UNC Scandal Blowing Up

ACC & Other General UNC Scandal38

I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!

Several stories breaking tonight on the UNC scandal:

Larger article in today’s N&O.

Full article.

The University of North Carolina has sent a disassociation letter severing ties with Jennifer Wiley, the former tutor associated with the school and NCAA’s investigation into possible academic misconduct within the Tar Heels football program.

In the letter, dated Nov. 5 and signed by athletic director Dick Baddour, states that Wiley provided impermissible academic assistance to some of the school’s student-athletes in 2009 and 2010.

The letter also states that Wiley provided impermissible financial assistance in excess of $2,000 in connection with travel and transportation issues. The university released the letters to the media this afternoon as the result of public records requests.

Keep in mind that Ms. Wiley is the same tutor that was deemed to have an inappropriate relationship with at least 1 UNC football player. Due to that relationship, UNC made the decision to not continue her contract back in 2009. Yet despite this inappropriate relationship, Butch Davis continued to employ Ms. Wiley up until the Spring of 2010 and neither Butch nor any official at UNC thought it made sense to determine if her employment was appropriate. At the time UNC discontinued Ms. Wiley’s participation in the tutor program for an inappropriate relationship, nobody at UNC investigated the work done by UNC student-athletes to determine whether the inappropriate relationship between Ms. Wiley and at least 1 UNC football player led to the academic fraud which is now at the center of second prong of the ongoing investigation.

This is NCAA compliance at its best.

I guess I can understand a university not catching everything, but considering UNC knew of the improper relationship it is almost as if they simply ignored the potential of academic fraud which is the whole point of setting boundaries on relationships between tutors and student-athletes in the first place. If there is no need for an investigation, then why discontinue her participation in the tutor program? Then nobody at UNC informs Butch that Ms. Wiley was let go, why she was let go, or that it isn’t a good idea for him to continue employing her.

Hello? Anybody home in UNC’s compliance department?

Additionally:

Reinstatement requests sent by the university to the NCAA indicate that impermissible gifts, including cash, jewelry and travel and entertainment expenses were provided to football players by:
Former UNC player Hakeem Nicks ($3,300).
Former UNC player Omar Brown ($1,865).
Former UNC player Mahlon Carey ($140).
Vernon Davis ($20).
A person from Miami whose full name is not known to the university

Another former player mentioned giving thousands of dollars worth of benefits to at least 1 current UNC player. Anyone surprised?

Why go to any other university when you can go to UNC, get hooked up with thousands of dollars worth of benefits, travel around the country, commit academic fraud and stay in school and play in the current season(or redshirt if it is your’s or the program’s best interest) even if you get caught?

That is a heck of a recruiting pitch. The Carolina Way!!!

Here is the official document from UNC detailing this latest release of information.

ACC & Other General UNC Scandal

38 Responses to UNC Scandal Blowing Up

  1. inhoc... 11/11/2010 at 7:41 PM #

    “The letter also states that Wiley provided impermissible financial assistance in excess of $2,000 in connection with travel and transportation issues.”

    Does this mean she was giving money to players, or she was getting paid by people within the univ?

  2. backnine 11/11/2010 at 7:44 PM #

    We should know by now that UNC does not release information that may be damning. This info will ultimately mean nothing with the way things have been going. They are actually playing this as UNC doing the stand up thing and dissassociating itself with the “evil-doers”. You’re going to need this gal to come forward and state publicly that Butch paid her and knew where the money was going for anything to come of this. Wish the media’s suit to get all those records would succeed. Would love to know the real owners of the cars that players were driving tied to parking tickets.

  3. Ismael 11/11/2010 at 7:49 PM #

    the best part is the $140 and $20 entries in the list.

    that just shows how “thorough” they were.

  4. VaWolf82 11/11/2010 at 8:01 PM #

    There’s also an article up at WRAL with links to the letters from UNC.

    There’s a throw-away line in one of the UNC letters that they won’t release the parking tickets due to FERPA. What? How does a parking ticket treated the same way as a kid’s grades?

  5. wvillepack 11/11/2010 at 8:21 PM #

    How does a tutor have extra cash on hand to give to players? My guess is that only 10% of the issues at UNC will come to light and they will continue to make out like bandits. Sickening. And nothing was going on around the Smith Center? Right.

  6. leroy corso 11/11/2010 at 8:49 PM #

    Omar Brown is 35 friggin years old. He last played for unc in 1997. And unc explains the $1850 away as “helping friends” and they “didn’t know”????

  7. OldWuf 11/11/2010 at 9:11 PM #

    I actually believe this thing is swinging UNC-CHeats’ way. The impotent media’s lack of enthusiasm is allowing the tarholes to control the conversation. Butchie continuing to win will silence most tarholes that have any interest in football. The convenient timing of the unpleasantries at Auburn keep the national media occupied. All of this sets up the NCAA to look like big, bad unreasonable ogres if they penalize them much at all. My previous prediction was that Butchie would be quietly ushered out at season’s end to “restore integrity at the flagship”. Now I don’t really believe it will happen.

  8. BAC79 11/11/2010 at 9:18 PM #

    UNC won’t dump Butch until the NCAA unloads on them. That could be sometime next year. In the meantime, UNC continues to extort millions from the Kool Aid drinkers to fund their expansion.

  9. hoop 11/11/2010 at 9:25 PM #

    Butch was on ESPN yesterday giving an interview. All I caught of it while I was out and about was how great the team was handling all the adversity this season and how well they will continue to handle this adversity this season and how they’ll go to a bowl and other boiler plate BS.

    Did anyone see the whole interview? I wondered what he was doing on ESPN giving an interview for. Was anything else discussed?

    Makes me wonder if we should have an academic/agent/runner/SoS/NCAA/cupcake scandal so we can get lots of free publicity too.

  10. SouthernWolf 11/11/2010 at 9:45 PM #

    ^^ I watched the whole interview, He got congratulated for keeping his team together and was generally treated like a victim of the system. He was asked about the state of college athletics and said something about how it was the fault of agents and the NFL and the NCAA need to work together to restrict their access to players.

  11. NCSU88 11/11/2010 at 9:58 PM #

    I am using Bob Lee Swagger’s comments as a litmus test on this. He is a rational UNX fan with plenty of connections. He predicted Butch gone by Dec but has since backed off, disappointed and shaking his head. I guess patience is the key in this whole thing. Like waiting for that perfect wave to come.

    I admit watching the UNX trainwreck is nowhere near as fun with the curious results of the Pack’s football performance of late.

  12. PackWolf82 11/11/2010 at 10:36 PM #

    Anyone noticing this released on WRALsportsfan tonight as well: http://www.wralsportsfan.com/unc/story/8611998/

  13. bTHEredterror 11/12/2010 at 1:14 AM #

    How dare this wealthy young succubus tread upon the sacredness of the Well. How dare she mislead our pure, scholarly players by seducing them and doing their homework without their knowledge, as well as providing financial benfits. And how can she so cruelly deceive our honest coach not once, but twice, even after he opened his home in charity and exposed his seed to her wiles. She must have been in league with that demon spawn John Blake, who broke all these rules under his own direction, and betrayed his lifelong friend and mentor without his knowledge. She just earned herself the worst possible punishment imaginable, excommunication from Blue Heaven and a sternly worded public letter.

    The level of soulessness over the hill is appalling.

  14. Wufpacker 11/12/2010 at 4:14 AM #

    “I actually believe this thing is swinging UNC-CHeats’ way. The impotent media’s lack of enthusiasm is allowing the tarholes to control the conversation.”

    UNLESS concrete proof comes to light that Butch had direct involvement and/or direct knowledge of any wrongdoing and intentionally did not address such; OR UNLESS concrete proof of additional major violations come to light (proof that recruits were paid and/or provided other illegal inducements to choose UNC, for example); OR UNLESS concrete proof comes to light that the academic improprieties extended into other sports (Please, God…let this happen, LOL)…..

    …..There will be no major sanctions handed down against UNC-CHeat. IN THE EYES OF THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL, they have successfully (thus far) been able to make John Blake, sports agents/runners, and the tutor appear to be rogue elements within an otherwise flawed, but not intentionally dirty, athletics program. They’ve additionally been successful (thus far) in making Butch Davis look like the dumbest and most naive head football coach that ever walked the Earth, but innocent nonetheless, IN THE EYES OF THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL.

    I’m not saying that any of this is actually the truth. But unfortunately in this day and age perception is often reality. If the media, the UNC BOG, or the public in general had any interest in what might very well be one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, college sports scandal ever, then things might be different.

    I’ll leave each of you to ponder the reasons why those entities may or may not care about finding the truth in this matter.

    It’s all about plausible deniability folks. And while you and I might not think their denials are very plausible, the general public does. Unless something else comes to light that opinion is not likely to change.

    I have a glimmer of belief that the NCAA might care about what really happened, but that glimmer is fading fast, quite frankly.

  15. PackerInRussia 11/12/2010 at 5:41 AM #

    “Reinstatement requests sent by the university to the NCAA indicate that impermissible gifts, including cash, jewelry and travel and entertainment expenses were provided to football players by:
    Former UNC player Hakeem Nicks ($3,300).
    Former UNC player Omar Brown ($1,865).
    Former UNC player Mahlon Carey ($140).
    Vernon Davis ($20).”

    Vernon Davis – What a cheapskate!

  16. NCSU88 11/12/2010 at 6:12 AM #

    From the WRAL story listed by PackWolf82
    “Former University of North Carolina associate football coach John Blake used his university issued cell phone to call sports agent Gary Wichard nearly 150 times in the past year and a half, according to phone records released by UNC on Thursday.”

    I don’t think I’ve called my wife that many times in 20 years of marriage.

  17. Pano Fasoulas 11/12/2010 at 8:16 AM #

    From the ACC NOW Blog. One of the commenter wanted to know how to get one of those “disassociation letters”. LOL. Count me in as someone who’d also like to have one of those.

  18. burnbarn 11/12/2010 at 8:28 AM #

    WOW!! Joe Cheshire as Wiley’s attorney..only the best defense lawyer in the entire state. Wonder why she needs a lawyer of his caliber? How much are Joe’s fees these days?

  19. heavy 11/12/2010 at 9:23 AM #

    I give them credit on their risk analysis. Hakeem Nicks is a moron (as previously shown by his test scores.) So sign him up for $3300 because he won’t know how to deal with this and will fold. Yet more fodder for the Carolina Way.

  20. baxter 11/12/2010 at 9:49 AM #

    The precedent has been set by USC with LOIC, and its clearly laid out in the NCAA process map that a coach pleading ignorance is in itself one of the criteria for LOIC (in fact, its probably the biggest issue). They’ll get LOIC, loss of scholarships, and probably a bowl ban.

    While some of you probably want more than that, I still think this would be proper punishment. Dirtbags like Blake will get whats coming in the form of some type of sentence, Wichard too via the SoS investigation. MA may get this penalty as well, but we all know young idiots get off easy / claim to be manipulated. The biggest penalty for the players was loss of time, but everyone knows that the 1st round guys are still going to get rewarded e.g. Quinn being named 3rd overall pick by McShay – [he hasn’t played a down yet this season, he’s dropped from #1 to #3 – from ESPN the other night]

    As for Butch being fired, who knows, thats up to the admins over there (I’d personally try and keep the coach due to the lack of desire to get a high caliber coach hired after penalties). He may very well be a moron when it comes to all this, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he turned out to be the dirtiest of the entire crew. Oh well, WTNY.

  21. RegularExpression 11/12/2010 at 9:55 AM #

    Let’s not confuse public opinion or the media’s take for facts. The same facts that the NCAA will hopefully use to decide the punishment in this case.

    As was the case in September when there was no news on the scandal for a while people are starting to panic thinking that this whole thing will blow over. Then the John Blake news blew up in early October and evreyone was sure Butch would be gone by seasons end. Despite Holden Thorpe’s assertions, the facts in this case haven’t changed. The same facts that made even smoky Dave Glenn assume Butch was a dead man walking are still out there.

    Quite frankly, I’d love UNC to try to retain Butch after this season. Between the internal struggle over academics/athletics and the external microscope that will be on the program, I really can see hard times ahead if they stick with him.

  22. choppack1 11/12/2010 at 10:06 AM #

    So let’s see now. Thus far we have the following:
    1) Marvin Austin receiving improper benefits.
    2) Greg Little receiving improper benefits.
    3) Robert Quinn receiving improper benfits.
    4) Burney receiving improper benefits.
    5) Deunta Williams receiving improper benefits.
    6) some type of cheating scandal involving a tutor (we’re not sure of the players here, it’s not exactly been a transparent process).
    7) Hawkins – a former UNC player kicked off the team by previous coach – providing improper benefits.
    8) The tutor formerly employed by the University as a tutor then dismissed for being too close to players – also current HC’s son’s tutor – providing improper financial benefits.
    9) Former UNC player Hakeem Nicks providing improper benefits.
    10) Former UNC player Omar Brown providing improper benefits.
    11) John Blake contacting players for another university.

    This is just the stuff we know right now. This is 11 players/former players/ others with ties to UNC directly involved in wrongdoing. The truth is alot of this stuff – w/ the exception of Austin and Quinn – is kind of nickel and dime crap. However, you can’t argue that you were minding the hen house when you’ve got a laundry list like this.

    Sometimes I think UNC is going to get off w/ a slap of the wrist. However, when you list the transgressions, it’s hard to believe that will be the case – especially if the NCAA wants to send a message about enforcement of its rules.

  23. Packfan28 11/12/2010 at 10:23 AM #

    I’m missing the “blowing up” part.

  24. choppack1 11/12/2010 at 10:42 AM #

    “They’ll get LOIC, loss of scholarships, and probably a bowl ban.”

    They should get a bowl ban. That and the scholarship thing are the only real ways to punish the school.

    I’m still waiting for UNC to come out w/ some self-imposed recruiting restrictions and enhanced academic standards. However, if this investigation has shown anything – it’s that the UNC Tarheels are 100% committed to winning at football no matter what it takes.

  25. Clarksa 11/12/2010 at 10:45 AM #

    ^things have been quiet for a couple of weeks…then things blew up yesterday on twitter/news/blogs…UNC-CHeat wanted the news out there in hopes of hiding underneath the Cam Newton news…

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