INDIANAPOLIS – Surrounded by scrambling reporters and cameramen, former University of North Carolina associate head football coach John Blake left the NCAA Committee on Infractions hearing at 4:50 p.m. today hoping that his defense on three major violations was successful.

Blake was asked if his reputation was restored. “All I can do is hope and pray,” Blake responded. The NCAA has the power to impose a “show cause order” with restrictions that would make it difficult for Blake to coach again at an NCAA school.

He was charged with working to help recruit athletes for the late agent Gary Wichard while employed by UNC. Wade Smith of Raleigh, one of two lawyers working to help clear Blake’s name, said he thought Blake got a fair hearing.

“It was an excellent hearing,” Smith said. “We’re finished for now. We’re going to go back to North Carolina. . . .and we will await a decision from the committee. I wish I could say more, but it would be inappropriate for me to do so."

INDIANAPOLIS - Former associate head coach John Blake’s defense may turn out to be the most elaborate part of today’s NCAA Committee on Infractions hearing on the investigation of the UNC-Chapel Hill’s football program.

In their written response to the NCAA, UNC officials largely agreed with most of the nine major violations charged by the NCAA in its Notice of Allegations. UNC objected to some of the allegations in the NCAA’s “failure to monitor” charge, particularly the one that said the school should have been monitoring its athletes’ social media posts.

UNC still needs to explain to the committee the many changes it has made to its monitoring and academic support programs, but doesn’t seem inclined to dispute many of the charges based on the written response.

For Blake, on the other hand, the hearing is an opportunity to present his version of events to the NCAA. Prominent Raleigh lawyer Wade Smith and Florida lawyer William Beaver began laying out some of their answers to questions about Blake in September of 2010.

INDIANAPOLIS – With two lawyers at his side, former University of North Carolina associate head coach John Blake entered a conference room this morning for the NCAA Committee on Infractions hearing at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis.

UNC officials followed minutes later as the school is facing charges of nine major violations and will defend itself in front of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions today.

Blake, charged with three of those violations, will present his defense in an effort to prevent an NCAA “show cause order” that could impose limitations that would make it difficult for an NCAA school to hire him.

Chancellor Holden Thorp and departing athletic director Dick Baddour are among at least six individuals representing UNC at the hearing. ACC commissioner John Swofford and associate commissioner for compliance Shane Lyons walked into the meeting room along with the UNC contingent at 8:18 a.m., 12 minutes before the hearing was supposed to start.

Former North Carolina associate head coach John Blake will appear in front of the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions on Friday in an attempt to clear his name, his lawyer, Wade Smith, said in a telephone interview today.

Blake is named in three of the nine major allegations against UNC in the Notice of Allegations sent by the NCAA to UNC in June. He stands accused of recruiting players for his friend, the late sports agent Gary Wichard.

Although Blake no longer is employed by UNC, the Committee on Infractions can impose a “show cause order” that could prevent him from recruiting or coaching and make him difficult for an NCAA school to employ.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, several trustees say the NFL should shoulder some of the blame for problems within university's football program.

In the News & Observer today, several trustees say that while the buck ultimately stops with Head Coach Butch Davis, the NFL should take a harder stance with agents who routinely tempt college athletes - at UNC and elsewhere - with money, jewelry and other enticements, hoping to get their business once they go pro.

Trustees and university administration - most notably Chancellor Holden Thorp and Dick Baddour, the athletics director - have backed Davis and said his job is not in jeopardy.

And they say they believe Davis, who claims he had no idea that assistant coach John Blake accepted what has been characterized as "gifts" from an agent.

Blake is no longer with UNC.

When news first surfaced in late September about now-former assistant football coach John Blake's ties to an NFL agent, Butch Davis told a Raleigh radio host he knew nothing about it.

Reacting to a Yahoo! Sports report on the relationship between Blake, then UNC's top assistant football coach, and agent Gary Wichard, Davis suggested that much of what Blake did was impossible for him to know.

"My first observation is, that, you know, in reference to some of the points in the article, is that people have private lives," Davis said in the radio interview.What Davis did not do in that interview, apparently, was to express an adequate level of anger and frustration with Blake.

Josh Luchs, a former agent and assistant of Gary Wichard, wrote a cover story for Sports Illustrated on the relationship between agents and college football players, titled "Confessions of a former NFL agent."

In the article, Luchs writes about Wichard and former UNC associate head coach John Blake. The excerpts from the article:

By KEN TYSIAC AND J. ANDREW CURLISS

Staff Writers

Phone records released Tuesday show that former UNC North Carolina associate head football coach John Blake last year placed calls to agent Gary Wichard’s cell phone at times within minutes of calls to the family of prized 2010 draft prospect Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska.

On Monday, University of Nebraska coach Bo Pelini told the Omaha World-Herald that he recalled there being concerns over possible contact between John Blake and Suh during Suh’s time as a student-athlete at Nebraska.

The phone records, obtained through an open records request, don’t show the content of the phone calls. Blake has denied through lawyers that he steered any player to Wichard or other agents as investigators continue to probe Blake’s ties to agents while he coached the Tar Heels.

FireButchDavis.com redirects to TarHeelBlue.com which is the official athletic site of the University of North Carolina.

Lawyers for former North Carolina associate head coach John Blake said this afternoon that agent Gary Wichard provided “gifts” to Blake to pay for Blake’s son’s private school tuition while Blake was coaching at North Carolina.

William Beaver, Blake’s Orlando-based lawyer, said in a teleconference call with reporters today that Wichard gave Blake money for the tuition on one occasion in 2008 and twice more in 2009. Beaver said Wichard is the godfather of Blake’s son.

On Thursday, Beaver had said the last of the monies provided to Blake by Wichard was exchanged “if not over three years ago, right around three years ago.” This afternoon, Beaver said he was hurried last week and didn’t have a chance to adequately review the records before a Thursday teleconference call with reporters.