Yahoo! report uncovers financial ties between former UNC assistant, agent

Now watch-they will make so Burney and Williams will be able to play on Saturday

But if they get rid of Butch would the next coach change their colors back to that awful 'Carolina' blue or would they keep it the more attractive 'Duke' blue that Davis seems to prefer? That should be addressed during the interviews at least...

I have written this before and I'll write it again, but I could live a whole lot easier with this mess if any of the money generated from football and basketball went to buy books for the library, pay faculty salaries, or support academic scholarships. But the fact is not a dime does. At best, the money generated from ticket sales, TV rights, and luxury boxes goes to support other sports teams and facilities, which is fine up to a point. I noticed recently that UC-Berkeley announced that it is eliminating baseball and rugby for the simple reason that the money wasn't there. Sure, it's a shame, but what's a bigger shame, contracting teams or the kind of tarnishing that takes place via the NCAA investigations and the honor courts?  The real question is this, where does all the money really go? How about a clear and open accounting? UNC is a public university after all. I suspect the results might be disturbing. The old Watergate saying "follow the money" always seems to be at the heart of any scandal of this nature.

Thorp is in a pretty tough spot. He MUST wait until he has evidence before he fires Butch, and he CAN NOT say anything disparaging about him now or after. Having said that, looking lost in front of the camera is a bad policy (he needs to talk to the journalism school), and his continual voicing of support as opposed to cautious waiting is disconcerting, at best. People think a lot of this guy; hope he has the strength to make the tough decisions.

One of the things mentioned in the article is Marvin Austin's old assistant High School coach paying for Marvin's trips.

Nowadays, it'd be awfuly dumb for a coach to give money out.  Instead its given to asst coaches and coaches in high school to steer recruits to certain schools; also clearly they were giving the coach money to funnel it to Marvin.  Hopefully they'll subpoena this asst coach and flip him

btw, i truly believe this is going on at manyyy of the big time schools its just UNC got caught.

It looks like the bills are finally starting to come due in this very sad situation. Here are some questions to think about: 1) Blake's connection to Butch Davis goes back more than thirty years. How can Davis claim he had no idea what Blake was up to? 2) Why was the female tutor still employed by Butch Davis and his family after she had been dismissed as a tutor by the university? 3) Where was the Carolina athletic department oversight? 4) Has there ever been a worse time for Carolina athletics coming off last year's basketball debacle and the current football situation? 5) What are the implications of the academic fraud investigation spreading to other Carolina sports team? 6) When the dust settles who will be left standing - Davis? Baddour? the New Kenan? Thorp? This is a very early defining moment in the chancellorship of Holden Thorp. For Carolina alumni the question is this: what do we really want -- a great university or great university-branded professional sports teams? I suppose it's possible to do both -- Michigan, Stanford -- but, it sure ain't easy. The pitfalls, as we are finding out, can be devastating.

Way to get on on top of this story, at least 11 hours after it came out on Yahoo Sports. Even the WTVD late news last night reported the story. You're really 'cutting edge' on this one...

Keep telling recruits that this will blow over in a few months.?

also ....There is no way the heavy hitters in the Rams Club are going to tolerate this. There was a lot of dispute over hiring Davis in the first place. 

The best thing that could happen is to clean house and bring in a whole new coach, staff and athletic director. Every single component of the compliance, and tutorial support system should be reformed. Lets start over and get it right.

I feel very badly for the players who are trying to do the right thing and playing their hearts out every week. 

This is a black moment but the university will move on and return to its principals regarding athletics. 

i find it hard to believe that Baddour was aware of any of this.  There is no way he would have ignored something like this.  I'm not even sure Butch Davis was aware of the financial transactions.  Whether he should have known is a matter of opinion.  We don't all know what goes own with our own employees on a daily basis that could compromise our businesses.

If somebody wants to 'hide' something from their employer, they can.  Many times, they get caught........but not always.

I don't believe it is fair to rush to condem Butch Davis on this.  John Blake on the other hand, looks more and more like a complete sleazeball and is the epitome of whats wrong with college athletics today.

unc098, just follow the link in this story to the Yahoo! Sports story.  It's all laid out there. For Marvin, there's hotel receipts listing the agency.  For Blake, there's evidence cited of wire transfers from the agency, a "loan" from Wichard, and Blake having a credit card that bills back to the agency. 

In simple terms, Blake was effectively acting as an agent while holding the position of Associate Head Coach at UNC-CH.  As far as I know, this finding is unprecedented.   And likely just the beginning of what will be found.  Details of how Blake was distributing this money should follow.  And details around how much Butch, Baddour and others knew about this.  And what was going on that allowed the compliance team to fail in their duties. 

And this is just the beginning of the money trail involving one agent.  More to come, see: Greg Little, et.al.

since the n&o is failing miserably at covering this story - and you have to question their motivations - I'm glad that the national media is on it.

WHY in the midst of an "ongoing investigation" with obviously "more" to be uncovered .... do Bob Winston, Dick Baddour and Holden Thorp feel it necessary to keep stating their full support of Butch Davis ???

Baddour has a history of "he said WHAT?" but Winston and Thorp are men of a more prudent nature.

For an ongoing "internal investigation" to have any credibility, how can the internal investigators continue to absolve a rather key individual (!!) from any wrong doing? This is NOT going well at all.

This may be the first time in history that an assistant head coach has ever been proven to be an agent.  This is true Tarmegeddon.