Nightly Scandal Update

Tonight kicks off a new StateFans Nation feature.  We hope to write an entry every night or nearly every night recapping that day’s scandal news.  In the unlikely event of a day with no scandal news, there is plenty of past material to mine for interesting discussion points.

Before I get started, I have to tell everyone that you must read this piece that went up here earlier today.  “Context and Perspective” is now required reading for anyone following the UNC scandal.

On to today’s news. 

Chris Hawkins went on an Atlanta radio show this morning and had some interesting things to say.  Here is a transcript of the interview. 

Hawkins, you will remember, is an ex-UNC-CH defensive back who I think was kicked off the team by Bunting for some kind of inter-team fighting transgression.  You can read past entries we have done about how Hawkins was uncooperative with the NCAA investigation here, detailing his connections to the UNC scandal  here, about his 2009 felony arrest for alleged cocaine trafficking here, about how over the past few years he was often seen around the UNC football facility here, and about his 2010 trip to Las Vegas with Kendric Burney and some other things here.

Some highlights from Hawkins’ interview today with my comments:

The NCAA thinks that I am an agent, which I am not.  I am not an agent.  I have never worked for an agent, never been paid by one.  I am simply just a kid.  Just like everybody else, I like AJ’s game.  I like how he plays the game

Well, we know that the NCAA considers him an agent and he has admitted to helping college players “vet” agents, so really he can’t say he is “simply just a kid” who likes AJ’s game.  In fact, later in the same interview he says:

I work with my friend, Willie Parker, who is a professional athlete, and did a little with agents and stuff like that. 

Yeah, I’ll bet he did “a little with agents and stuff like that”!

But my favorite Hawkins quote from today is:

 I spoke with the NCAA guy, I think his name is Chance Miller.  When he called me from the University of Georgia he was with the University of Georgia’s lawyer, at the time when he called me I was busy.  I was doing something.  I told them that I would call them back and we set up a time to call back and when he gave me an extension, he gave me an extension to call back on, I called back the extension 5 times and it was the wrong extension.  It didn’t work.  Once he talked to me he called me the next day and I was like, ‘You, you gave me the wrong extension number.’  And he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.  My fault, my fault.’  It went from there and he set up another time, I think it was like a Monday at 3 o’clock or something like that.  He gave me another time for a conference call and that time I was busy.  I don’t work for the NCAA.  I don’t work for those guys.  I’ll speak to them when I can if I am available but I just don’t drop everything I do.  I try my best to help those guys out.”

Perfect!  I would suggest that Hawkins keep up this sassy attitude in dealing with the NCAA investigators!  By all means don’t change your schedule for them — you don’t work for those guys!  I think that plan will really work out well for all involved.

The final story for now deals with something written by Deems May on the “Letterman’s Roundtable” which can be found on a UNC-CH site somewhere.  Here is the text:

And for the guys who aren’t cleared, their mistakes could not have come at worse time. The people or organizations that are to assign punishment have tipped their hand without saying a word. Their silence is making it excruciatingly painful. There are many theories to why it is that way, but the facts are that these kids who made the mistakes have cracked a door and it is being kicked in.

The anti-football establishment coupled with the media, opposing teams and their fans are reveling in this right now. They want this team to fall apart, they want dissension between administrators, coaches and fans. Outsiders can’t stomach us being dominant at everything. We are dominant at everything but football right now, but we’re coming and it’s scaring them.

The more they frustrate us with their silence, sensationalistic reporting, and their rumor and speculation, the more they hope we capitulate and come to their side. Their side: that a good, successful football program is just not in the cards nor is it good for our beloved university.

How are we as fans going to respond? Are we going to let them succeed? I’ll take us.

 

“[C]racked a door”?!  Did he really write that?  Given Hawkins’ recent arrest that’s not the cliche I would have used.  Also, I would say that breaking NCAA rules while bragging about it repeatedly on the internet (with pictures!) is more than cracking a door.

But seriously, there is NO WAY that May believed that arrogant crap as he wrote it.  It is just too over-the-top hilarious to be real.  A program that has a losing conference record under Davis on the verge of being “dominant”?  I mean come on.  But the great part is that many who read that garbage, clearly written as a goof, earnestly believed it.  Which is sort of like someone watching Pro Wrestling without realizing that it is fake.

If you want to read about more Pro Wrestling-like statements Deems has made in the past, we did this entry after the 41-10 shellacking in Chapel Hill.  Deems said some really ridiculous things after that game that are worth going back through in light of his latest hilarious material.

In the future, Deems should make these kind of statements wearing a spandex tank top while pointing at the camera and threatening to hit someone with a folding chair.  You know, really do it up right!

UNC Scandal

26 Responses to Nightly Scandal Update

  1. MatSci94 09/21/2010 at 11:28 PM #

    General life tip – If anyone with ‘investigator’ in their job title calls you from a lawyer’s office, make some time in your schedule for it.

    question – are there or are there not records of people who enter the UNC FB ‘facilities’ that Hawkins frequented? I’m assuming there is at least someone there to keep people from just walking in…that would be interesting.

    q2 – Butch said last week that he was “sure Mr Badour would be glad to sit down with [Giglio]” and answer questions about Hawkins. I wonder if that ever happened.

  2. bradleyb123 09/21/2010 at 11:34 PM #

    Great stuff!

    I hope these nightly updates will each have their own separate page, instead of each new nightly update overwriting the previous night’s entry.

    You never know when you might want to re-visit one. 🙂

  3. McCallum 09/22/2010 at 6:29 AM #

    FREE DA unc13!!!

    Or is that now the unc12?

    Krazy days and all of this stuff is really going to cause me to expand the Krazy tar heal fact book.

    Never heard of the Krazy tar heal fact book? It is the book where all those secret and odd facts are found that you hear various unc folks talk about.(did you know that Dudley Bradley was the inspiration bungie jumping………well read the book!!) For instance, you never knew Joe Montana got his real start as the comeback kid UNTIL you read the Krazy tar heal fact book (Chapter 4 “The Rise of Greats” page 123) about him leading Norte Dame to victory in chapel hill. So it was more like what unc did not do (stop Notre Dame) other than what Montana did as the determiner of Montana’s greatness. It all starts in chapel hill on way or the other.

    And corruption and lying will now cause me to produce volume II.

    McCallum

  4. coppertop 09/22/2010 at 6:44 AM #

    Frank deford on npr’s morning edition just did a piece on cheating and the unc scandal. I’m in miami and heard it here. However he does say in addition to calling out blake, that if it happens in chapel hill it probably happens everywhere….
    Ugh.

  5. StateFans 09/22/2010 at 6:55 AM #

    Lots of fantastic comments in the entry written by Alpha Wolf in 2008 that was linked. One from Choppack I thought I would share here:

    My first exposure to Deems May on the radio was after the State-UNC game in 2004 – the infamous game where the last second TD was taken off the board.

    He was enjoying the heck out of it – and it drove me crazy. He was saying that this was the best possible way to beat your rival because it tore their heart out.

    It takes a certain perspective to think that way – some may call it sociopathic. Me, I’d rather win like we won Saturday because their is no doubt who the better team is. It didn’t come down to a blown call or a kicker or receiver who’ll feel like crap for a week to a year, to a lifetime. Not Deems, he’d rather the loss be as painful as possible. I can appreciate that. Of course, I’ve tried to suppress the dark urges in me to kick someone while they are down or even gloat too much in the win. I know part of the fun of sports is the needling, the give and take of “My team is better”.

    In a sense, I owe Deems a debt of gratitude. He helped me realize just how empty that mindset is. Of course, I’m still growing as a fan, and as a person – and I’ve got a long way to go before I could honestly call myself “a good fan” in the heat of a moment at the game. But see, I know I’m wrong to think and act that way. I wonder if Deems has thought about it. That this comes after a game where there was no heartbreak or sudden reverse of fortune says a lot about his mindset. I mean, it’s easy to deal w/ that first loss – and be magnanimous after you’ve won several in a row.

    Interestingly enough, when it started getting out of hand, one Jeff Bostic was basically saying the same thing about the recruiting rankings. It was as if someone was pissing on his parade.

  6. StateFans 09/22/2010 at 6:59 AM #

    coppertop,

    I think skirting the rules happens everywhere. THIS kind of cheating as is coming out of Chapel Hill does NOT happen everywhere.

  7. StateFans 09/22/2010 at 7:11 AM #

    ACC Sports Journal now complicit in following the University’s direction of doing whatever they can do to make this look like it is ALL John Blake. You can rest assured that “Team Butch’s” strategy is to pin as much as possible on Blake.

    Check out this article

    Note how they can write that entire article and not once actually ‘report’ John Blake’s primary title at UNC — ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH.

    How can one write an article detailing the specifics of Blake and not even share his title?

  8. McCallum 09/22/2010 at 7:33 AM #

    I don’t owe Deems anything other than the chance to throw (empty) beer cans out on his dad’s property in Lexington.

    McCallum

  9. TOBtime 09/22/2010 at 7:53 AM #

    I roomed with a guy at State who played with Deems at Lexington. He was a class A condescending jerk then and obviously not much has changed. It’s funny the ones who have the most to fear are the ones who show the most bravado. As I said in another thread, can’t wait to hear, after the smackdown comes, if he “deems” it appropriate punishment.

    Beware of anyone who LOOKS and SOUNDS like Herman Munster.

  10. coach13 09/22/2010 at 7:56 AM #

    I don’t think they (UNC/Butch) can try to put it all on Blake. He’s no fool and I really don’t see him taking one for “the man”. He has to be handled with kid gloves by UNC lest he turn on them and tell all, including who knew what and was OK with what was going on. If Blake goes down, he’s taking somebody(s) with him. UNC is in such a lose lose situation…love it.

  11. StateFans 09/22/2010 at 8:01 AM #

    ^ He’s getting paid $74k not to talk and to not be employed by the University so that the NCAA doesn’t have jurisdiction over him

  12. ADVENTUROO 09/22/2010 at 9:00 AM #

    THERE IS NEWS….The Daily Tar Heel has run a FEATURE PAGE this morning. The software that lets you read (and zoom) on the FRONT PAGE article is a little klutzy…..but, when this makes the morning page….it was either a SLOW news day or the DTH intends to turn up the wick on the Profs and Admin at UNX.

    Here is the link

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/37907719/The-Daily-Tar-Heel-for-September-22-2010

    You can also go to the Home Page. Use the following link and scroll down to the right and look at the SPORTS section. Click on the article.

    http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/

    What is INTERESTING (er, CONFUSING?) is that there is NO commentary or NO article….just the FRONT PAGE Graphic of the folks involved.

    This will make a WONDERFUL scorecard as we find out more. You gotta wonder WHY they went to so much trouble and have some much “info” and no commentary…

    BUT, this is the DTH….

  13. bradleyb123 09/22/2010 at 9:24 AM #

    State should hire Blake in some capacity (towel boy or something) in order to bring him back under the NCAA’s jurisdiction. We can tell him, no matter what comes out of subsequent interviews with the NCAA, that he will still be our best-paid towel boy ever!

    Then he’ll be free to sing like a canary. 🙂

    Frank deford on npr’s morning edition just did a piece on cheating and the unc scandal. I’m in miami and heard it here. However he does say in addition to calling out blake, that if it happens in chapel hill it probably happens everywhere…

    That attitude is sickening. Basically, it illustrates just how much people have drunk the Karlina Blue Koolaid. They really believe this. The truth is, the Holes would just have the world BELIEVE they are pristine and pure, and above this. But they just aren’t, as we’re seeing now.

    Just because it’s happening at the Hole does NOT mean it is happening everywhere. That’s the message we somehow need to get out.

  14. TAEdisonHokie 09/22/2010 at 9:33 AM #

    Blake’s real problem…and UNC’s…is the NC SoS. In exchange for no jail-time, Blake will share a lot of information with the NC SoS about Butch and the rest of the Chapel Hill Gang. That $74K won’t go very far toward payments to Blake’s lawyers as they attempt to keep him out of jail for acting as an agent.

    At this point in time, I’m not sure the NCAA really needs Blake’s testimony about anything. From what I understand, the players who have been suspended are talking about a variety of subjects that will probably cover anything Blake would say.

  15. GAWolf 09/22/2010 at 10:25 AM #

    Jebus, BradleyB. NPR? Really?

    Did you hear that before or after your morning hula hoop session and heady grilled cheese breakfast washed down by a Newcastle of which you only drank half in order to save room for the lot-purchased granola and chocolate goo ball you found half-eaten in your plaid shorts you last wore to the Phish show two weeks ago?

    I kid… I kid.

  16. packplantpath 09/22/2010 at 10:49 AM #

    I admit, I heard the NPR/UNC thing too. It was bad.

    Why doesn’t somebody point out to these morons that it wouldn’t be such a big deal that they found athletes cheating at UNC if we haven’t had the “Carolina way” lie rammed down our throat, by fans and books by coaches, for our entire lives.

    It’s true, everybody has cheating at some level in their athletic program. I revel in this affair because we have put proof to the lie. That is what makes this great.

    We have been told our entire lives that UNC’s crap don’t stink. Well guess what, UNC just took a major crap and forgot to close the door. “Smells like …… victory”.

  17. packalum44 09/22/2010 at 10:55 AM #

    I suspect the hush money paid to Blake will draw ire from the NCAA and will factor into a harsher punishment.

  18. packalum44 09/22/2010 at 11:02 AM #

    Also Hawkins would be wise to keep his mouth shut he is doing more harm than good by speaking publicly. It seems his public ivy education has failed him because he contradicted himself and consistently makes grammatical errors by using singular verbs with plural nouns/pronouns.

    Yo we is not very smart.

  19. bradleyb123 09/22/2010 at 11:06 AM #

    “Jebus, BradleyB. NPR? Really?

    Did you hear that before or after your morning hula hoop session and heady grilled cheese breakfast washed down by a Newcastle of which you only drank half in order to save room for the lot-purchased granola and chocolate goo ball you found half-eaten in your plaid shorts you last wore to the Phish show two weeks ago?

    I kid… I kid.”
    – Posted by GAWolf

    Heh heh! Actually, the part in italics was a quote that someone else posted. (Like the paragraph at the top of this post…) Maybe I need to also include “-POSTED BY so-and-so” at the end to make that clear.

    So NO, I was certainly not listening to NPR. 🙂

  20. highstick 09/22/2010 at 11:10 AM #

    I can remember my favorite quote to my son on numerous occasions while he was in high school….”Son, you’re not a bad person and you’ve done nothing worse that I didn’t do at your age. BUT, the difference is that YOU got caught and must deal with the consequences.”

    He dealt with the consequences on numerous occasions and has turned out to be a great young man with a strong sense of right and wrong.

    The Bably Blue Flagship does not seem to want to deal with the consequences, therefore they are destined to repeat their mistakes again and again and again! Right or wrong doesn’t seem to make any difference, it’s just the way spoiled brats operate!

  21. ChemE79a 09/22/2010 at 11:57 AM #

    I also heard the DeFord piece on NPR(30 year year NPR listener, I have given to the local NPR station where ever I have lived). As bad as the quote is from DeFord he had a point. The point is that the NCAA has no way to check what schools tell them about academics. If everyone is not doing “it,” the reason is not any fear of the NCAA. Also DeFord’s version of “it” would include everything from professors adjusting grades and/or “tutors” doing the work to routing the players into easy courses which leave them with worthless degrees (I base this description on previous DeFord essays). By that broad of a definition of “it” very few schools are not doing “it”.

  22. coppertop 09/22/2010 at 12:07 PM #

    Oh come now. News sources all have a bias just have to know who you are hearing it from, same with fox news. And in fact I heard it on my way to base, to stand duty for the coast guard… I wore a unifrom, and drank coffee, black. And work today meant time for our PRT, (physical readiness test, same as the navy) which I scored an outstanding on…

    But tell me more of this hula hoop exercise u know gawolf, I’m sure its hard! 🙂
    Of course I kid as well. But just about the hula hoop, that honestly was my morning!!

  23. JeremyH 09/22/2010 at 12:35 PM #

    it will be interesting to see if the academic “cheating” part of the scandal is also taking place within the basketball program. we knew that nc state had high academic standards, for example just to qualify, but if unc and other schools are making it easier for the students to pass, then they have an unfair advantage, e.g., they can spend more time practicing and less time studying…

    for unc to claim that “everyone is doing it”, well, that just makes the NCAA look ineffective, and NCAA should think hard about how they want to handle that.

  24. Wufpacker 09/22/2010 at 1:25 PM #

    First thought: Hawkins isn’t just a guy caught up in something that blew up around him (as I first thought he might be). He’s an honest to goodness part of this I now believe. And he’s a punk, but that’s immaterial right now.

    “The NCAA thinks that I am an agent, which I am not. I am not an agent. I have never worked for an agent, never been paid by one.”

    Interesting. “I have never…been paid by [an agent].” Did they ask him that? Did they ask if he’d been paid by an agent? Probably so, but they didn’t ask him there, not right then. He added that on at the end of an already ludicrous statement, and we already know that Chris Hawkins has an affinity for continuing to talk when he should just STFU.

    So, why then did he volunteer that he’d never been paid by an agent?

    And as far as BEING an agent….do you HAVE to be paid by an agent (ie another agent…an employer, I presume) in order to BE an agent? I think Mr. Hawkins’ logic has again failed him here.

    “He gave me another time for a conference call and that time I was busy. I don’t work for the NCAA. I don’t work for those guys.”

    We’ll ignore Mr. Hawkins’ obvious disdain and lack of respect for those conducting the investigation, as well as his apparently questionable ability to operate a basic communications device like a telephone, and get right to the important part here….

    “I don’t work for those guys.” Interesting phrasing, wouldn’t you say?

    First of all, if MY alma mater was at the center of something this big and the NCAA contacted me and asked me to be available to them, you better damn well bet that I’d bend over backwards to be available and not potentially piss off the very people that were going to determine my alma mater’s fate.

    Then again, maybe he doesn’t consider UNC-CHeat to be his alma mater any longer….despite spending what appears to have been a great deal of his free time there up until recently. Or, WAS it free time?

    And if he doesn’t “work for THOSE guys”, who DOES he work for? I’m actually asking that sincerely. Does anyone know what is Mr. Hawkins’ current employment status? And if he is officially employed, by whom is he employed?

    And all Deems May has done with his little remarks is reinforce what we all already knew. Among a large group of douches, he stands out in the crowd.

    “Outsiders can’t stomach us being dominant at everything. We are dominant at everything but football right now, but we’re coming and it’s scaring them.”

    That’s funny enough, frankly. But he just can’t shut up and gives us this as a bonus.

    “The more they frustrate us with their silence, sensationalistic reporting, and their rumor and speculation, the more they hope we capitulate and come to their side. Their side: that a good, successful football program is just not in the cards nor is it good for our beloved university.”

    Yes, he actually said that. Not that we should be surprised by the better-than-everybody-else attitude. We’ve seen enough of it for years and it’s been especially prevalent as a rationalization/defense mechanism lately. And it it IS, after all, exactly why we peasants have no basis to be able to understand WHY what they’ve done is neither wrong nor punishable, and HOW what they’ve done is actually honest and full of integrity (well, it’s full of something at least).

    Also, how do you have both silence AND sensationalistic reporting?

    But it’s this part that gets me:

    “…they hope [we come to realize] that a good, successful football program…is [not] good for our university.”

    Yes, Deems. Thank you for setting us peasants straight. A powerful football program is good for your university no matter what rules must be broken, no matter how many players/recruits must be steered to Chapel Hill by agents and their representatives offering money and gifts, and no matter what slimy characters UNC-CHeat must get into bed with to achieve it.

    Thank goodness Deems finally spoke out on this subject and set us all straight. Those of us, that is, who are a part of the.. “anti-football establishment coupled with the media, opposing teams and their fans” ..group.

    It is, of course, OUR fault.

  25. Mike 09/22/2010 at 2:13 PM #

    Deems May is a tool and always has been.

    His statement is EXACTLY why we at NC State (and the other schools too)care so much about the scandal. The obnoxious, arrogant, pompous attitude is sickening. This is prevalent in everything they do over there in Orange County, for athletics to academics, and the worst are the WalMart fans who have no other connection to the school. Why do we absolutely hate them and love this story? See comment May, Deems.

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