As a bit of background, let me say one of my major frustrations with the coverage of the entire NCAA fiasco has been the shoddy research and writing of journalists who ought to know better.  As such, I have written extensively about this topic, from reporters and others who continued to report the infamous Marvin Austin tweet as him having actually been in Club Liv long after that was proven to be a rap lyric, to Dan Kane’s “I’m not saying, I’m just saying” brand of “investigative journalism“, in which he lays out a premise but offers no proof and invites the reader to draw a conclusion.

In many ways, this seems to be the tack Landreth takes with his piece, relying heavily on innuendo and implication to make the case of some grand conspiracy to fire Butch Davis. The premise itself is ridiculous enough; never mind the misinformation and mangled facts he uses to advance that line of thought.

Still, I found it fun to deconstruct Landreth’s piece and took me about five minutes and a handful of Google searches to do so. So here goes:

The law firm of which Hargrove is a partner — Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P. — represents the Raleigh News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting. Either Hargrove himself or his law firm has represented the News & Observer at three times in court since the late 1980s.

These cases are a public record.

Both the News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting had sued the university for all information in regards to the NCAA investigation of the football program recently before Hargrove became chair of the Board of Trustees.

There is no evidence the firm represented either party against UNC in this particular suit, but both remain clients, which is information Hargrove should have revealed.

There is no evidence the firm represented the N&O or CBC because the records lawsuit was filed by the firm of Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych. Hargrove’s firm of Brooks Pierce had nothing at all to do with the recent suit against UNC for the football records.

Brooks-Pierce-McLendon-Humphrey & Leonard Clients

(Read to the bottom of the page on this above link and you will see this firm still represents Capitol Broadcasting and the Raleigh News & Observer.)…

Whether Hargrove ever actually participated in any of the court proceedings against UNC is irrelevant in regards to the law. He is a member of the law firm that sued UNC on behalf of the Raleigh News & Observer in the past.

The link provided in the Landreth piece is to the Martindale Law Directory listing for Brooks Pierce. What is provided is a list of “representative clients”; I am not sure if these are active clients as Landreth asserts.

But if you follow his instructions and scroll to the bottom, below the listing of CBC and the N&O as clients, you will find another intriguing client listed: THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA. That’s right, in addition to CBC and the N&O, Brooks Pierce has also represented UNC! So Hargrove “is a member of the law firm that sued UNC” as well as of a firm that also represented UNC. Kind of inconvenient, isn’t it Eddy?

The minutes from the Board of Trustees on July 27, 2011, Willis P. Whichard, former associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, administered the Oath of Office to new and reappointed members of the Board:

Hargrove was made the chair, even though he had not been in line for the duty.

Landreth’s insinuation here is that there is something fishy about Hargrove becoming chairman of the board. Hargrove was not “made the chair”, he was elected as chair. In addition, the sitting vice-chair, Barbara Hyde, was re-elected vice chair for the upcoming term. Hard to believe Hyde would have remained as vice chair if there was a power play or Hargrove’s ascension was somehow suspect. This is not like the Rotary Club where the vice chair automatically moves up.

Before the Board began to conduct its business, Vice Chair Barbara R. Hyde read the state law concerning ethics and conflicts of interest.

“As Chair of the Board of Trustees, it is my responsibility to remind all members of the Board of their duty under the State Government Ethics Act to avoid conflicts of interest and appearances of conflict of interest as required by this Act. Each member has received the agenda and related information for this Board of Trustees’ meeting. If any Board member knows of any conflict of interest or appearance of conflict with respect to any matter coming before the Board of Trustees at this meeting, the conflict or appearance of conflict should be identified at this time.”

There is no mention of anyone identifying any conflicts within the minutes. The minutes from the May 25-26, 2011 meeting were approved, and Hargrove was then elected chair.

Again, Landreth asserts his point by insinuation. Hyde read the ethics statement and no one raised a conflict. Landreth is trying to say without saying that someone should have pointed out Hargrove’s conflict, or that Hyde read the statement knowing there was a conflict. But a simple review of the minutes of the other UNC Board of Trustees meetings from 2011 (available online here) reveals this statement is read at the beginning of every BOT meeting. In other words, there is no ulterior motive to that statement; it is simply a standard part of every meeting.

Then Landreth makes a bizarre point about UNC vice chancellor (and former football player) Matt Kupec, which seems to have nothing to do with his railing against Hargrove’s conflict of interest:

It is also worth noting that university vice chancellor Matt Kupec attended the meeting that day.

He addressed the Board during one of its three closed sessions that day, sessions which the public and the media were prohibited from attending.

What is unusual is Kupec is a fundraiser who normally makes his reports during the open portion of the meetings. But on this day, the minutes read: “Matt Kupec presented naming recommendations to Committee of the Whole.”

Unusual, Eddy? There’s nothing unusual or worth noting about his attendance at the July meeting or any other meeting of the BOT. Again, just reviewing the minutes from the previous 2011 BOT meetings, Kupec attended every one and made the same reports in open and closed session at each meeting. At the July meeting, he made a fundraising report in open session and then addressed the board in closed session about “naming recommendations” (whatever those are, which is irrelevant for this discussion).  Landreth’s wording would imply that Kupec did not make a report in open session, but he did. He did the presentations in both open and closed sessions at the January, March, and May meetings as well; again, this is information easily accessed online.

I don’t know what Landreth was meaning to imply about Kupec’s participation in this meeting, but five minutes’ worth of research would have shown Kupec did the same this in the July meeting as he did every time the board met.

Sadly, Eddy Landreth has cleared out a niche in the moonbat section of the UNC fanbase and has posted to a supposedly legitimate site a rant that would barely be worthy of being posted by a board monkey. A disclaimer on Landreth’s post says that “This story is property of TarHeelIllustrated.com and Yahoo! Sports. Any use should credit both.” Given the fine work Yahoo has done on the ills of college football lately, I don’t believe they would want their name associated with this piece of junk.

As THF noted in his piece, this kind of low-rent writing on either the booger-eaters side by Chansky or the mouth-breathers side by Landreth does nothing to advance the dialogue about Carolina football and hinders the efforts of real journalists and others who seek to have thoughtful discourse and reporting about the program and its future.

There are certain individuals who pass themselves off as journalists and even enjoy the privileges of media access. In doing that they assume a responsibility to write and publish articles that adhere to certain standards. Such persons do not have the luxury of spouting off every crackpot theory that comes along. Apparently longtime Tar Heel writers/journalists Art Chansky and Eddy Landreth do not operate that way. In the past two weeks have both engaged in the kind of writing that is often found on message boards and do not serve the vested interest of bringing this whole sordid mess to a quiet end. Chansky got the party started by reporting rumors and attempting to draw connections to UNC’s NOA response in an effort to validate his own agenda against Butch Davis. Now Tar Heel Illustrated’s Eddy Landreth has entered the fray with essentially baseless accusations of conflicts of interest and some grand conspiracy between the chair of the UNC Board of Trustees, his law firm, the News and Observer and WRAL. Yes. Really.

On July 27, 2011, the new chair of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, Wade H. Hargrove, appears to have violated the State Government Ethics Act by failing to reveal a potential conflict of interest in the NCAA investigation of Carolina’s football program and now-former head coach Butch Davis.

The law firm of which Hargrove is a partner — Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P. — represents the Raleigh News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting. Either Hargrove himself or his law firm has represented the News & Observer at three times in court since the late 1980s.

These cases are a public record.

Both the News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting had sued the university for all information in regards to the NCAA investigation of the football program recently before Hargrove became chair of the Board of Trustees.

There is no evidence the firm represented either party against UNC in this particular suit, but both remain clients, which is information Hargrove should have revealed.

Hargrove does not appear to have removed himself from the discussions concerning the UNC football case and/or the firing of Davis, both before and after the fact.

He had an obligation to recuse himself and to make clear the reasons for his recusal, on the record, and in a public setting.

The State Governement Ethics Act states that it is not enough for board members to have an actual conflict of interest. They must avoid all all appearances of conflicts.

Whether Hargrove ever actually participated in any of the court proceedings against UNC is irrelevant in regards to the law. He is a member of the law firm that sued UNC on behalf of the Raleigh News & Observer in the past.

The N&O had repeatedly called for Davis to be fired, and Capitol Broadcasting, which also owns a Raleigh radio station that hosts a sports talk show that had consistently attacked Davis and criticized UNC for not firing him, as well as GoPack.com, the official Website of one of UNC’s main rivals, N.C. State University.

Simply Landreth’s beef here is that BOT chair Wade Hargrove’s law firm has had the News and Observer and Capitol Broadcasting as clients for an extended period dating back two decades. Landreth says because of this connection and the editorial position of the N&O that Davis should be fired not to mention the fact Capitol owns GoPack.com(and let’s throw in that they broadcast Wolfpack games too) this means Hargrove is conflicted in his ability to take part in the decision of whether to fire Butch Davis or not. Except Landreth doesn’t really explain why Hargrove is conflicted. His law firm represents to local media outlets but not in the recent lawsuits over the release of public records. Is Landreth saying Harvgrove was unable to make an objective decision on Davis because he was beholden to clients of his law firm, one of who had called expressly for Davis’ dismissal? Or is it the mere appearance of impropriety that has Landreth’s dander up?

Let’s just cut right to it. Can someone explain to me why we are spending this much ink over a coach who was fired because nine major NCAA violations happened on his watch? NCAA violations which have already resulted in the vacating of 16 wins, reductions in scholarships and probation even before the NCAA makes its final judgment. Seriously, on one side we have Chansky who apparently wants people to pat him on the back and tell him he was right about firing Davis to the point he is dredging up crap that only makes UNC look worse. On the other side you have Landreth and any number of folks on the UNC fan base who are hellbent on defending Davis to the point of accusing BOT members of a conflict of interest. Never mind the fact Davis hired John Blake which was a decision that has done far more damage to UNC that Hargrove stepping out of the conference room for a cup of coffee. I just don’t get it. I don’t get the devotion and loyalty to a man who, in my opinion, had less loyalty to UNC in his whole body than Roy William does in his pinkie finger. I don’t get why people think Butch Davis is worth this kind of angst and internal conflict at a time when the focus should be on the COI hearing, hiring a new AD, finalizing the football coaching position and accepting the final penalties. This is all pointless. All a bunch of sactimonious whining from people who didn’t care about the fact Davis brought Blake in from the start but now are so butthurt over Davis’ firing they want to continue to drag the school through the mud.

What most of these people fail to realize and have failed to understand since July last year is the media scrutiny, the attention from the local talking heads, suspension of players and the firing of Butch Davis wasn’t for nothing. While Davis was not named in the notice of allegations, it is still his program and in his program NCAA violations occurred. To put it another way, “if you don’t start nothing, there won’t be nothing.” UNC broke rules. Coaches who head up programs that commit nine major NCAA violations do not tend to survive. We can argue about the timing which sucked mightily but the deed is done. It was a deed that was inevitable by every standard used to analyze these types of situation. All of this whining, complaining and general screeching about being right, firing Holden Thorp, suing UNC over the Blue Zone and floating accusations against the Board of Trustees is all completely useless to me..

Let. It. Go.

Seriously. Let it go. Drop it. Move on and look to the future. Whatever cliche or phrase that gets you going, let’s bury this crap and move on. Let’s stop dragging stuff up every two weeks which distracts from the team on the field and doesn’t do UNC any good. For a group of people who claim to love UNC so much they have a strange way of showing it. And for Chansky and Landreth, who are both semi-retired, let me say this as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Go. Away.

Go and buy a house next to John Bunting down at the beach, sit around on your screened in porches and vent among yourselves so the rest of us can move on.

This crap is an embarrassment to the fan base and fuels the lunatics among our rivals. The only thing we should concern ourselves with now is supporting the team on the field and figuring out the future. I guess these guys want to argue that the current leadership of the school is incapable of crafting the right future for the football program. I’m not buying it, at least not yet. We here at THF, have said from the beginning to let all of this play out to the proper conclusion and then judge whether the UNC administration did the right things or not. I know that is difficult in an instant information age. I know there is a great temptation to fill the void with anything remotely close to a real story to drive traffic. Doing so is also wrong and makes the rest of us look like idiots.

Throughout this ordeal those who have had issues with the media or the chancellor or anyone else disagreeing with them think the best way to get results is attack, insult and go to war with these people. Ripping the local media doesn’t make it stop nor does flying banners condemning the chancellor or badly implying the chair of the BOT is acting unethically. These are battles that no one will win and in the end it only makes UNC fans look incredibly idiotic. I  don’t care which side of the fence you are on in this mess.  Engaging in this quasi-civil war within Tar Heel Nation is utterly pointless and does zero good, least of which for the school all of us claim to love.

Via Tar Heel Illustrated

The NCAA, as with religions of antiquity, requires a sacrifice in cases such as the one that lay before Carolina with the official Notice of Allegations released this week.

This would be the ideal time for UNC to make that sacrifice and render a strong statement that it has learned from its errors and will act in concert with the image it strives so hard to portray.

There is no better way to accomplish this than for Dick Baddour, director of athletics, to retire gracefully.

He should make a statement that he has done his best for the school he loves so dearly and is ready to spend more time with his family.

Now is no time for stubborn pride.

He has served the university longer than many of its alumni have been alive.

There is no need to take cheap shots at him on the way out the door, either. Throw him a party; congratulate him on a retirement well-earned and then get down to the business of finding an AD who can finish what Baddour has guided the school through so carefully in the last year.

But it is important that he walk out that door.

His retirement and then a strong statement from a new AD could go a long way in Carolina’s favor. UNC has already done plenty by suspending players later found to be innocent, and by losing players who were guilty of accepting improper benefits and academic improprieties.

The NCAA wants its pound of flesh.

UNC appears to an easy target for making an example, unlike Auburn and the rest of the Southeastern Conference, which the officials at NCAA headquarters clearly fear.

Doc pointed out to me via email that this is not necessarily the craziest idea in the world. A high level member of the current athletic administration would be a nice bone to toss the NCAA(whether it would actually matter is another discussion.) Dick Baddour, for various reasons which have nothing to do with the scandal, is looking pretty wooly. Baddour has been at UNC for 40 years and director of athletics for the past fourteen. His age and tenure makes him an ideal candidate for retirement at this point. Since it is probably going to happen within the next year why not do it now as a quasi-offering to the angry enforcement gods in Indianapolis?

The answer is that it makes more sense for the man responsible for the football program be held accountable. And Eddy Landreth is very quick to tell you just how wrong you are for thinking that.

Of course, by now many of you reading this are saying, maybe even screaming, that Coach Butch Davis is the one who should go.

You are wrong.

Davis is at fault for hiring John Blake. But no coach in America can keep a player from taking money from a runner or agent if the kid wants to do it.

As Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski said, ‘It only takes one kid to do it.’

Also, Davis does not oversee the tutoring program. That falls under the leadership of Chancellor Holden Thorp and Baddour.

With the tremendous investment in the football program at the moment and Davis’ public relations skills, he can lead the football program out of this mess, back to respectability and to more wins on the field.

As for Thorp, he is relatively new to the job and would be better off learning from his mistakes than resigning. His departure would be an unnecessary sacrifice.

So while I agree with Doc that is not necessarily a crazy idea given the ease at which Baddour could retire. What I do find completely nuts is the logic Landreth employs here. It is as though Landreth has a conclusion he wants to reach and twists the logic to get there. That means downplaying anything that might make Davis look worse and playing up the angles that you can pin to Baddour. Such maneuvering is not uncommon that is until you get to this line.

The sacrifice must come from the man whose direct responsibility was to see that these kinds of mistakes did not occur in the athletic department.

Wait…what?

If I said to you which UNC athletic department employee has the most in the way of “direct responsibility” for the current scandal who’s name would you utter? I have little doubt it would the initials BD and not the reverse. Yes, you can make an argument the tutoring issues are more of a Baddour/Thorp problem than a football program issue. Except the only academic issues which were discovered were with the football team and it was one tutor who was let go according to procedure in 2009. Hardly the stuff of a massive academic scandal and certainly not playing on the same level as the Blake allegations. To say Baddour has more direct responsibility than Davis is simply ridiculous, especially in light of a defense which heavily insulated the head coach. If Davis escaped culpability in the notice of allegations how much more so is Baddour covered? The passion in which Landreth pursues his case against Baddour can only lead to one conclusion.

Eddy Landreth really hates Dick Baddour.

I mean really hate him not to mention Landreth’s fan boy homerism is enough that even Bob Harris thinks it’s excessive.  Landreth is apparently invested in Butch Davis and really believes what he writes when he says Davis can be the guy who brings UNC out of this. Who knows, he might be right but in all of Landreth’s rush to push Baddour out the door he conveniently ignores that at some point Davis too should be held accountable.  This is a football only scandal with nine major infractions involved. The man running that program, regardless of the absence of his name in the allegations, probably should have a standard of some sort applied to him. Is that a suspension of X number of games? Forfeiture of a  year’s salary? Cleaning up trash at Kenan Stadium? I don’t know the answer. Short of Davis being fired or resigning, other actions will be seen as ultimately meaningless. That doesn’t mean the effort shouldn’t at least be made.

At this point Davis enjoys enough support where it counts to stave off any serious consideration he will lose his job between now and the end of this calendar year. Baddour, on the other hand, is soundly disliked by UNC fans in general for the mishandling of past major hires. Any suggestion he should leave would be considered the best idea in the world by most. However letting Baddour go as some kind of sacrifice offered to angry deities is “for all the wrong reasons.” There are numerous reasons one might come up as grounds for Baddour to step aside. What Landreth offers up here should not among them. Earlier I indicated most of the actions that could be taken against Davis would be seen as meaningless. Having the athletic director step aside while not touching the coach overseeing a football program with major infractions pending will look far worse.

Note: I correct a fair amount of typos because I wrote this at midnight last night and actually may have been half asleep when I did it.

The blurb reports the promotion of Amy Herman from assistant athletic director for compliance to associate athletic director for compliance, effective Feb. 1. Herman has been with the UNC athletic department for 11 years and, for all I know, is good at what she does.

But does anybody else find it troubling that the athletic department is promoting its top compliance officer at a time in which it is being investigated for multiple instances in which it did not comply with NCAA rules?

What’s next, bringing in Bernie Madoff to become the new fundraising director for the Ram’s Club?

Well, for me to find it “troubling” I would have to know the extent of Ms. Herman’s role in the compliance issues which have plagued UNC. For example did she fail to do her job? Did she provide inaccurate information to Deunta Williams or Kendric Burney or Robert Quinn which led to their violations? Did she lie to the NCAA or fail to follow compliance procedures? Was she in charge of the money drops to Jennifer Wiley in the Rams Head Parking Deck at 3 AM every Thursday morning? In other words, I don’t have enough facts to determine whether or not Amy Herman’s was incompetent as it relates to the current scandal. I do know UNC has been cited as being in compliance by the NCAA during Ms. Herman’s tenure. I know that until this year UNC only had a minor secondary violation or two to address. From that we can assume she has done a good job. That is not to say the promotion does not look odd since you are promoting a compliance officer while a major compliance issue is being sorted out. That being said, I don’t think it is that simple. I do think that hiring Bernie Madoff to handle any kind of money would be profoundly stupid since he has been convicted on multiple Federal crimes. As far as I know and Brett knows, Ms. Herman is good at what she does and not under Federal indictment so I am yet to be convinced this move is “troubling.”

UNC’s compliance office has done such an “outstanding job” that 14 members of the Tar Heel football team were held out of at least one game this season because of major NCAA violations involving either improper benefits from agents or academic misconduct.

Many of those players, including stars Marvin Austin, Robert Quinn and Greg Little, were ruled permanently ineligible. As a result, the program faces severe penalties including though not limited to the loss of schoarships, vacating wins and NCAA probation.

Ah! There we go! The application of the very broad “14 players held out” brush! It is amazing how much these opinion columnists love to trot that one out. Why bother with the details when you can toss a fat number around and at the same time soil the names of Shaun Draughn and Da’Norris Searcy in the process. Tell me Brett, what major NCAA violations did either of those two commit? How about Ryan Houston? Linwan Euwell? They were both cleared by the honor court. In the case of Jonathan Smith, Charles Brown and Brian Gupton the honor court penalized them with probation. As a result they could not represent UNC and took a redshirt this season. Based on the information I have seen, half of the 14 players held out of games “because of major NCAA violations involving either improper benefits from agents or academic misconduct” were not involved in any NCAA violations. Draughn and Searcy did nothing wrong. Houston and Euwell were cleared by the honor court. The other three individuals had strictly academic issues handled internally by UNC. Yes, there are still seven other players with true NCAA issues but let’s stop painting with a broad brush.

It should also be noted that the very fact UNC held players out, even two who did nothing wrong means they are actually engaging in proper compliance to a fault. Searcy sat three games for doing nothing wrong. Holding players out, even if it is 14 of them, is a sign you are addressing compliance issues the proper way versus say, Auburn, who played Cam Newton week in and week out consequences be damned. UNC could have easily said “screw it!’ and played everyone but they didn’t which ought to count for something.

It would seem to me that bringing in someone from the outside to fix a compliance system that clearly failed might have been a more appropriate solution than promoting someone from within.

Maybe, if there was evidence that the compliance system “clearly failed.” I know the response to that, “What? Of course it failed! Look at the violations that occurred!” True, and I am not saying UNC does not have issues to fix but to quote Jean-Luc Picard, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.” A security director for a company can have all the right procedures and technology in place but still not stop an employee from using his access to either steal or allow someone else to steal laptops from the offices. However, the procedures and technology can ensure the perpetrators are caught and punished. In other words, there is no guard against people you trust screwing you over.

You can have the greatest compliance office in the world and still not stop players from being monumentally stupid. In the case of the five players who were suspended or declared ineligible for taking improper benefits, there was nothing to stop these players from making bad choices. In the case of Deunta Williams and in part Kendric Burney it was the draconian nature of NCAA rules that tripped them up. As for the other three, they were just stupid. When it came to UNC’s attention, it was handled according to procedure, the guilty were punished and the 2010 season was unaffected by the use of ineligible players. Yes the system might need improving but that is not to say it did not work for the most part. Besides that, the NCAA has yet to make a ruling or release the facts of the case so without that we can not make a definitive assertion that the compliance system “clearly failed.” You probably want the NCAA telling you to rebuild your compliance office from the ground up before actually doing so.

But at least UNC is consistent.

Promoting the person in charge of athletic compliance under such circumstances ranks right up there with letting Butch Davis continue coaching the football team even after his blind eye helped create a culture in which NCAA rules were blatantly ignored by his best players and most trusted staff members.

It’s called a lack of institutional control. Apparently though, UNC still doesn’t get it.

DING! DING! DING!

Congratulations Brett! You just said the magic ABCer phrase! For your use of “lack of instituional control” you will receive elevated status among ABCer blogs and message boards….well until you write something unflattering about them then they will condemn you as a hack and part of the Grand UNC Media Conspiracy. Until then enjoy!

Actually the paragraph before is the real gem. You see Brett has an advanced copy of the NCAA’s final report which obviously says Butch Davis was fostering a culture of lax attentiveness to NCAA rules. The plural on “staff members” is a nice touch too. I am sure the other assistant coaches on staff like being rolled into the same category as John Blake. I guess the super secret advanced NCAA report implicates Shoop, Withers, possibly even Jeff Connors. Someone might want to let ECU know they just hired a coach who blatantly ignored NCAA rules.

Seriously, this is so stupid it makes my head hurt. The problem you run into with these kinds of opinion columns is they operate with a “shoot first, ask questions later” concept of accountability that usually makes for bad management. Despite the fact the NCAA has yet to make a final report UNC should have fired Butch Davis and apparently Amy Herman as well. I realize the “it happened on their watch” mentality is legitimate. I have been fairly close to the line when it comes to Davis’ status but always in the conditional sense. As for Ms. Herman, I have no idea. Only her supervisor(AD Dick Baddour) can tell you if she has been doing her job well or if the facts they have in consultation with the NCAA indicate whether or not she should continue at UNC. However, “patented opinion columnist outrage”(POCO) means someone has to die or at the very least lose their job. And this must happen before we have all the facts and certainly without any regard for the stability of the program in general. After all, it is not about doing what’s best to resolve the problem with an eye towards several real world factors. It is about satisfying some altar of justice set up by those in the media who appoint themselves arbiters of such issues and rule without the full body of evidence. The whole truth is inconsequential when there is “outrage” to express and people to condemn.

The bottom line is, until we know everything there is to know about this, I have no idea whether promoting Amy Herman was a good move or bad one. Likewise, I would like to see the NCAA’s finished product before Butch Davis, Dick Baddour or anyone else have their careers evaluated. Yes, it is obvious mistakes were made. It is obvious UNC had some loopholes but at the same time people made bad choices of their own volition. It is also obvious UNC worked to cooperate with the NCAA and perform due diligence to adjudicate each case in the proper manner. In that respect, UNC compliance acted properly and I am sure Ms. Herman put in more nights and weekends than any of us ever care to think about.

That is why the “lack of institutional control” label probably won’t stick. UNC is not a habitual offender nor did they lack the procedures and education for their players on compliance issues. Besides that, given the delicate nature of the position, it stands to reason that UNC made this move with one eye on the NCAA. I doubt they asked for the NCAA’s approval before promoting Amy Herman but I would speculate that had the promotion or her continued presence been an issue for the NCAA it would have been addressed. I also think there is at least the possibility this may signal what UNC knows or what the NCAA has is not as damning as some might think. Since it is the NCAA, that is as far as I am willing to go. However I highly doubt UNC would promote Ms. Herman if there were facts forthcoming which painted her in a poor light or illustrated the compliance office failed to do its job.

The only question I have for UNC is the timing of the move since it does look odd from a perception standpoint. Of course it was assumed UNC would do some sort of re-organization in the compliance office which is supposed to include hiring another person. This is likely part of that effort not to mention it is really not much more than a change of title. Probably not worth the fifty gallon drum of POCO that was just dumped on us but then again, this kind of low hanging fruit rarely ever is.

Caution: what is about to be shared comes from message board innuendo, with all appropriate warnings and disclaimers:

I’m sure Luke DeCock’s inflammatory column from Wednesday has caused consternation both among those blindly supporting Butch Davis ’til the heavens fall as well as from those with a more level-headed view simply because of the manner in which he impugned all 14 players associated with the football unpleasantness. THF shared with me a thread from the Inside Carolina message boards in which one of the posters allegedly e-mailed DeCock and received the following reply (again, disclaimer that this came from a message board and cannot be independently verified):

It really isn’t about each individual incident taken individually. It’s about the big picture, and that isn’t pretty.

The number of NCAA violations and other suspensions at UNC exceeds any in recorded NCAA history. That demands action by everyone involved, including the chancellor and board of trustees, who have been completely outrage-free so far. (emphasis mine)

In the end, a coach who makes CEO money (and demands CEO power) has to bear the same responsibility as a CEO. Butch Davis has not run a clean program.

You’d think at UNC, of all places, people would be more angry about that.

Look, DeCock is a columnist and can provide his opinion if he wants. And quite frankly, there are many outside and inside the UNC family who share DeCock’s point of view, or something thereabouts. Plenty of people think Butch Davis has sullied Carolina’s reputation (see Chansky, Art) and should have been fired months ago, while others wait for all the facts to come in before forming final answers. And as was pointed out earlier, it is really about taking each individual incident individually, because there truly are degrees of ugly in this whole fiasco, and to deny this exists is again, intellectually lazy.

No, my problem is when you start playing loose with the facts to support your view of the situation. Does DeCock really believe “the number of NCAA violations and other suspensions at UNC exceeds any in recorded history”? If so, then he needs to read some more history. The number of violations and suspensions at UNC isn’t even the largest single number in college football in the 2000s. In fact, it’s not even the largest in the ACC in the last five years, or even the largest at a Triangle institution, for that matter.

And this brings us back to why you must take each individual incident individually, Luke. Of the 14 players who missed time this season, both Shaun Draughn and Da’Norris Searcy were never formally implicated in any wrongdoing and were apparently held out as a precaution. So that leaves 12 players, and only six of those were actually suspended by the NCAA (although Marvin Austin certainly would have been if UNC did not dismiss him from the team).

Just for comparison’s sake, in 2000, the NCAA suspended 26 players from the University of Wisconsin football team for receiving improper benefits. Eleven of those players were suspended for three games for receiving benefits over $500, and the NCAA allowed Wisconsin to stagger the suspensions because the number was so large.  Last time I checked, 26 player suspensions from one team was more than 12, or even 14 from the 2010 Heels.

Within the ACC, the Florida State academic scandal in 2006-2007 touched 61 athletes in 10 sports. The Seminoles football team held out 30 players for the Music City Bowl alone. Again, by my math, 12 is still fewer than 61, or 30, for that matter. And while the actual enumeration of NCAA violations remains to be revealed, it’s hard to imagine topping the 650 individual ticket infractions (and uncountable shoe-selling violations) at NC State in the Jim Valvano era.

In no way should this be interpreted as the “everyone does it” defense. It simply confirms the point that if DeCock really did claim that the number of suspensions and violations is the largest in NCAA history, then he is horribly misinformed. DeCock uses the blanket statement of the guilt of 14 players and the hyperbolic statement of the biggest violation ever in the NCAA to drive his larger point, which is the seeming lack of outrage and subsequent action by UNC officials. Apparently outrage as defined by DeCock (as well as message board monkeys and ABCers) is the immediate dismissal of Butch Davis and the reclassification of UNC football to Division II.

I read a message board post somewhere that said this kind of rhetoric by DeCock is exactly what our lupine brethren complained about with their treatment by the N&O two decades ago. I suppose the difference is that most UNC fans will shrug off DeCock as a columnist trying to keep the pot stirred and sell papers and drive web traffic, and not as requiring his or his newspaper’s approval to validate their own self-worth.

In anticipation of the wintry mix headed to the Triangle area on Thursday, the News and Observer’s Luke DeCock does his part to keep everyone warm by keeping the fires burning on the UNC football investigation with this hit piece on Wednesday.

This bowl game is for Quinton Coples, who filled the void on the defensive line left by his wayward teammates and as much as anyone represents the good that came out of North Carolina’s season.

This bowl game is for T.J. Yates, whose leadership helped the Tar Heels navigate a season full of self-inflicted distractions.

This bowl game is for Anthony Elzy and Ryan Taylor and Quan Sturdivant and all the other Tar Heels – including injured Bruce Carter and Alan Pelc – who wrote their own papers and managed to play within the rules.

They deserved something for their effort, and a trip to Nashville is as good as anything.

This bowl game is not for any of the 14 players who couldn’t follow the simplest of NCAA, university and moral guidelines, crippling a potentially groundbreaking season before it ever got started. Some will play in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30, having served their punishment, but it’s their fault North Carolina never got the chance to play for the ACC title that seemed so possible a year ago.

Yes it is true that 14 UNC football players have missed some or all of the season. But DeCock uses a broad brush to paint all 14 with the same stroke, taking the intellectually lazy route in the process. The most egregious violators have either been dismissed from the team, ruled ineligible by the NCAA, or suspended for the season.Clearly the bowl game is not for them because they couldn’t participate anyway.

Can you tell us, Mr. DeCock, why Shaun Draughn and Da’Norris Searcy are not worthy of playing in the Music City Bowl? Both players missed time due to the investigation but were never publicly implicated in any wrongdoing. Draughn missed one game and Searcy three games while UNC sorted out the mess at the beginning of the season. There has never been any reason to believe Draughn and Searcy were involved in any impropriety and yet DeCock says the bowl game is not for them. Did DeCock forget that Quan Sturdivant and Bruce Carter – who he held up in the article as examples of those who did things right – were also initially implicated in the unpleasantness but were cleared before the LSU game? Tell us, Mr. DeCock, what is the difference between Sturdivant and Carter and Draughn and Searcy, other than when they were cleared?

And while we’re at it, can you tell us, Mr. DeCock, why Ryan Houston and Linwan Euwell are not worthy of the bowl game? At the beginning of this unpleasantness, there was a cry for the football players involved to be treated like normal students. By all accounts, that’s exactly what Houston and Euwell did. They appeared before the honor court and some verdict – either not guilty or guilty but with no restrictions – was pronounced. Why would they not deserve to play in the bowl?

As for Deunta Williams and Kendric Burney, the poster children for the NCAA’s inconsistent and draconian enforcement, what have they done besides take responsibility for their actions, serve their harsh sentences, and have nothing but a kind word along the way? Williams, who was essentially prosecuted for paying his own way to California but not paying to stay at a former letterman’s house, received the maximum recommended penalty from the NCAA.  And Burney, who paid his own way for trips but received benefits from someone the NCAA didn’t classify as an agent-like creature until after the benefits were received, was given a half-season penalty, which is beyond the NCAA’s own guidelines for such offenses.

It sure seems that guys who either did nothing wrong at all, or guys who did the crime and did the time, are exactly who should be worthy of the bowl game. If DeCock wants to make the argument that the stupidity of Marvin Austin, Greg Little, and Robert Quinn cost the Heels a chance at a special season, then go right ahead, but it’s a worn-out argument by this point. No, DeCock takes the lazy way out by lumping all 14 players together.

But DeCock is not done with blasting the players; he takes a swipe at Butch Davis as well:

And it is not for Butch Davis, who through deliberate action or inexcusable inaction allowed all of this to go on under his watch. That includes the relationship between now-suspended agent Gary Wichard and former assistant coach John Blake, Davis’ old friend and new ex-employee, and the tutor at the center of the academic investigation, who continued to be employed in the Davis household even after the university cut her loose.

Well, it’s nice to know DeCock has formed his opinion about the situation before all the facts have come to light. In addition, there has been a current among the ABC crowd to dismiss the achievements of this team and the coaching staff because the team’s woes are self-inflicted, and this feeds right into that line of thinking. Regardless of how UNC arrived at this point, the fact remains that Davis and his staff did a superb job of keeping the season, and in fact the entire program, in the road. Now when the NCAA issues its final findings and rulings, whenever that may be, Davis will still ultimately be held accountable. But until that time comes, the rest of DeCock’s piece comes off as classic media high horse sanctimony, not to mention being intellectually lazy. (H/T again to THF for the wordsmithing)

If you would rather reserve brain cells for this weekend when copious drinking might be required, I will summarize most of the piece written by The Daily Tar Heel’s Jonathan Jones.

Last week on senior day at NC State, the Wolfpack opted to honor Russell Wilson along with the rest of the seniors despite the fact Wilson is technically a redshirt junior and has an additional year of eligibility left. Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien said that they missed the chance to honor RB Toney Baker last season when he had a year left and did not want to make the same mistake with Wilson. Seems perfectly logical to me and since I don’t spend too much time(read: zero time) thinking about how NCSU runs their Senior Day activities for football games, I blew it off.

Not so for Mr. Jones who decides three days before a big rivalry game would be a great time to post something so absolutely out of left field and quite frankly a little offensive that I am sure it is hanging up in the home team’s locker room at the Wendell Murphy Football Center as we speak. Jones’ argument is it was wrong for NCSU to honor Wilson. Wilson was not technically a senior and he should not be rewarded if he choose to bail out on his team and play professional baseball next season rather than use his final year of football eligibility. Jones reasons:

Senior Day is a celebration meant for seniors, not just for those who may not be around next season. Hell, if that were the case, most members of a John Calipari team would take the court before the final home game.

and

If you aren’t a senior, you shouldn’t be treated like a senior.

Allow me to anticipate a Wolfpacker’s argument: Wilson already completed his degree, so academically he’s a senior and should be congratulated for such an accomplishment.

The point of Senior Day is not to applaud student athletes for their four years in the classroom. It’s to celebrate their four years in class and on the field.

First of all, why should anyone at UNC care what NCSU does on their Senior Day?

Secondly, seriously why should any Tar Heel patron care about this or quite frankly anything that goes on at NC State, Duke, St. Aug’s etc, etc, etc. At the present time I am pretty darn sure UNC fans have much bigger concerns than whether Russell Wilson is getting an applause on Senior Day as a redshirt junior. You know that whole business about taking care of the plank in your eye before worrying about the speck of dust in your brother’s? In fact I would think The DTH has bigger concerns such as stalking honor court proceedings or joining on a lawsuit in an effort to engage in a fishing expedition of your own school in an effort to dredge up something that could be used build a flashy bombshell story. Instead The DTH is rendering opinions on things no one outside of West Raleigh gives a crap about.

As for the Jones’ argument, I would say that it fails to recognize a couple of key points. First of all, Wilson is a redshirt junior which means he has been on the football team for four years. Yes, he has only played three years but his first year he did his share of hard work and contributing to the team the way most redshirt freshman do. Secondly, the current reality of college athletics means you will have players who leave early. Now I am not in favor of honoring players for one or two years, but someone who has contributed three years and has either graduated or is about to graduate, I have less issue with honoring them. In some cases juniors get to come back and have their jerseys honored which happened for Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson. You could argue that was potentially a better route for honoring Wilson but even then there are possibly restrictions to what you can do depending on the player. Mainly, O’Brien felt they missed the boat with Baker and did not want to do it with Wilson. It doesn’t sound like a big deal to me.

Oh, just to piece the argument even further. On Senior Day for UNC basketball, all the seniors on the team are honored. Not just the four year scholarship players but the walk-ons who may have only played one year with the varsity. Interesting that Jones’ fails to mention that UNC is in the habit of recognizing players who spent less than four years on the court while lambasting NCSU for doing the same.

This piece strikes me as utterly pointless, exceptionally inflammatory in that bulletin board material sort of way and feels just plain wrong. I am not sure what purpose it serves other than bringing UNC and NCSU fans together in a week where we would much rather hate each other as much as possible. Not only is it somewhat disrespectful to Wilson but it is making it more difficult for me to let the hate flow since I have to spend time defending a rival during the period of time I am supposed to be breathing fire at them.

Hate week ruined.

Mooneyham immediately jumps on the hyperbole train, saying:

Just the basic facts paint a sordid picture, a worst-case scenario of college athletics run amok.

Really? You’re ready to come to that conclusion already, as if you actually know all the facts, Mr. Mooneyham? This is simply a more polite version of Gregg Doyel’s “turd in the punchbowl” comment. At least with Doyel we can assume A) he chose that phrase to incite hate mail, and B) he’s a jerk.  Then again, Mooneyham doesn’t let facts get in the way of his next line:

A tutor allegedly writes papers for players; the same tutor happens to be in the personal employ of the head football coach months after she is let go by the university for being “too close” to players. An assistant football coach has a close relationship with a sports agent; the agent signs up clients who played for the coach. UNC players introduce players from other schools to runners for sports agents or marketing companies; they fly to out-of-town parties attended by agents. A sports agent runner and alleged cocaine trafficker hangs out at the school’s football facilities.

Again, what else is there to know? (emphasis mine)

Mooneyham sure is quick to paint a lot of rumor and innuendo as fact; but as someone who reports for a living, he should know where to put in the distance and scrutiny. As a simple point of fact, no one outside of the UNC-NCAA investigation knows exactly what the tutor did. Again, as a point of fact, John Blake’s relationship with Gary Wichard, at whatever depth it was, yielded exactly one client who played for Blake at UNC. And other than Marcell Dareus’ “source close to the family”, who has suggested any UNC player, much less players (plural) was involved in introducing players from other schools to agents or their ilk?  As for Chris Hawkins, all we know is that the NCAA has deemed him an agent-like creature. The assumption is that he must be a runner since he doesn’t meet any definition of an agent, despite the NCAA’s classification of him as such. Only the NCAA knows for sure why he is an ALC, and they ain’t telling.

Then Mooneyham drops his gold-medal hyperbole:

The basic facts leave little doubt that what’s occurred is the worst college sports scandal to hit a UNC system school campus since a basketball point-shaving scandal of the early 1960s.

It’s interesting that Mooneyham, who graduated from N.C. State in 1984, would forget his alma mater’s own foray into academic and agent-related troubles in the late 1980s.  At that time, NCSU’s director of athletic academic support said that tutors regularly did work for basketball players, assistant coaches pressured faculty to change grades and manipulated the withdrawal system, and produced evidence that a player was caught cheating in an English class but was allowed to pass the course. It was also revealed that the chancellor of the university had improperly readmitted players on academic suspension so they could continue to play. Also, a former Wolfpack player was found to have taken over $60,000 from an agent and a booster during this time.

Now I am not trying to play tit-for-tat or equate what happened at State in the late 80s to UNC in 2010, but given that the agent benefits revealed so far don’t come close to $60,000 and that the academic infractions seem to involve a single tutor as opposed to the actual active involvement of the chancellor, it is certainly a stretch to call this the “worst college sports scandal” in 50 years. Then again, maybe Mooneyham is only guilty of believing the NCSU mantra that their own unpleasantness was “only about a couple of guys selling some tickets and shoes.”

Moving on, Mooneyham spouts a popular retort of the ABCers:

The response from some the school’s supporters seems to be that this kind of thing happens everywhere.

Now I can’t speak for every Carolina fan, but the only time I have ever heard that line uttered is in shattering the naivete in thinking that this sort of thing could not happen at UNC.  I have never heard that line used as a defense or justification for what has gone on with this whole sordid mess.   Mooneyham continues:

The goings-on within the UNC-Chapel Hill football program have tainted the entire university and 16-campus university system. To believe otherwise is to put you head in the sand, to think the that NCAA has come to town to pat school officials on the head and tell them what a swell job they’ve done.

But in Chapel Hill, there’s no outrage to be seen.

I’m sorry, but does any UNC fan think the NCAA has come to town to pat UNC on the head and say “good job?”  And it’s overly dramatic to assert that what has transpired with Carolina football somehow taints, or even has any bearing on anyone else in the UNC system save NCSU and ECU, who also play Division I football. And by “outrage” I assume he means “official” outrage, such as on the part of the chancellor or other authority, or within the university community. There has been plenty of outrage from Carolina alumni, fans, and supporters. But it seems to me that there are just too many unanswered questions to be outraged yet – just a lot of innuendo and loose ends. There are many friends and fans of UNC who are going to wait for the outcome of events to pass judgment or call for heads to roll. It remains the official position of this blog that those people involved must be held accountable, up to and including the head coach and athletic director. But the shoot-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out approach does not seem to be the preferred method of dealing with the issues, unless you are Scott Mooneyham:

The school’s chancellor, Holden Thorpe, should fire Davis and Baddour. If he won’t, he should be fired.

There’s no reason to wait. None of the details, playing out day-by-day in the newspapers and on the Internet, are going to mitigate the fact that Davis and Baddour allowed the worst sports scandal in five decades to occur on their watch.

Putting aside the misspelling of the chancellor’s name, it is premature to fire both Baddour and Davis in some misguided attempt at heavy-handed justice when the investigation into the program is incomplete. Again, if negligence, malfeasance, or systemic issues are somehow discovered, then Baddour and Davis certainly need to go and I imagine Thorp will pull the trigger rather quickly.  Even if both are cleared on all accounts by the school and the NCAA, both may already be damaged to the point they will not be able to survive, just as Jim Valvano was still forced to resign despite being deemed to have no knowledge of at least the tickets and shoes portion of State’s troubles on his watch.

Certainly Mooneyham is entitled to his opinion and there are those UNC fans and ABCers that will agree with every word he has written. But in this case he is guilty of the same lazy reporting, half-truths , rumors, and innuendo as fact, and general jumping to conclusions that has characterized much of the reporting of the entire situation. In the absence of facts, people will naturally fill in the blanks with something else. At this point, all that anyone at UNC has been found guilty of is not paying for certain parts of otherwise permissible trips, hardly worthy of being labeled “the worst sports scandal in five decades”. One can assume that will change at some point, but will it live up to this kind of description?

Scott Mooneyham is a fine writer, and does a great job covering the General Assembly.  I have read his columns for years and he is certainly entitled to his opinion. But having a political writer serve forth an opinion on something like this is akin to Caulton Tudor’s views on the Richard Burr-Elaine Marshall Senate race. Interesting, maybe, but not really in your wheelhouse. And in this particular case, filled with enough hyperbole to fill a railroad car. This may ultimately turn out to be an fitting column for the end of this entire mess, but not right now.

In the second quote above, Mooneyham asks a pivotal question: “Again, what else is there to know?” The answer, to pull from Paul Harvey, is the rest of the story. Once all the facts are in, then judgment can be passed and outrage directed properly.

Situations like this often bring out the nutcases, and there is no shortage of those in the Carolina football mess. But two (somewhat) prominent national writers are leading the charge in calling for Butch Davis to resign or be fired, and suggesting that, in fact, North Carolina should scuttle what remains of the football season.

Terence Moore of AOL Fanhouse and Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports have both written scathing articles in the past few days condemning Davis and the UNC football program. Moore groups Carolina in with Florida State’s “Free Shoes University” and SMU’s death penalty situation of the mid-80s. Doyel goes so far as to call Carolina “the turd floating” in the college football punchbowl. (No links for either of them. You can Google it if you like.)

Scatological hyperbole aside, it is completely fair for Moore and Doyel to call for Davis’ ouster. Their beliefs in that regard are not that much different from many alumni and friends of the university who wish to wash their hands of this entire sordid situation. But to suggest the team should forfeit the rest of the season, that the 75 -80 scholarship players who did not violate team or NCAA rules, is a stretch. Even more ridiculous is Moore’s reasoning that, since UNC is a basketball school, football would not be missed anyway. (I didn’t want to link that video, but you have to see it to comprehend just how ridiculous it is.)

As someone with a degree from the University of the People, I respect and appreciate the fact that both Moore and Doyel apparently believe the academic integrity of UNC is so great that it should not be sullied by any academic impropriety. But I do not seem to recall either Moore or Doyel calling for the end of a football season at FSU, where Doyel tries to make a connection to the current situation at Carolina, or Southern California, or anywhere else for that matter.

Clearly this is unprecedented territory for UNC, who has long steered clear of the NCAA. Also seemingly unprecedented is the timing of the academic and agent issues, so close to the beginning of the season. And certainly Carolina’s troubles were on display in front of a national audience Saturday night even as Erin Andrews continued to report as fact the disproved Club Liv tweet and 3 AM time stamp. But is having 13 players suspended or held out for a game for potential rules violations really unprecedented to the point it calls for removal of the coach and suspension of the program?

Apparently not. A decade ago, the University of Wisconsin found itself in an eerily similar situation. From ESPN’s “Outside the Lines“, September 10, 2000 (emphasis mine):

How, you might ask, could the two-time Rose Bowl champions with a legitimate chance to win the national championship this year find themselves in this mess?

Head coach, Barry Alvarez and his coaching staff juggling NCAA suspensions for 26 players all because of discounts at a sneaker store. There is a familiar echo here…

It could have been much worse for Wisconsin. Originally, the NCAA suspended 47 players. And Wisconsin officials actually discussed forfeiting their season opener.

Only an 11th hour appeal by video conference reduced that sentence. Athletes on other Wisconsin teams will face discipline for their discounts. But the Badger football team approached yesterday’s game against powerful Oregon knowing that a number of starters and other established players will again be sitting giving walk-on players larger roles than ever.

Wisconsin was actually allowed to stagger the suspensions (a.k.a. “rolling suspensions”) and the investigation spread to 84 athletes over a number of sports. Now in no way am I comparing shoe store discounts to academic integrity, but I do want to provide context to the breathless hyperbole over the situation at UNC.

And therein lies the rub for anyone who attempts to rush to judgment before all the facts are known. Again, it is the stated position here at THF that those guilty of violating team, school, or NCAA rules must be held accountable, coaches included. But due process must be served and the integrity of those involved, and not involved, must be maintained. Strange as it may seem, some of those held out were done so with the knowledge they would probably be exonerated.

(In case you’re wondering how it turned out at Wisconsin, then-coach Barry Alvarez remained at the Badgers’ helm for eight more seasons, when he became athletic director. Not saying that will happen here, again just providing context.)

As for Moore and Doyel, they have the luxury of sitting in the press box and lobbing Molotov cocktails onto players and coaches with little fear of accountability. As THF noted, their points of view simply serve to drive traffic and readership. (Although you can’t help but laugh at the love Doyel will no doubt get from State fans, despite the fact that he was previously Public Enemy #1 in the media for his constant derision of them over the Herb Sendek issue. Yeah, he calls them idiots, but if he slams UNC, he’s OK in their book!)

What caught my eye, however, was the feature piece for the 1920s, which explores Carolina’s 1924 Helms Foundation championship.  The virtues and vices of the Helms title have been explored here at THF and I will not delve into them again.  But the Observer’s Dan Wiederer, who has seemed to have a love-hate relationship with UNC basketball over the past few years (see Danny Green’s father, his piece about Roy and the Presbyterian fan that got a beat-down from Steve Kirschner, and his new book on the ’09 team) suggests something I’ve never heard before:

Maybe the 1924 team didn’t deserve to be national champions at all.

Wiederer plays the usual anti-Helms arguments: that it was retroactive, that it was mythical, that UNC gives it the same treatment as the NCAA banners, no one else but Kansas even acknowledges it, etc, etc.  Then he takes it a step further by trotting out “noted ACC historian” Al Featherston to discount the legitimacy of the Helms Foundation and of just how good the 1924 UNC team actually was.

Yes, that Al Featherston.  Duke grad, writer for the Durham Herald-Sun for 31 years, and current correspondent for GoDuke.com.  Or, as Blue Devil Nation. com puts it, “When you talk of the Duke beat in journalism, the first name that comes to mind is Al Featherston.”

Featherston suggests that there was no Helms panel picking the retroactive national champs, as the popular myth goes – only a single person.  He goes further, saying that despite the 1924 team’s 26-0 record, they didn’t play anyone outside the south so how good they actually were can’t be gauged.  And he uses the fact that UNC went 0-10 in the 1920s and 2-7  in the 1930s against teams from outside the south as his guide that the ’24 team wasn’t up to snuff.

The 1924 team had a pair of all-Americans, Jack Cobb and Cartwright Carmichael (the two jerseys in the Smith Center rafters without numbers since basketball jerseys didn’t have numbers back then), but Featherston claims that the best basketball back then was being played in the east and midwest, so Carolina probably wasn’t worthy of being called “national champions.”

Never mind the fact that quoting Al Featherston – who does know his ACC hoops, by the way – is like asking Art Chansky to rationally comment on anything Duke.  Is that really the best source you could find, Dan?  Was Al’s bias on the phone with you during the interview with you? But Wiederer notes “critics do wonder whether the Tar Heels were good enough to be worthy of that ‘national champions’ label.”  The only critic I have ever heard challenge the 1924 Helms title on anything other than how it was awarded is Featherston.

The level to which Carolina fans and ABCers alike obsess over a designation given nearly 70 years ago to a team that played nearly 90 years ago escapes me.  Either you believe it’s appropriate to celebrate it the way UNC does or not.  But to attempt to discredit the validity of the award itself  by discrediting the team that won it is stepping the anti-Helms argument up a notch.  And to cite someone who is noted for his coverage of and association with Duke to comment on a subject like this is akin to asking Dick Cheney to rate Barack Obama’s job performance – he may be correct, but then again what do you expect him to say and you will always question the motives.  Plus, it really is a stretch to say that the ’24 team would not have beaten teams outside the south because Carolina was winless the rest of the decade.  By that logic, I guess the 2005 team wasn’t worthy of the national title because the 2002 team was 8-20.

There’s the pop culture saying that goes “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”  Well in this case, Dan and Al, hate the Helms Foundation title if you like, but don’t hate the 1924 team.