And he decided to tell the world via...wait for it...Twitter!
Marvin Austin actually makes some fairly interesting points here but not without first scaring the crap out of people with his first tweet.
I'm so heated right now...justice will provail..even if I have to spill the bean
The initial response to this was: What does he mean? What is he going to tell? Would he really screw UNC and his former teammates even more? Not so much according to the subsequent tweets which show he is talking more about revealing the process than anything else.
-Twitter I'm not bitter I just don't like the way my friend, teammate,brother was mislead,misued, and ostrisized from the program for the
-Same reasons that others got suspened and are able to play for because I know exactly the details in each case and its noway that this young
-Man should have his dream snatched from him like the #ncaa has done.I can tell you so many stories that would be mind boggling in comparison
-I swear it is simply disheartning that the peolpe our parents put there trust in to protect us really only care about there gain solely
-Trust me I know....I love my school..I chose to come here when nobody thought it was smart to do..but I just wish the administration stood
-And stop the cowardly acts when the are in front of the ncaa just tell them what you told us...don't turn and twist your story to look
-Appealing to the Ncaa and presure the 21 year old athlete to say and do things that aren't in there best interest...its so much that's not
-Said it stings when I think about it Unc true fans understand how we as players love this place it tatted in blood for most guys on the team
Austin's beef is with the UNC administration who, at worse threw the players under the bus and at best played a game with the NCAA which involved crafting players' stories in an effort to curry favor all while not paying heed to the best interests of the student-athlete. In this respect he is not wrong but at the same time I don't know that UNC is totally wrong. During the injunction hearing for Michael McAdoo, his attorney Noah Huffstetler referred to NCAA bylaw 19.7 as a "sword" held over the member institutions of the NCAA. Bylaw 19.7 says if a school uses an ineligible athlete in competition they are subject to owe restitution. This is the bylaw used by the NCAA to force schools to vacate wins and records. So when UNC or any school is faced with the NCAA's saber rattling it should shock no one than it might get real ugly, real fast.
From one perspective Austin is correct. These players trusted Butch Davis and the UNC administration to protect them. From the other perspective the UNC administration is staring out NCAA penalties, a public relations nightmare not to mention their own jobs. Self-preservation is an innate human response and completely expected. When Austin talks about UNC acting in a way to appease the NCAA, can you really blame them? They are staring at a sword which has an impact that goes well beyond the number of players involved in this scandal. At the same time we are talking about college students and football players who do not possess the experience and knowledge of these complex processes to defend their own interests. They are beholden to UNC who is beholden to the NCAA, the board of trustees, governors and countless other power players.
The issue here is the one Bob Orr made last week. The players have zero rights when it comes to the NCAA. They are pitted between a school looking at its respective "bigger picture" and the NCAA who is a trigger happy drunk when it comes to applying penalties. The welfare of the student athlete is often last on the list of priorities in these situations mainly because most of them are expendable. There is no shortage of quality football players to plug the holes and UNC proved last year they could still squeeze out a eight win season with severe personnel gaps. In short there is too much money and reputation at stake to think people who rose to where they are by making cost-benefit calculations won't do it here even at the expense of a few football players. It is not malicious. It is not intended to be cruel. It is just the way of things.
It is also important to understand Austin is talking about his brothers here. Most teammates are tight with each other and I think a football team having endured an NCAA scandal is probably even closer. Austin is upset his friend was dealt a setback to his career. Never mind that Austin is at least partly responsible seeing he was in the chain of individuals that led McAdoo's impermissible benefits. Still, Austin's outburst makes sense even if his role in it is greater than he might admit.
As for Austin saying, "I can tell you so many stories that would be mind boggling in comparison." I have no idea what that could be about. I don't think he would be talking about other violations but it is possible. The thing is, we already have plenty of stories that are "mind boggling" by comparison if you attempt to reconcile the crime and penalty. Whatever we are talking about here can't possibly be worse than what we already know. Right? I mean we are at the threshold of hell here. It can't possibly get any worse. *Ducks*
In the sci-fi series Babylon 5 one of the main characters referred to these two very old and extremely powerful alien races as "giants on the playground" whose conflict with each other endangered the less powerful and younger races. The same principle is in play here. Yes, some of these players do break rules but in some cases the rules broken and the penalty applied do not sync up. In most cases you get two powerful entities in the form of the NCAA and a school who are in conflict and the student-athletes involved are children about to be crushed under foot. Granted the players open themselves up by committing violations but at the same time they should have a voice in the process. Their own voice. Not a voice filtered in a way that serves the interest of the school or the NCAA. It will not solve every problem and it does not mean someone like Michael McAdoo wouldn't had ended up in the same spot. However if he had counsel then someone could have pointed out the NCAA was out of line during the appeal or even stopped the appeal like Bob Orr did with Devon Ramsay so the facts of the case could be reexamined. Whatever they do, making sure all parties are equally represented and able to navigate the process is in the best interest of college athletics as a whole. Otherwise the players are nothing more than expendable parts to be discarded when their usefulness is at an end.