Friday, September 3, 2010

Bowles says UNC being cautious, thorough

UNC officials have decided to "err on the side of caution," according to an e-mail sent by UNC system president Erskine Bowles, when deciding which football players would not play Friday night against LSU.

Twelve Tar Heel players are being withheld from the game, and three others did not make the trip to Atlanta pending further review. In an e-mail to UNC system Board of Governors members today, Bowles explained that a number of players will not play even though they may be subsequently cleared by the school's investigative group or the Honor Council.

Bowles wrote that UNC chancellor Holden Thorp, athletic director Dick Baddour and coach Butch Davis are working with the investigative team to get all the facts.

"I can assure you that Chancellor Thorp is doing everything humanly possible to get to the bottom of this matter," Bowles wrote. "All of us who love Chapel Hill and are proud of the enormous good it does are greatly saddened by what we have discovered."

Bowles wrote that university officials will continue investigating and taking appropriate action until they get to the bottom of the matter and do everything possible to make sure it never happens again.

Chip Alexander and Ken Tysiac

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Way to be bias Bowles. SLIME BALL. NCAA should have started with him and worked it's way down. Your position doesn't allow you to publicly cry your "Love for UNC." It is suppose to be a non-bias position to help the entire system. Just proves that this couldn't have happened to a more deserving group. The cheating has gone on for decades...not just this year.

Anonymous said...

Poor Erskine, his legacy ruined by Mary Easley, and now this!! What were those boys on the Football Team thinking in Chapel Hill? This is not what Andy Griffith had in mind when he described, what it was, was Football. I hope and pray that this devastation that Erskine has linked to his time leading the UNC Systems can be soon resolved and his good name exhonerated for all these misdeeds on his watch. Best Wishes, Big E

Anonymous said...

You tell them Mr. Bowles. We all love the University and even those that loathe it, respect it for the values and integrity through out the centuries with the likes of Choo Choo, Frank McGuire, Dean Smith, Dick Crum, Lawrence Taylor (oops, not him), Marion Jones (oops, not her either. This has to stop, please repair this mess before you hand over the reins to Mr. Ross!!!

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with Anonymous @ 2:24PM...

And I would argue that the last portion of the blog should be changed to "...do everything possible to make sure it never gets exposed again."

TarHeel sports are all about image over substance....

Anonymous said...

UNC-CH: The most corrupt athletics department in the nation. Pathetic!

Anonymous said...

I remember the Vince Carter era and ole vince driving around with his teammates in brand new shiney SUVs. Unfortunately, even back then we had questions. It's just to the forefront now. Oh well. Cannot get much worse.

FireButchDavis said...

Butch Davis Compromises the University's Academic Integrity

As a proud alum, in my view this started when 6 commitments to the February 2009 recruit class did not have the minimum NCAA academic requirements for admission to a D1 football program.

One of those 6 "non-quals" could not even gain admission to Hargrave, a football factory prep school.

What's happened since?

(1) Mr. Davis' D-Line coach was found to have long-term ties to a sports agent. Are you telling me that he was unaware of this tie?

(2) Mr. Davis decides to not punish a player that was arrested for marijuana possession (most other coaches automatically suspend a player arrested for a felony).

(3) Mr. Davis appears to have not immediately questioned Mr. Austin for his Tweets re: his Miami trip. I would have been all over this immediately.

(4) Mr. Davis appears to have fostered an attitude that was pervasive amongst the team that academic fraud was ok as long as you were not caught.

(5) Mr. Davis has been a poor spokesman for the team and university during the investigation.

That said, Mr. Baddour and Mr. Thorp have also done a poor job communicating to the public the series of events that many to believe that the outcome is much more widespread that today's perception.

Poor job all around.

It's time to clean house and that includes Butch Davis! We compromised our integrity and reputation when we hired him, and now we're paying the price.

Follow the story on Twitter at "FireButchDavis"

Anonymous said...

Heresay, Heresay I tell you. They got nothing on Coach Davis. This has to do with some bad apples in the Carolina Orchard. Same thing happens everyday at State and Duke, but no one wants to look around there for problems. Keep the faith in Coach Davis and the quest for another National Championship, but for the FB team!!!

Reid said...

As one of the biggest Tar Heel fans on the planet, I would quite frankly rather be a dirty winner than a clean loser. Do you really think USC fans care that the NCAA took away their 2004 title? This investigation is a witch hunt by the NCAA. You could find allegations like this at about 98% of the schools in big time D1 college football.