taking money from agents while working as a college coach.
“That’s a complicated question. I should not deal with that … while the investigations are ongoing,” Smith said.
At the highest levels of college football competition, lots of coaches double as independent businessmen.
In that context, it’s only natural that Blake and his lawyer or lawyers did their best to arrange the best-possible exit package.
But it was a strange development in a progressively strange story that apparently isn’t likely to reach a quick conclusion. It’s almost unheard of for a healthy coach to quit only one game into a season, much less one of the most important seasons in the school’s history.
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