Update 8:30 pm – Added analysis from UNC blog on today’s Kendrick Burney PR fiasco

UNC Scandal79

11am Update: Durham Herald Sun tweeted the following 11 minutes ago:

#UNC football spokesman Kevin Best said Kendric Burney’s case still hasn’t been resolved

1pm Update: The News & Observer just posted this:

Burney’s case not resolved

North Carolina cornerback Kendric Burney has not been cleared for Saturday’s game at Miami, a team spokesman said this morning.
The NCAA suspended Burney, an All-ACC cornerback, six games for receiving agent-related benefits. He was scheduled to return on Saturday but before UNC’s win at Virginia on Oct. 16, the school announced Burney still had “unresolved issues” related to the ongoing NCAA investigation.

“His case is not resolved,” UNC spokesman Kevin Best said today.

Multiple media outlets have reported that Burney has been cleared by the school’s honor court and will play on Saturday.

4:00 pm update

From the sports editor of the DTH:

jjones9 Jonathan Jones
Kevin Best tells me that Burney will not be adding a class this late in the semester. He wants to end the rumors. Issue is still unresolved

8:30 update

Does anyone wonder what may have led UNC away from allowing Burney to add this class mid-semester? Here is what how a UNC blog broke down today’s events:

So what is happening here? Obviously if Burney needs to add a class it means the honor court gave him a failing grade in a previous one. That means he is short the number of hours he needs to meet certain NCAA academic requirements to be eligible to play football.

At this point in the semester I do not think it is possible to add a class, that is something only UNC can fully answer. One question to ask if why did Burney conclude adding a class was possible if it wasn’t? Is it possible Burney prematurely telling people upset the apple cart and outed what was supposed to be a private process by which UNC and the NCAA work on an agreement to get Burney on the field? If so, Burney’s exuberance might be his undoing. Given the media scrutiny I can see how resolving the issue in such a way that allows Burney to play forces UNC to account for the process. Whereas if Burney goes to the honor court, is found guilty, received an F then UNC discusses it with the NCAA and makes an arrangement with them for Burney to play then all UNC has to do is put out a press release saying Burney is clear while using privacy laws as a means of not talking about how the sausage is made.

If I had to guess, I would say that this has become a bit of a PR issue which might make it difficult for UNC to get Burney on the field.

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Originally posted:

I have said you just can’t make this stuff up in regards to the ongoing scandal in Chapel Hill several times already and the latest news regarding Kendrick Burney continues along that same theme.

Burney went before the Honor Court Monday to hear his case regarding the NCAA investigation into academic fraud. Burney told NewsChannel 12 that if he picks up a class Tuesday morning, he will be allowed to play Saturday at Miami….

….But Burney told us that if he picks up this class, he should be able to play in his first game of the year this weekend.

Updated

-According to the NCAA, a student-athlete only has to enroll in 12 hours to compete except when a student is in his final semester. So let’s speculate on what might be happening with Burney. Let’s say a student-athlete only needs 3 hours to graduate. The NCAA allows that student-athlete to take 3 hours and play football in his final semester. Now let’s say that the same student-athlete all of sudden finds himself in front of the honor court and gets charged with academic fraud causing a failing grade in a previous class. All of a sudden, the player would be ineligible by NCAA rules because they would need to be taking 6 hours.

So what does the university do? They ask a professor on campus to throw academic integrity aside to allow the student-athlete, who committed academic fraud, to enroll in their class 6 weeks after the official deadline of August 30th. If the permission is granted, then the student-athlete would be eligible and can play football this coming weekend. The Carolina Way in a nutshell.

How can a professor grant that permission knowing a kid who was just found guilty of academic fraud, only took the bare minimum needed to graduate at the beginning of the semester(what is the kid doing with the rest of his time in Chapel Hill?), but now is desperate to enroll in your class just so he can play football?

An even better question is how a university that supposedly values integrity and academics first could even put a professor in a position to have to make that decision? Especially when the student-athlete involved has already embarrassed the university by accepting illegal benefits and committing academic fraud?

At some point, one would think somebody in Chapel Hill would stand up and do what is right.

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Regardless of what we learn, every twist and turn of this story becomes a more clear indication that the “Carolina Way” is clearly the way of doing anything to get/keep kids who break the rules eligible and on the field. We are yet to find a single instance in this sordid affair where UNC has voluntarily mandated a punishment to one of these kids that is beyond the bounds of what the NCAA required, would have required, or wasn’t tied to keeping ineligible players off the field to attempt to avoid the future vacating of wins.

Not once has there just been discipline for the sake of discipline. Not once has there been a suspension/expulsion because a kid did wrong and the Athletics Department chose to invoke some kind of LEADERSHIP in disciplining a kid for his decisions.

“There have been multiple issues [with Burney],” UNC athletic director Dick Baddour said Saturday at Scott Stadium. “We’ve been working on them for some time. We had hoped that all of those issues would be resolved by this time but that hasn’t happened unfortunately.

“It is possible that it will be resolved by the Miami game. It’s possible that it will be resolved favorably, and it’s possible that it will not be resolved favorably.”

How does one ultimately ‘resolve’ things that are blatantly wrong? Either the kid really screwed up with ‘multiple issues’ or he didn’t.

By Baddour’s own admission, Burney has had ‘multiple issues’. Instead of just putting down their foot and saying, “Enough is enough”…the administrators at UNC continue to show us the true “Carolina Way” — ‘no matter how much you screw up, we will NOT discipline you more than the NCAA might require. We don’t have standards that are any different than the bare minimum. We will use all of the resources of the department to find ways to help support student-athletes that break multiple rules across different issues – agents, academics, improper benefits, others?’

There is more about this tangential conversation here.

UNC Scandal

79 Responses to Update 8:30 pm – Added analysis from UNC blog on today’s Kendrick Burney PR fiasco

  1. rtpack24 10/19/2010 at 9:31 AM #

    UNC requirements see Dwight Jones.

  2. PackMan97 10/19/2010 at 9:34 AM #

    Isn’t there some kind of NCAA requirement on the number of hours that must be completed or in progress in order to eligible? My guess is that he has a high enough GPA to take the hit of a fail (or maybe just a no credit) but then falls short on the “progress toward graduation” and that’s exactly what this helps with.

  3. JeremyH 10/19/2010 at 9:38 AM #

    if I was his TA I would have no sympathy for him…until Butch sets up my swiss bank account.

  4. mikeD 10/19/2010 at 9:39 AM #

    Quoting UNC-CH [url=http://advising.unc.edu/AcademicPoliciesProcedures]Academic Policies[/url]:

    “Enrolled students may add a course at any point in the semester, provided the student has secured permission from the instructor to add the course.”

  5. sautz 10/19/2010 at 9:42 AM #

    I haven’t been paying the best attention this morning, but from what I am gathering Burney wasn’t exactly “cleared” by the honor court but instead basically did a no contest to cheating and took a F the class he cheated in.
    I seem to remember when I was in school cheating was regarded as something more serious than just agreeing to a F and moving on to the next class in the middle of the semester to remain eligible. I didn’t go to UNC, though, and am unfamiliar with all the workings of the Carolina Way.

  6. PackMan97 10/19/2010 at 9:55 AM #

    sautz, I believe the “Carolina Way” is also known as “Do anything to win”.

  7. Bubba 10/19/2010 at 9:56 AM #

    i am flabbergasted that any school would allow the rules to be bent this far just to keep a kid eligible.

  8. StateFans 10/19/2010 at 10:01 AM #

    Just win baby.

    I am flabbergasted that the local media doesn’t spell out the specifics behind all of these decisions and ‘clearings’

  9. TAEdisonHokie 10/19/2010 at 10:05 AM #

    sautz – I know when I was going to Tech cheating was considered to be a very bad offense, something that got you kicked out of school with little or no recourse.

    I am totally amazed that UNC….the supposed paragon of academic values…is allowing Burney to get away with this.

    I somehow get the sense that the NCAA is going to be less than pleased by this attempt to circumvent the system.

  10. SeaWolf 10/19/2010 at 10:08 AM #

    According to the registrar’s calendar at UNC:
    http://regweb.unc.edu/calendars/regcal109.php

    The last day to drop a class was yesterday. The last day to add a class without instructor permission was August 30th.

  11. newt 10/19/2010 at 10:11 AM #

    Very well said, DU. “The Carolina Way” myth is totally exposed. Where’s the media? Still drinking Kool Aid. I wish I could walk around and talk about what a great guy I am and everybody would just look at me, nod favorably, and pass it on.

  12. bigdudenc 10/19/2010 at 10:18 AM #

    Is the NCAA giving them enough rope to hang themselves with? I bet if their record had 2 more losses they would have acted like an academic institurion and not Al Davis. Where is Giglio? The athletic department at UNX has commited the crime, conspired to cover it up, and the trial looks rigged. Could this be an OJ scenario, where we just have to accept the system does not work for every case?

  13. TAEdisonHokie 10/19/2010 at 10:19 AM #

    SeaWolf – So, basically, Burney had to have gotten permission from a professor to add that new course. What UNC professor in their right mind would do that?

  14. Daily Update 10/19/2010 at 10:24 AM #

    TAE: That is the question of the day.

    Why would a professor grant a kid special permission to enroll just so that he can play football? I could see him doing it to help the kid graduate. However, it is hard to imagine the university putting a professor in the position of having to make this decision.

  15. newt 10/19/2010 at 10:47 AM #

    Seems Burney may have spoken too soon…

  16. Daily Update 10/19/2010 at 10:58 AM #

    Newt: Why do you say that?

    If anything, then they should suspend him for even commenting.

  17. GAWolf 10/19/2010 at 11:19 AM #

    If all of this is true, I would say it’s certainly evidence of a benefit given to an athlete that is not available to the average student. And ultimately isn’t that the major question surrounding “institutional control?” That being: “Are athletes privileged to the extent that the are treated differently than the non-athlete student body?” When it’s shown to be a cultural phenomenon across the board at an institution, is that not exactly the manifestation of this somewhat elusive concept of “lack of institutional control?”

    I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that UNC would take this risk given where things stand with the NCAA. It smells to me to be a situation where the NCAA is giving them just enough rope to hang themselves.

  18. 61Packer 10/19/2010 at 11:32 AM #

    Who’ll pay for this class if Burney does enroll?

  19. Alpha Wolf 10/19/2010 at 11:38 AM #

    So over at UNC, you can just add a class anytime you want so long as you have the instructor’s permission?

    Wow, is that a system ripe for abuse, athletes or no athletes. So folks will do ANYTHING to get a grade. And I mean ANYTHING.

  20. GAWolf 10/19/2010 at 11:41 AM #

    The more I think about this, the more I see this is very much an “All IN” move by UNC: get them on the field however necessary to win this year, the future (and whatever the NCAA thinks) be damned.

  21. Rochester 10/19/2010 at 11:42 AM #

    Is Jim Harrick Jr’s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball available at UNC? I think he might be a good sport and let Burney in.

  22. Prowling Woofie 10/19/2010 at 11:42 AM #

    Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t recall Burney as being THE BEST DB IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME.

    So why are they so anxious to get him on the field when they are sporting a 4-game winning streak without him, thank you very much ?

    Who was putting cash in his pocket before the bust ? What card does Burney hold that BMFD and Dickie B don’t want face up on the table ???

  23. StateFans 10/19/2010 at 11:47 AM #

    ^ He doesn’t have to be the best in the history of the game to be good enough to add quality depth. He’s a 5th year senior who is very good.

  24. Lunatic Fringe 10/19/2010 at 12:00 PM #

    I guess it means you could drop a class at anytime as well. Kid could mail it in and avoid the gpa hit due to the “drop/add” policy.

    The amazing part of the situation is how the media compliments Butch for working through the “distractions” when those distractions are self-imposed and there appears to be no major change in behavior.

  25. TheAliasTroll 10/19/2010 at 12:04 PM #

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