Doing a great impression of three guys standing uncomfortably against the wall at an 8th-grade dance, UNC-CH’s Chancellor, Athletic Director, and Football coach appeared before UNC-CH’s Board of Trustees to talk about the massive ongoing scandals. It is widely thought that UNC-CH BOT members were responsible for hiring Butch in the first place, so we should not be surprised by today’s made-for-media dog and pony show. You can read about it here in an article posted by the N & O.
I think the key quotes from that article are:
“We have found no information that Coach Davis was involved in any of the problems that have surfaced, and I know he feels a lot of responsibility for what has happened,†Thorp said.
and
Thorp and Baddour said the NCAA and the school are close to wrapping up the investigative phase of the probe. NCAA investigators will turn over their findings to the enforcement staff, beginning the process of determining what sanctions – if any – UNC will receive.
So the findings have not even been turned over to the NCAA’s enforcement staff — that is key information and might explain why UNC-CH fans are running around saying ridiculous things about the NCAA not finding any violations, etc. The NCAA apparently hasn’t even started the process of evaluating the facts for violations. When asked when the entire NCAA process might be over, Baddour said:
“I don’t know what to tell you on that,†Baddour said. “That is out of our control.â€
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The BOT is so interested in protecting the integrity of the University that one of the few questions asked of the three by the BOT (if not the only question) was to Butch about the impact of the scandals on his recruiting. They really mean business over there!
Before I sign off I want to ask readers to scroll down the front page of the blog for new items, particularly ones that have been “bumped down” — so much new stuff is going up all the time during this busy season that it is easy to miss great pieces that take a lot of time to write and deserve your attention. Also, our message boards are busier than ever. There are great discussions on many topics at a depth we can’t get to on the front page.
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3:50 update
Some additional quotes from today’s media performance have come to light and they are too good not to share.
From this extended article  posted by the News and Observer we learn of this cringe-inducing quote, which sounds like something a teenage girl would write in a love letter during History class:
“I believe you were the right fit when we hired you and I continue to believe that,” Baddour told Davis during the meeting. “In fact, I believe it even more strongly now.”
Does anyone else find that quote just totally bizarre? What is going on over there, seriously? This is Alice in Wonderland stuff. Strengthening that conclusion is this quote from Thorp:
“We don’t have plans to take any more actions than the ones we’ve taken,” Thorp said. “Obviously something could happen. Some information could come out or the NCAA could send us information that we don’t know about that could change that. But we’ve been working on this for four months … and we don’t think there’s a lot of new information that’s going to come out, so we feel really good about where we are.”
“we feel really good about where we are”? I don’t even know what to say. Also buried in that quote is the idea that Thorp thinks that the NCAA could know something that UNC-CH doesn’t. Now that’s interesting.
I also want to elevate these excellent thoughts into the main entry:
the same Carolina fans and power structure that seem to support Butch Davis and think that it is acceptable that he wasn’t doing his job to ‘know’…are the same people that have criticized Jim Valvano for 20+ years because he ran a ‘loose program’ and didn’t know that his players were doing when they sold shoes and tickets in private and weren’t sharing their exploits with the world on the internet.
LOVE the hypocrisy.
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