Friday, September 3, 2010

Trustees' chair backs Davis, Baddour

UNC Board of Trustees chair Bob Winston said he is "extremely saddened and disappointed" with the school's football scandal today, but said he backs coach Butch Davis and athletic director Dick Baddour as the Tar Heels move forward.

Twelve UNC players are being held out of Saturday's season opener against LSU, and three more have not made the trip to Atlanta for the game but may be cleared in time to play.

"I think we have the right guy as our coach," Winston said. "I feel that Butch Davis is going to take a look at what’s happened and will figure the best way to move forward. And I think he is committed to building this program in a way that will reflect the values of the University of North Carolina."

Winston was one of three Board of Trustees members who joined Baddour and then-chancellor James Moeser in their first meeting with Davis on Oct. 31, 2006, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as the school sought a replacement for John Bunting.

Winston said Baddour and chancellor Holden Thorp have done a "fantastic" job responding to the crisis, working around the clock to do the right thing both by the university and the players.

"We are so disappointed," Winston said. "We’re just tremendously disappointed, but we have to figure out how we move forward. We will move forward. Football will continue to be played at the University of North Carolina, and we’re going to look at what happened and take measures, whatever those are, and move forward."

Ken Tysiac

6 comments:

FireButchDavis said...

Uh, yeah, he's the guy that brought in Davis in the first place. What else is he going to say?

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"

SmarterThanTheObserver said...

the values of UNC-CH are:

WIN AT ALL COSTS

Anonymous said...

If UNC fans think this is bad, I wonder how they are going to feel when this spreads over into the basketball program.

I'm not saying the basketball program has done anything wrong, but if the NCAA has found evidence of violations in the football program, their standard procedure is to evaluate all of the other athletic programs.

Do you think OJ Mayo and Tim Floyd would've gotten investigated at USC had it not been for the football program?

Good luck Heels fans, football players with academic violations is only the tip of the iceberg.

The Truth said...

To the guy who's name is FireButchDavis...you are a complete moron and an embarrassment to all alums (myself included) if you are naive enough to believe that the coaches of our football program encourage cheating on test to win at all costs. Do you not think this goes on at all schools? Duke, Alabama, USC, Miami, Michigan..etc. They ALL cheat somehow someway. Give me a freakin break.

And secondly you may want to brush up on your legal knowledge. Last I checked getting caught with a little weed is a misdemeanor and NOT a felony. You have to have more than an ounce of weed to get a felony.

You are one of those types that believes that all of our "student athletes" should have a minimum 3.0 gpa to play for our school. If that was the case we would suck and the university would hemmorhage money.

And lastly, since when has it been the head coaches responsibility to monitor a social networking site for all 53 football players? Give me a break!

Keep Butch and keep us on track to get to where we need to be and that is a perennial top 10 football school.

Anonymous said...

To brandon

You are the moron. An extremely big Moron.

The gentlemen stated his case correctly. There was nothing in his case that assumed that every kid had to be a 3.0 student.

Additionally to assume that every coach and program cheats is dishonest and a weak attempt to justify BD and UNC present situation.

To suggest that if you do not cheat your school would hemorrhage money demonstrates a clear lack of ethics as well as understanding of finance.

Butch Davis has brought shame and dishonesty to UNC. That was predictable.

Anonymous said...

To FireButchDavis:

1. Blake (the D-Line coach) worked at a camp owned by an agent. At the time he was between coaching jobs. The agent in question is not Blake's agent. Only two players Blake has ever coached has said with that agent. The NCAA looked into this matter and cleared Blake.

2. Davis did punish Quan for his arrest. It was handled within the program. UNC does not need to disclose how he was punished. This is how it is handled in nearly every program in America. Four NC State players were arrested on April 26th for drug charges. One of them had prior assault and larceny charges. he was the only one of the four suspended and has since been reinstated.

3. You assume he did not ask Austin about his tweets. There is nothing to suggest he did or didn't.

4. The UNC faculty (not the guy who hired him) has already backed Butch Davis for his commitment to academics. This has happened since the investigation broke.

5. The NCAA has asked UNC not to speak on the investigations until completed. That is why you have not heard Butch speak about it. Same with Mr. Baddour and Mr. Thorp.

Also the practice of grey-shirting (non-quals) is NCAA approved and a much used practice by NCAA teams. The one non-qual that didn't get into Hargrave had his ties to UNC cut. The other have one semester to get their grades up to par or the same happens to them. Jamal Womble was kicked off the team this off season because his grades where lacking. He is currently at a JuCo and has a chance of returning if he can improve.
Firing Butch Davis is the worst move UNC can make. Not just for football but to every sport outside of basketball.