Things you may have missed today (Day 89)

General UNC Scandal34

A lot happened today, and this entry was updated several times by multiple members of the SFN author team. It covered all of the breaking news as it happened.

Because of all the work put into our main entry today, my entry tonight does not have a lot of analysis — it just points out a few things in “Bytes” style that you may have missed in the avalanche of data.

***  Before the news even started breaking today, the Daily Tar Heel continued its excellent coverage with a piece entitled “A Carolina cover up.”   This particular article involves a report that Thorp requested that a DTH reporter leave an Honor Court meeting to protect the identity of a football player.

***  I have a question about how much things cost.  This WRAL story explains that:

 UNC estimated Little accepted $4,952 in benefits and Quinn accepted $5,642. 

OK, I am with them so far.  But next we learn that:

Little accepted diamond earrings and travel to the Bahamas, Washington, D.C., and Miami, among other benefits, the university said.

So you can really get all that stuff (and more) for $4,952?  I have no idea, but it seems like all that loot would cost a lot.  We also are told that:

Quinn accepted two black diamond watches, a pair of matching earrings and travel to Miami, among other benefits.

Again, $5,642 gets you all that (and more)?  I don’t see how.  Also, how did the coaches not notice Quinn’s two black diamond watches and pair of matching earrings and ask him questions?  Is it normal for UNC-CH football players to walk around with that kind of bling?

***  I want to put a plug in for our message boards as I elevate this excellent post from alert fan “MatSci94″ into this entry:

reaction to various things…

MA went from ‘suspended indefinitely’ for something that was *NOT* agent or academic related, to ‘dismissed from the program’ for Agent involvement..after UNC knew that he recieved $10-13k in extra benefits (by comparison, the NCAA scale mentions $500, $750, and >$1000). Wasn’t he ‘working his way back onto the team?’

UNC seems to be setting up the ‘we had institutional control because we warned players’ BS excuse.

In describing the ‘lying to investigators’ part, apparently the NCAA knew details before they asked players (who continued to lie…) How did the NCAA know what was going on and UNC didn’t?

***  Lastly, today Coach O’Brien was asked about UNC-CH’s “sign out sheet” system of NCAA rules compliace.  The exchange reportedly went like this:

Q: UNC announced today that it is going to implement a program in which football players are going to have sign out, where you’re going, who you are going with, who’s paying, etc… Do you have anything like that?

O’Brien: No we don’t.

Q: Do you plan on it?

O’Brien: I would hope not. 

Hilarious!  Also, what does UNC-CH expect players to do who are on the way improper trips/benefits?  Sign out and say “On the way to Miami on a flight paid for by an agent through Marvin where I will attend an agent party and receive improper benefits”?

General UNC Scandal

34 Responses to Things you may have missed today (Day 89)

  1. Phang 10/11/2010 at 8:50 PM #

    I wonder if the players who didn’t get paid are feeling slighted?

  2. Old MacDonald 10/11/2010 at 9:12 PM #

    ^If there are any.

  3. MatSci94 10/11/2010 at 9:14 PM #

    UNC needs to start a travel agency. I’d love to get in on those rates…

  4. statered 10/11/2010 at 9:28 PM #

    A poster named 3001pack over at packpride said it is known that Austin received 50k and his coach received 30 k. He also stated that a recruit – Lawter? – was getting paid as well and that the NCAA is all over it. Apparently this money is not only coming from agents but from boosters as well. The post was subsequently deleted. The speculation is that the dollar amounts announced today are only the easily verifiable amounts.

    I think this thing is about to blow and it is going to be very bad. People are talking. There is also rumors of hush money to the tutor. I would have to think that the NCAA knows this stuff, especially if random posters on packpride do.

  5. Old MacDonald 10/11/2010 at 9:33 PM #

    ^ That would explain the obviously lowballed dollar amounts relative to the items and trips received.

  6. ErB 10/11/2010 at 9:39 PM #

    Marvin Austin has the biggest head I have ever seen. It’s literally twice the size of Little’s. No way it weighs less that 20lbs.

  7. Lunatic Fringe 10/11/2010 at 9:44 PM #

    I also heard UNC was looking to implement “hall monitors” and “bed checks”. Sign out sheet…really?

  8. rky 10/11/2010 at 9:45 PM #

    heck yeah . . . give me the number of their travel agent, too!!! Early this year, I escaped the Rocky Mountain winter for two weeks in the Bahamas and I can tell you I spent considerably more than Little is said to have received total . . . and I didn’t get one diamond earring or any other trips out of the deal like he did.

  9. im4northcarolinastate 10/11/2010 at 9:47 PM #

    This is easily the biggest scandal that has broken in quite some time (in the NCAA), and yet there is still very little outrage. 3 permanently ineligible players and 8-9 more still waiting to see if they face the same fate, a coach working for an agent, a tutor doing players homework, and a coach who has no clue what’s going on.

    “Everything is fine here, we have the right man for the job.” Yeah right.

    I live 20 minutes from Clemson, and I am consoling folks here by saying that they need not worry. They’ll get this past weekend’s game back sooner or later.

  10. Sweet jumper 10/11/2010 at 10:14 PM #

    If this moves to probation, no bowls, limited scholarships, fired coach, fired AD, fired chancellor, hall monitors, signout sheets, no money, no gimme grades, I just do not see how the top recruits will commit. Remember how hard recruiting was for Les after the 1989-90 witchhunt, and all our guys did was sell some tickets and some shoes?

  11. WolftownVA81 10/11/2010 at 10:14 PM #

    Should have pasted a bar of gold into the picture. If the UNC program turns out to be as dirty as it appears (in the history of college sports) with institutionalized cheating, money coming from multiple sources, and the apparent cover ups, seems like the NCAA would have to go with the death penalty to send the proper message to all the small time cheating programs. This thing seems to have grown to mafia proportions.

  12. caryden 10/11/2010 at 10:33 PM #

    I have a question.

    I know that the NCAA does not have subpoena power and hence lacks the ability to force people to talk. In this regard the fact that NC Law w.r.t. agents/runners has given the SoS the ability to force folks to testify under oath has made a big difference in this investigation. As an aside, it is just my opinion, but it would not surprise me if this “twist” was was the unforeseen kink in the UNC spin machine’s armor. My guess is that they knew that they could just lie and/or stonewall the NCAA. I think that the SoS subpoena’s completely changed this game…

    So now the question that I promised:
    At what point do these payments rise to the level that IRS and/or NC DoR laws come into effect. $30k/$50k mentioned above is well above any gift exemption and are required by law to be reported.

  13. McCallum 10/11/2010 at 10:51 PM #

    It is truly a shame that Buck Sheffield is not alive to see all of this and endure the kick in the teeth he so richly deserved.

    McCallum

  14. old13 10/11/2010 at 10:53 PM #

    The N&O now seems to be asking questions that imply payments from boosters to players/recruits/coaches/etc:

    http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/who-provided-improper-benefits-to-unc-players-unc-and-ncaa-not-saying

  15. ADVENTUROO 10/11/2010 at 10:54 PM #

    WRAL just ran the UNC story. Due to some very tragic events, it was not the lead story. They interviewed Ex President Friday. He stated that it was a sad day for UNC and that these young men had made some mistakes. He LATER went on to say that there will be ENOUGH BLAME to go around. Then he said that he HOPED that UNC would take steps to IMPLEMENT INSTITUTIONAL CONTROLS to prevent this from happening again.

    That’s right….Bill Friday has determined, based on what he knows, that there are NO institutional controls at UNC.

    Boy, is this going to get the Inside Carolina crowd upset.

  16. baxter 10/11/2010 at 10:54 PM #

    Maybe that 10 to 13k is the amount he would have to pay back due to that strange scale of benefits received the NCAA enforces.

  17. PackerInRussia 10/11/2010 at 10:55 PM #

    Maybe they only had to cover the gas for the private jet. Or, as I’ve mentioned before, maybe someone was able to use their FF miles on these guys, which it sounds like they may have had a lot of.

  18. statered 10/11/2010 at 11:39 PM #

    Maybe ECU will get in to a BCS conference after all when the ACC has to pick up a school to make up for the loss of UNC football when they get the death penalty lolol

  19. MatSci94 10/11/2010 at 11:53 PM #

    “Maybe that 10 to 13k is the amount he would have to pay back”

    Except that (according to the press bits) UNC never even asked the NCAA to review the case for reinstatement.

  20. wolfonthehill 10/12/2010 at 5:38 AM #

    Anyone find it odd that, in the WRAL article, they specifically state that the benefits did NOT come through Blake? If not, that seems to point a bit more clearly toward boosters. I mean, hell, if Hawkins hadn’t been declared an agent, he WOULD have been considered a booster – and it sounds like there were quite a few “Hawkinses” involved. That’s just ugly.

    And thanks for the pic up top – the most rewarding piece of this whole thing for me is that Little & Austin (two guys who had proven themselves to be arrogant pr***s of the first order on & off the field) were somehow THE FACES OF THIS PROGRAM. Between the billboard on I-85 and that IC cover, the two guys most guilty are their two heroes. Simply beautiful… if that doesn’t scream that the university and coaches had no idea what their kids were doing, nothing does. I mean, these aren’t third-string punters we’re talking about – these are potential All-ACC/All-AA guys – their pride and joy. And they didn’t know that THEY were taking trips and getting paid?

    BS. This thing’s coming crumbling down…

  21. coach13 10/12/2010 at 6:04 AM #

    I agree with MatSci94. I get the impression the NCAA knows alot more than UNC realizes and thats why they keep making all these public gaffs. It’s like when you know your kids have done something wrong, you give them a chance to come clean, and they either keep denying, say I don’t know, or just lie.

    O’Brien’s response to the sign out question is funny. He, along with several other programs, must be thinking the UNC folks are a bunch of idiots.

  22. Pack78 10/12/2010 at 6:26 AM #

    I thought the same thing that is highlighted in the MatSci94 post above:unx continues to lie about things that will easily be verified as false soon after. Also-What is on MA’s shirt? We can all read the word ‘Agent” LOL!

  23. tuckerdorm1983 10/12/2010 at 7:01 AM #

    Its sad really. When you arrive at college at age 18 you are barely an adult. When you come to the university as a vaulted athlete who will be the object of much attention by the media and university and maybe earn large sums of money in professional sports the pressure on you is tremendous. It is key that you receive leadership and guidance from those in authority. At UNC this did not happen. A coach and staff should be able to see what is happening and act accordingly. This did not happen at UNC. Butch and UNC take the tact of “what could we have done, we told them not to do it”. A couple of meetings telling players the rules of the NCAA. Come on. It all boils down to this. Butch SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING. Either he did and just did nothing making him EVIL or he did not see it coming making him STUPID. Maybe he is EVIL AND STUPID. Anyway he has to go. The NCAA must carpet bomb the program. At USC 1 player took $100,000 and look what happen to them. So at UNC say 10 players took $100,000 shouldn’t they get the same punishment as USC????

  24. Wufpacker 10/12/2010 at 7:16 AM #

    ^ And considering that is only one part of the issue at UNC (academic and maybe booster/recruiting also) I agree that the NCAA is in a spot where it pretty much has to take them down. I still can’t imagine the death penalty as we know it due to no previous sanctions/probation, but I think they will hammer them pretty good.

    Death Penalty Lite? You can keep the program and you can keep “competing” but for 2(?) years you can’t recruit any scholarship athletes in football? It might not be that harsh, but I’m beginning to think it’s going to be way worse than most of us thought.

  25. ppack3 10/12/2010 at 7:32 AM #

    “At USC 1 player took $100,000 and look what happen to them. So at UNC say 10 players took $100,000 shouldn’t they get the same punishment as USC????”

    It will be worse for UNC for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is the bar that the USC case set. At UNC they have found a bunch of players, not just one. They found multiple types of infractions, not just one. They found a rogue coach. Did they find that at USC? Nah. Oh, and we now know that the NCAA has been lied to at least FOUR TIMES already (Blake, Austin, Little and Quinn)! And it ain’t over, no matter what Dickie would have you believe.

1 2

Leave a Reply