UNC’s Response to NOA (12:15 AM Update)

UNC’s response can be found on the WRAL website, or by clicking here.

Here are some highlights.  Also check our forums for more discussion on the matter.

First of all, check out the opening paragraph.  It’s just so unbelievably typical for those Carolina blue-bloods that you’ll be sickened.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (the “University”) has had a longstanding reputation as a leader in higher education that began when it first opened its doors for students in 1795 as the nation’s first public university. In the area of athletics, we have long prided ourselves on a commitment to NCAA rules compliance, and our record is evidence of that commitment. Our only appearance before the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions (the “Committee”) took place more than 50 years ago. Before this investigation, we had never had a major infraction in the football program. These facts make the allegations in this case all the more disappointing for an institution where NCAA compliance has been not only a proud tradition, but a cultural norm.

Alright, on to the meat and potatoes…

Former Self-Imposed ‘Punishments’

Here is what UNC claims to have already done without the NCAA sending them a formal NOA:

• Sat out 13 players in 2010
• Fired ‘an assistant head coach’ (well, they asked him to resign and he agreed… but they still paid him a severance package, right?)
• Disassociated a ‘former student-athlete’ and ‘former part time student tutor’
• Enhanced their compliance office
• Began self-investigating in 2010
• Self-reported issues with the tutor and an academic mentor, which I assume is the AFAM teacher

UNC Comments on non-football sports…

When speaking about the tutor (page I-3), the university claims to have looked into other sports, redacts a couple of lines, then says they found no evidence of cheating with the other sports, but did admit that she “edit papers the student athletes sent her – correcting spelling and grammar mistakes and adding a few sentences.” UNC claims that the joint investigation into the tutor showed nothing went to sports other than football.

Rogue Elements Acting Without UNC’s Knowledge

The first mention of a rogue element is in covering the violations resulting in tutorgate.  Supposedly Wiley was instructed to not “tutor or provide benefits of any type to any student-athlete“, but she “did not follow these instructions.”

UNC claims Blake failed to report he was receiving financial benefits from Wichard, therefore they didn’t know. The document claims that Blake was fired “shortly after” UNC found out he received benefits. I’m not certain what UNC’s definition of “shortly after” is, but recall that when news broke in the summer before the 2010 season, Blake was on staff for the much-anticipated UNC-LSU game and wasn’t ‘asked to resign’ until two days following the loss.

The document goes on to state…

The violations in this case resulted from poor decisions by several student-athletes, a former student tutor, and a former assistant football coach. The University believes that nearly all of those decisions were made despite knowledge that they violated NCAA rules. The University believes that, with regard to nearly every violation, at least one person – and often all of the people – involved had received…

So in other words, they feel they did everything they could do, therefore we shouldn’t hold them completely liable for their actions.

One Of Those Violations Isn’t Exactly Correct…

UNC makes note of NOA violation 9(a) which surrounds Chris Hawkin’s relationship with several of the athletes.  The response states…

The University accepts that responsibility, as discussed in Allegation No. 9(a) and (c). Despite these missed opportunities, the enforcement staff correctly concluded that the University neither knew nor should have known about the majority of the student-athlete extra benefit violations at the time they occurred.

This statement is followed by a “however” where they explain that the University had no way of knowing that violation 9(a) could have taken place. The rationale is interesting, though. They state that it has been UNC’s policy for years to allow former athletes to use their work-out facilities. Think about that… if you are an NFL, NBA, MLB, or any other professional player, what use is UNC’s athletic facilities for you to work-out? To me, this just signals even poorer oversight and negligence on UNC’s part, but that’s just my two cents.

UNC Is Impressed By Their Compliance Education/Processes

On page I-5 (sixth page) and I-6, UNC claims that the investigation showed how strong the compliance education was. The NCAA education that UNC athletes undergo touches on every-single-violation that was in the NOA. UNC says…

The University had appropriate monitoring systems in place during the relevant times.

Except… they didn’t. This is like saying “we were the best team on the field!” right after a 41-10 loss. If you had nine violations that were all covered in your own NCAA education, then by definition, the monitoring was insufficient.

Fully Cooperative

Finally, UNC claims to have fully cooperated with the NCAA investigation and is kind enough to make a special point of it…

The enforcement staff directed the University to investigate these academic issues initially on its own, before joining the institution as part of a joint investigative team. This approach illustrates the degree of cooperation and trust between the University and the enforcement staff that continued throughout the investigation.

 

Self-Imposed Punishments

UNC will vacate wins from the 2008 and 2009 seasons for fielding ineligible players.  They will also institute a 2-year probation and a reduction of 3 scholarships for the next three years.  In the words of our very own ‘theCOWDOG’, “I’m convinced that the NCAA response is gonna sound something like this: OK, I’ll see your 9 over 3 and raise ya 12.”

***

This concludes UNC’s introduction where they summarize their responses to all the accusations.  We will be posting updates as to their response to each allegation shortly.

Check back for more updates as we have the opportunity to further look at the formal response to UNC’s NOA.

*** (Update at 4:00 PM)***

 Allegation #1: Tutorgate, the Academic Prong

UNC effectively pleads “no contest”.  UNC says that the assignments in question were taken to the honor court, but fails to mention any program-penalties or process changes to mitigate this from occuring in the future.

UNC further claims that it first learned of this during the 2010 investigation that it helped conduct.  A consistent point that UNC raises is how well it cooperated with the NCAA.  Interesting sidenote, the introduction mentioned Wiley, the tutor, by name several times, but the response to allegation #1, specifically, omits the name of a female tutor (page 1-3).  Furthermor, at the end of page 1-4 and top of 1-5, two redactions exist where a tutor is mentioned, but also introduced as ‘[the player’s] assigned tutor for two courses during his first years at the University’.  It’s important to note that up to this point, one tutor has already been discussed at length, so why would the writer suddenly add this introductory information… unless they were talking about a second individual who was appearing, at least in this document, for the first time?  This may signal that there were multiple tutors involved making this more than just a single rogue tutor committing acts of academic fraud.

It’s also important to note that the response mentions tutors and mentors, who are two different types of employees (i.e., UNC no longer uses mentors, but still uses tutors).  Several times, the notice mentions a mentor that was required to report on all academic sessions held with athletes.  It would be interesting to note what this mentor thought and how it compares to Wiley’s account.

*** (Update at 4:30 PM)***

UNC describes their tutor program and states that “part-time academic tutors perform their work under the supervision of full-time, permanent employees.”  It would be interesting to know why level of supervision is given and if it is a high level of supervision, does that mean UNC just indirectly admitted that full-time staff knew of the improper information being given to UNC athletes.

UNC admits (page 1-7) that concerns were raised regarding her connection to UNC athletes in the summer of 2009.  If this is the case, then why did it take a joint NCAA-UNC investigation in 2010 to uncover the academic fraud that it submitted to their honor court?

I can’t report on what UNC did in terms of taking academic credit away from any athletes due to the large number of redactions.  Good job, Tar Heels. This is actually reasonable, though, since academic information is LEGITIMATELY protected by FERPA.  There is a lot of mention over whether players would have been eligible for progress-towards-degree as a result of the honor court findings, so my assumption is that this is where UNC admits that they had academically ineligible players for the 2008 and 2009 football seasons.

On pages 1-13 and 1-14, UNC explains all of the education that athletes receive on what is permissible and what is not permissible.  Remember, that UNC mentions in their introduction that they, administratively, took necessary steps to enforce NCAA regulations.  On page 1-15, they go on to state that two players were NOT AWARE that they had done anything wrong.

Allegation #2: Tutorgate, the Financial Prong

Recall that Wiley provided $3,500 in “extra benefits” to football players including a $150 airplane ticket and $1789 in parking tickets.  The free tutoring services were also valued at a combined total of over $500.

The response to the allegation is less interesting than the supporting facts.  UNC states that they learned of the monetary gifts when news about the parking tickets surfaced as a result of media requests for information.  They also admit this occured at a later date than the interviews regarding the $150 plane ticket.  So think about that… UNC was conducting an investigation into individuals and monetary improprieties.  They had a repository of information, yet they didn’t check that information until after the media asked for the ticket information. That means that if the media had never asked for the ticket information, UNC would never have looked into these financial record regarding players who already had an open investigation.  UNC would have failed to check their own records for any evidence of wrong doing if it hadn’t been for an outside organization asking for information.

All of this information was uncovered during the summer and early August of 2010.  UNC knew, as well as everyone else in the world, that this tutor was crooked as of EARLY AUGUST.  However, in UNC’s response, starting in LATE-AUGUST, the university interviewed several student athletes about these issues, during which time WILEY CONTINUED TO TUTOR.  This means that UNC willingly allowed someone they knew had committed NCAA violations to continue working despite the evidence that had already been collected.  They willingly allowed someone who was violating NCAA regluations to continue working.

UNC claims that athletes were not aware that free tutoring services were against NCAA regulation.  Remember that UNC had touted exactly how impressive their NCAA education was.

Note that a large portion of page 2-4 is redacted.  This is conveniently the same page that begins discussing that there was “no evidence that football administrators or coaches were aware that Wiley had provided extra benefits to student-athletes”.

*** (Update at 5:45 PM)***

I just got another opportunity to get back to this, so for now, enjoy this comment that wins the gold medal of satire for the afternoon.  AirWolf says…

“Folks, this is the, by God, University of North Carolina we’re talking about here. The first ever in the Continental U.S. of A. university for the “people”. It’s been over half a century since they were even implicated in any sort of academic or athletic wrong doing. This is not some run-of-the-mill diploma factory that hands out A’s and B’s like gumdrops or gives out diplomas in meaningless subjective majors, or ……….. oh, wait….. yes it does. Never mind. Castrate the bunch of them.”

Priceless…

*** (Update at 6:30 PM)***

This is pretty self-explanatory.  Please read…

In April 2010, Blanchard received an anonymous report about a football student-athlete suggesting, among other issues, that Wiley had provided academic assistance to the student-athlete. Blanchard discussed the matter with Maloy and Mercer. He also informed Amy Herman, Assistant Director of Athletics for Compliance, and Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Administration Larry Gallo. Gallo, Blanchard, and Herman informed Director of Athletics Dick Baddour, who ordered an investigation.

Blanchard asked the Dean of Students Office, which originally had received the anonymous report, for information about the source. He learned that the person insisted on anonymity and would not consent to an interview. The anonymous report was discussed with football administrators.

The problem with this statement is that in the paragraph following, Carolina mentions that it’s next activity came during investigations taking place in July and August. That means that UNC waited 2-3 months before actually following through on a tip that there was scandalous activity surrounding Wiley.

Generally speaking, most regulations regarding gifts exchanged between individuals involve clauses that exclude punishment for those that have prior close relationships with a gift-giver.  UNC, when asked about prior relationships between Wiley and athletic staff or players mentions that Wiley was hired by Butch Davis’ family to tutor his son.  It also mentions that Wiley has a personal relationship with several of the athletes.  There is a lot of rumor milling that could be, and has been,  associated with this point, but to me it appears that UNC is hedging for any loophole they can possibly get be claiming that there was a prior relationship, preceding the NCAA violations.

Oh, and do you guys remember the “sign out sheets” which were part of Butch Davis’ methods to control his players?  Well, the method by which athletes were notified of improper benefits is equally as hilarious: e-newsletters (page 2-8).  There are several other methods that UNC claims to deliver such information, but they are not specified aside from the classroom education that was previously mentioned.

For what it’s worth, they also tried to bring in motivational speakers (page 2-9 says they had Tony Dungy from the Colts speak to the team pre-season).

Good work, Matt.  Teach them kids how to keep from living in a van down by the river with their tutor.

The response of UNC to the NOA includes statements about the education that educational and support staff receive regarding NCAA regulations.  They go so far into detail as to state that tutor can not even given athletes pencils or paper if they are lacking any for the day (2-10).  I find it hard to imagine that someone can go through any kind of employee training that is anal-retentive to the point that you can’t give an athlete a pencil, but be “unaware” that giving $150 for a plane ticket is a violation. Granted, the university acknowledges that Wiley did wrong, but according to their own testimony, there are mentors that also work along side students.  Did the mentors and ‘full-time staff’ that work with the part-time tutors also completely miss this relationship?  Seems like the tutoring organizations at UNC have lost institutional control (which may explain why some of the dip—-s that I graduated high school with were actually able to make it through that God-forsaken place).

(Onto the 3rd Allegation… stay tuned!)

*** (Update at 7:30 PM)***

Allegation #3: Tutorgate, the Cover-Up

The third allegation basically says that UNC had someone working for them who, when they were caught in the middle of an investigation, refused to speak with investigators.  Why is this important?  Because it speaks to the individuals that UNC is hiring to guide and instruct their athletes.  There actually isn’t that much of interest in this section, but I’ll cover what I see.

Note that UNC first received word of potential academic integrity and NCAA violations in April of 2010.  UNC’s reponse to this allegation is that on August 26th, they attempted to contact Wiley who would not agree to be questioned.  Funny that they didn’t think to question Wiley back in April and ask her if the allegations were true.

Allegation #4: Gifts from Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Gary

The fourth allegation speaks to the $27,097 that was given to a total of 7 UNC football players.  This includes several former UNC athletes, as well.

The most amazing part of this response is when UNC must acknowledge WHEN they first heard of the potential NCAA violations (page 4-8).  UNC’s response is that they first heard of these violations in June of 2010 only after the NCAA’s Agent, Gambling and Amateurism group had notified them of an investigation.  So let me get this straight… UNC had to have an organization response for thousands of student-athletes notify them of a violation that they couldn’t see within their own department?!  If UNC can’t even monitor it’s dozens of student-athletes as effectively as an organization responsible for thousands, how can it claim to have any institutional control?!

By the way, bottom of page 4-8/ top of page 4-9, UNC drops another hint that they were cooperating.  This is their strongest defense throughout the document.  It’s worth noting that UNC’s response claims that after the investigation, they declared all the student athletes in question ineligible and sought the reinstatement of all but one.  If a university really harbored a “culture” of compliance, as the introduction states, would it be asking for reinstatement of six athletes who had been found to accept benefits from agents and former alumni?

Here is the kicker, UNC insists that the NCAA MUST consider these violations with certain caveats meaning that they deserve a lighter sentence.  Here is a list of the reasons they feel the NCAA shouldn’t penalize them as severely for this.

• Several students reported repaying a portion of the gifts they received (let’s see the receipts… receiptgate?!)
• The former athletes at UNC had previous long-standing relationships with the student-athletes, so they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong (wasn’t this covered in all those extensive NCAA compliance education?)
• The students lied at first when questioned, but when we asked a second time, most of them told the truth.  No s***, that’s actually one of their reasonings.

On page 4-14, UNC continues to insist that all parties were educated in what was and was not appropriate behavior and what would and would not constitute a violation.  Remember, some of the people giving gifts to these athletes were former athletes that you have to assume were received the same education. In order for any of this to be trustworthy, you have to convince us that between 6 players and multiple alumni of the UNC athletic program, not one person remembered a word spoken during the regular meetings and educational classes conducted by UNC’s compliance office.  Someone’s lying in the UNC administration, and if I’m smart enough to see it, so is the NCAA.

To make things worse for UNC, they admit that there is a travel form that must be filled whenever an athlete goes on a trip during extended breaks (like spring and fall break) that contains, at a minimum, where the athlete is going and contact information (page 4-17).  Those who must sign the document include…

• An Academic Support Representative
• Athletic Training
• The Position Coach or Head Coach
• Strength and Conditioning
• A Representative from Student-Athlete Development

You are left with one of two options: 1) The athletes never filled out the reports and the administration failed to enforce their own procedures or 2) All of these individuals, including academic and coaching staffs, signed off on every one of these trips and never once questioned why their student athletes were jet-setting across the country and down to parties in Miami every break they had.

By the way, documentation of the seven students’ trip reports can’t be found.  Draw your own conclusions.

Again, by definition, if you feel, as an institution, that you are doing everything in your power to educate your students and enforce compliance yet there is still a scandal of this magnitude, YOU HAVE LOST CONTROL OF YOUR INSTITUTION!!!

***(Update at 12:15AM)***

Allegation #5: Anchorman Austin, one of the greatest NC State Players Ever

I don’t care if it’s an inflammatory title or not, anyone who almost single-handedly brings down the  UNC football program isn’t half bad in my book.  This allegation is primarily about Marvin Austin lying to the NCAA about… well… everything.

There is no further comment on this accusation besides ‘yep, we did it.’  It’s probably not a huge object of discussion simply because it doesn’t make UNC look bad to agree that Austin did some crappy things.  They kicked him off the team and acknowledged that he was a ‘rogue student that misbehaved’.  They can stick to the alibi and throw Austin under the bus at the same time.

Allegation #6:  Black Santa

We have all come to know and love Merry Old Saint Blaklous.  The sixth NCAA allegation states that UNC had a an assistant coach on staff that had partnered with Gary Wichard, and NFL agent, to influence students at UNC to become partnered with Wichard when they enter the NFL.  The accusation isn’t necessarily that students were acting as runners, just that John Blake, an assistant head coach, was herding college players towards Wichard’s management group.

Here’s the interesting thing about Blake: John Blake had been titled the vice-president of football operations and worked with Pro Tect Management, Wichard’s firm, for a little over two years.  I don’t know about everyone else’s profession, but in mine, I was asked if I had ever participated in any organizations or businesses that had goals contrary or illegal to the job I was applying for.  My question is this: since there was obviously a previous business relationship between Blake and NFL agents, did UNC not find it necessary to closely monitor these connections?  This information was reported by John Luchs, a former licensed NFL agent who worked with Wichard.

Luchs also reported that after 2002, he was aware of a student at Miss St and Nebraska who had been guided by Blake to the Pro Tect organization.  He lost contact with Blake after 2004, but did notice that if Blake began coaching at a school that previously had no ties with Pro Tect, students would suddenly start signing up with Wichard from Blake’s teams.

Testimony from Marvin Sanders, who is an ass in and of himself, testified that he had two sources that reported Blake had contacted a Nebraska player after the 2008  football season.  Sanders supposedly reported this to Nebraska’s coach who promptly told UNC to back the Hell off, going through Sanders.  That was 2008, folks.  Blake wasn’t “asked to resign” until 2 years later.

At the end of UNC’s response to allegation #7, they make sure to add this line…

The University has no other information regarding Blake’s subjective reasons for his conduct.

Now, contrast that with the entire section on allegation #3 (“Tutorgate, the Cover-Up”).  UNC got no more information from Wiley than they did Blake, so why did they feel the need to make this comment?  The wording is very intentional on UNC’s part… they want to further pin Blake’s behavior as “subjective” meaning it was not anything associated or in alignment with the culture at UNC.

Allegation #7: Black Santa’s Loot

The NCAA would require Blake to report all his incomes from Pro Tect to UNC and obviously he did not.  This is an allegation against Blake, specifically, but also speaks to the individuals within Carolina’s employment.  Honestly, just by virtue of the allegation, I expected UNC to really hit this one out of the park in terms of convincing everyone Blake was a “rogue element” within the program.

What IS funny is how Blake’s excuse and UNC’s excuses are fairly identical.  Blake claims that he thought what he was doing was alright since it was non-athletic in nature… he had a prior existing relationship with Pro Tect and his rationale was that his relationship with Wichard made it alright.  Sounds and awful lot like UNC’s claims about Wiley and the student-athletes she… uh… “helped out”.

There is a lot that seems dirty and vile about Blake, but his reputation does all the bashing for me.  I want to focus on UNC.

Allegation #8: Black Santa, the Cover-Up

Anyone having that weird feeling of déjà vu?  If not, you should.  This is the exact same allegation filed against Carolina as it applies to Blake that we saw filed with regards to Wiley in tutorgate.  It’s the constant theme of UNC not doing it’s part to get one of it’s then-employees to disclose information to the NCAA during an investigation.  If Blake really was a rogue element within the department, (a) wouldn’t he have been “asked to resign” before the first game of the season and (b) wouldn’t UNC do what it could to encourage Blake to comply with the NCAA?

Bottom line, Carolina was only “fully cooperative” with the NCAA whenever it would make them look good.  When it came to doing what it could to encouraging the “rogue elements” to comply, they fell silent.

Allegation #9: Loss of Institutional Control Without Saying “Loss of Institutional Control”

This is the big one that wraps it all together.

It is alleged that during 2009 and 2010, the institution failed to adequately monitor the conduct and administration of the football program.

PART 9(A) – CHRIS HAWKINS’ COMMUNICATION WITH STUDENT ATHLETES.

I mentioned this earlier, but it’s fundamentally a bad idea to let your former athletes use your athletic facilities, especially if it means professionals and student-athletes will be sharing the same social space.  Apparently the NCAA agrees, because that’s what this is really about.

Carolina’s first defense is that Chris Hawkins, the alumni in question, wasn’t on campus “without a reasonable explanation, or in a manner that would trigger heightened vigilance due to his presence.”  I don’t understand this statement. If you are a compliance officer and you know there are very wealth professional athletes training the same facility as current student-athletes, that has to send up an immediate red-flag that a line may be cross, intentionally or not. What happens if the alumni wants to buy one of the kids a dinner at a local restaurant?  Technically, that could be viewed as an improper benefit.  If it’s that easy to be in non-compliance, why would you risk it?

…you risk it because compliance is not the priority.  THAT is why you risk situations like these and that is exactly what Carolina was shooting for.

The further proof of UNC’s inability to take PREVENTATIVE MEASURES to protect itself from violations is in it’s further description of it’s “culture of compliance”.

The University’s decision to allow Parker and Hawkins to use the weight room was consistent with the University’s long-standing policy of welcoming former student-athletes back to campus.

You know, here at NC State we also welcome former athletes back to campus.  It’s called homecoming.  I’m sure that if Mario Williams wanted to come in and work out with our players, he would be welcomed, but you better believe that O’Brien, even before the UNC scandal, would be watching him like a hawk.

UNC trying to claim that it had no knowledge of Hawkins being associated with an agent, even though he was an alumni and deeply involved in professional sports, is like saying that you didn’t know it wasn’t safe to let your kids play with your firearm because ‘it’s never loaded’.  That doesn’t mean its smart or permissible.

Carolina even goes as far as to claim that this is partially a NCAA thing.  They acknowledge that Hawkins and another alumni, Parker, participated in some summer drills, but that the coaching staff wasn’t allowed to observe the drills since it was before formal training had started. Does that mean that UNC wasn’t allowed to send compliance officials to observe the drills to ensure nothing was occurring outside of NCAA regulations?!  Just as UNC was attempting to hide behind FERPA to claim something was “out of their control”, they are now trying to claim that the regulations of the NCAA to restrict summer workouts is why they couldn’t monitor their own program for compliance.

The last defense that Carolina has against the Hawkins accusation is that they had individuals who WERE monitoring the situation but simply didn’t see a threat to their NCAA compliance based on Hawkins’ actions.  So let me get this straight, to prove that UNC is capable of controlling their University, they are openly stating that violations occurred DESPITE their efforts to monitor gym activities?  Good grief…

PART 9(B) – THE FAILURE OF UNC TO MONITOR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.

This represents the only NCAA allegation that UNC DENIES GUILT OF.  I don’t know how they figure they missed the Marvin Austin tweets that SFN (and others) caught way back in February, but whatever.

UNC’s defense is that there is no precedence for failing to monitor social networking activity.  That’s right, everyone, UNC’s DEFENSE OF MISSING MARVIN AUSTIN’S TWEETS IS THAT SINCE THERE IS NO PRECEDENCE FOR A UNIVERSITY BEING REQUIRED TO MONITOR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES, THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING AUSTIN POSTED.  Wasn’t it the UNC School System that ruled that NC State “had not violated the letter of the law but had violated the spirit of the law”?  Seems like UNC violated the spirit of the law.

If nothing else, it would be hilarious of the NCAA’s response was, “Fair enough… it’s probably time for us to set the precedence NOW.”

What is inconsistent in UNC’s response is that they claim “the NCAA constitution and bylaws are silent with respect to any alleged institutional obligation to monitor the day-to-day communications of all of its students-athletes on undefined and ever-multiplying ‘social networking’ sites.”  But at the same time, they stated “the University believes, however, that for the period relevant to this Allegation, its efforts to monitor football student-athlete social network communications were consistent with the requirements of NCAA legislation and the monitoring efforts of other institutions.”  In other words, UNC says there isn’t any law saying they need to do anything, but also claims that they monitored social networking in accordance with NCAA legislation.

Also, look at the last several words of that last sentence: “…and the monitoring efforts of other institutions.”  Sounds like the old-fashioned “everyone’s doing it” excuse.  This goes back to the precedence thing… if UNC isn’t careful, the NCAA may take this premium opportunity to set a precedence and tell everyone else exactly how much they should be monitoring social networking sites.

I won’t summarize everything UNC says on page 9-7, but we’ll suffice to say that they seem to contradict themselves several time.  They state that the commonly communicate with students via social networking sites and require students to remove anything that isn’t consistent with how the university should be represented.  So apparently UNC didn’t think it was poorly representing the university to have pictures of two of it’s athletes at a lesbian spring break bash in Miami.

PART 9(C) – UNC DOESN’T DISCIPLINE THEIR ATHLETES AND DOESN’T LISTEN TO TIPS OF POTENTIAL NCAA BENEFITS.

UNC doesn’t necessarily dispute that it failed to check into violations regarding Marvin Austin, but does state that they shouldn’t have been required to monitor social networking sites.  That doesn’t make any sense.  The biggest tips to Marvin Austin’s improper benefits was the proof in February 2010 of his crazy trips and parties.  By UNC admitting they should have checked in Marvin, they are transversely admitting that they should have checked into Austin’s benefits as shown in his twitter posts.  Hypocrisy as usual.

I won’t repeat all of the “mitigating factors” that UNC feels the NCAA needs to keep in mind, but if you read through it (pages 9-8, 9-9), you’ll see that it’s the same excuses as before, which again don’t seem to make sense.  UNC is claiming that they actually DID educate Marvin and DID monitor his activities.  The obvious question is raises is how much control they have over their own athletic program since they are doing “everything in their power” to assure compliance, yet still had these multiple allegations.

The only other thing I’ll mention is with regards to the trip reports that had to be filled out.  Austin apparently told a “football administrator” that he wanted to take a trip and was told he needed to fill out a trip report.  This is a result of a 2009 trip.  The comment I made about the trip reports is that one of the only options you have is that people willingly ignored the process and the administration failed to enforce their own procedures.  This experience seems to point to that being the case.  An administrator was aware of a trip, but failed to notify the coaching staff that Austin may be taking a trip and need to be spoken with.

I leave you with this…

Finally, the administrators stated that they learned of [REDACTED] trips to [REDACTED] in
[REDACTED] of 2010 only shortly before the NCAA notified the University in June 2010 of its
impending investigation. At the enforcement staff’s direction, the University instructed the
administrators not to discuss the [REDACTED] trips with [REDACTED] or anyone else while the enforcement
staff and the University conducted a joint investigation.

…does anyone else see what I see?  Does anyone else see that UNC is claiming to have known about the violations shortly before the NCAA even notified the University of an investigation, yet they still told their administration to keep quiet?  Besides, when they say “notification”, keep in mind that they are talking about the official notice of inquiry into their football program… not necessarily when NCAA officials began snooping around their campus.  Wonder if UNC really found anything or if the NCAA dug it up for them.

OTHER DOCUMENTATION REQUESTED FOR ALLEGATION 9.

Pages 9-9 through 9-15 is a whole lot of nothing.  If you want to read it, go for it.  I didn’t find anything particularly enlightening.

Final Actions/Comments From UNC In Response to NCAA

Again, I hated most of what UNC had to say.  More of the same talking points, for the most part.  The only thing that was a little funny was UNC’s list of actions they had taken as a result of the investigation including updating policy and increasing compliance staffing.  I’m not sure this proves anything other than trying to prove to a compliance committee too little, too late that you really do have a culture of compliance.

If you want to see a better breakdown of UNC’s self-imposed punishments for their reasoning behind any of it, you can look at pages 11-12 through 11-17.

Section 12 includes a list of actions taken against individuals (which only includes mentions of Blake and Wiley).

Section 13 identifies positions and some scraps of information on Blake and Wiley as a part of the NCAA sanctions.

Section 14 gives a summary of all the infractions and their penalties that UNC feels should be levied.

Sections 15-18 are other bits and pieces of information requested by the NCAA including bowl history as well as TV appearances.

*** (No More Updates… That’s All Folks)***

The long-and-short of it is that UNC is one messed up institution.  There’s no other way to put it.  From the hypocritical comments about their monitoring of social networking to their policies about former-athletes working out with student-athletes, this university is just set-up in a way that non-compliance is such a simple thing that it boggles the mind.

Think about it, did one coach create this type of culture?  Of course not.  Did John “Fat Ass” Bunting create this culture of cheating?  There’s no way in Hell; he would have won a lot more.  So let’s see, who else has been around in the past decade or so to foster such a system that claims to have full compliance, yet is seemingly deliberately set up in a way where violations are easily committed and even more easily dismissed.  Hmmmm…….