Decock: Its time for UNC coach Davis to end his silence

In light of today’s bombshell, Luke Decock penned a timely piece imploring Butch Davis to end his silence over the ongoing NCAA investigation into UNC football player’ relationships with agents.

But South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier has spoken freely about the NCAA’s inquiries into tight end Weslye Saunders, the son of News & Observer metro columnist Barry Saunders and a Durham native. (Barry Saunders had declined to comment until Tuesday, when he said his son went to Miami for spring break but did not travel with Austin and Little.)

Alabama coach Nick Saban has spoken freely about the increasing threat agents present to the college game, even as one of his own players, defensive lineman Marcel Dareus, has been swept into the investigation.

There are an increasing number of voices speaking with insight and intelligence about the subversive role and influence of agents, many from schools currently under investigation. None of them is coming from Chapel Hill. So far, Little’s father has said more about the probe than anyone at the university.

“I don’t know what Coach Spurrier and Coach Saban were told. … They may be under different circumstances, different directives, they may have had different people from the NCAA talking to them,” Kirschner said. “I don’t know. I do know what we were told, and I know what direction the NCAA gave us.”

In an e-mail, NCAA associate director for public and media relations Stacey Osburn wrote, “The NCAA does not prohibit the schools under investigation to comment to the media, however, they are advised not to make any public comment that could hamper the investigation.”

Anyone notice the difference in Kirschner’s explanation of UNC’s silence and the actual email from the NCAA’s Stacey Osburn? Kirschner says they aren’t talking per the request of the NCAA, yet the NCAA told Decock that anyone can talk as long as they don’t hamper the investigation.

Is Kirschner confused? Or is he purposely being dishonest? It may be in the best interests of UNC to have remained silent, so why not just state that it is UNC’s policy not to discuss these matters until they reach some sort of resolution?

Today’s Pigskin Preview featuring Tom O’Brien, David Cutcliff, and Butch Davis will be interesting to follow. From my understanding, questions from the media aren’t taken. Don Shea runs the event and asks questions from the podium. However, I did hear a reporter on the radio this week mention that the media usually gets the opportunity to ask questions after the event is over. So will Butch stick around for the post-event scrutiny or will he scurry out the room immediately avoiding the media?

4 Responses to Decock: Its time for UNC coach Davis to end his silence

TOBtime 07/22/2010 at 8:17 AM #

Right now ‘ol butch-slap is scared all the way to his teepee. Spurrier and Saban have both won Nationl Championships and can go anywhere they want to coach. The chief is watching all that slip-slidin’ away. He’ll do whatever he is told right now in hopes of salvaging something out of this mess.
I just hate it for him and his puppet masters at the hole.
tuckerdorm1983 07/22/2010 at 9:15 AM #

Questions:
1. What did he know?
2. When did he know it?
3. What should he have known?

4. What did he do when he found out?
(VaWolf82)
SeaWolf 07/22/2010 at 9:29 AM #

Favorite quote from the story:
“To this point, we have not even confirmed what sport is involved. We certainly have not confirmed what the issue is.” From Kirschner.

Really? Such an outright lie that even UNX fans can see through.
FuquayWolf 07/22/2010 at 11:38 AM #

Another interesting quote in DeCock’s article was from Barry Saunders about his son Weslye. Now, given the brouhaha that developed around Greg Little’s father’s quote, I’m not certain that if I was a father of any of these players, I’d open my mouth at all until the university where my son was a student-athlete told me to. But Barry has broken his silence, and chose to clarify a point about son Weslye’s South Beach trip. According to Barry, the younger Sanders DID go to Miami for Spring Break, but he did NOT travel with either Marvin Austin or Greg Little.

Now, I’m no Barry Saunders fan, but I’m also not going to call him a liar either. So I’ll take him at his word that Weslye did not “travel with” his Twitter friend Marvin to Miami for Spring Break. But it did get me thinking how one should define his phrase “travel with”?

Let’s see what we know for sure:

We know that Greg Little’s father said he funded Little’s trip to Miami in March. We know that Barry says that Weslye was in Miami in March too, but did not “travel with” Marvin or Greg (which infers that Marvin and Greg went there together). When might Weslye have traveled to Miami? USC’s spring break ran from 3/7 – 3/14, according to their academic calendar. I will also point out that UNC-CH’s spring break ran from 3/5 – 3/15, according to their academic calendar. So the 2 schools spring breaks fell on the same week, and neither school had any other official days off during the month of March. We know that Marvin was in Miami at Vonta Davis’s condo on March 12, during UNC-CH’s spring break period, thanks to Marvin’s outstanding Twitter photo cache. And we can use Barry’s quote to infer that Greg was there too with Marvin. So I’m going to make a tiny leap and say that all 3 players were in Miami for spring break.

I guess it’s a coincidence that Weslye just happened to be in Miami during the same week as Greg and Marvin, since he didn’t “travel with” them. Again, based on all of this, I’m wondering exactly how “travel with” in Barry’s quote should be defined?

Finally, I will note that Barry did not mention the photographic evidence of Weslye and Marvin in a hotel room in DC, Marvin’s hometown, on April 24. Given the picture, one can only presume that Weslye did “travel with” Marvin for that little jaunt.