"Coach Butch Davis" is now known as "former Coach, Butch Davis". As of right now, we do not have a head football coach in Chapel Hill. No longer is BMFD the caretaker of The Carolina Way for our football program. And it's July 27th. And practice starts in, oh, eight days.
You know the story, the gory details: agents, not-so-studious athletes, benefits, works cited pages, tutors, suspensions, Black Santa, etc. Hell, this blog has been practically MIA because of it. It sucks, it's been really tough to sit through and watch. Few weeks went by without something else leaking out, another violation being reveled or at least speculated about. I recall being really upset when the initial story broke, thinking I was a bit embarrassed to be a Tar Heel. And then Thursday happened.
I am not here to argue whether or not Butch Davis deserved to be fired. What's done is done. It's really tough when your program is in disarray to distance yourself from it and make an unbiased evaluation as to what the proper reaction should be. Apparently it took our Chancellor over a year to successful distance himself from things to make an evaluation, and subsequently a decision, about how to handle things. In the process, he apparently forgot what The Carolina Way is really all about.
Playing Hard. We've done that. The program took this opportunity (if you can call Marvin Austin's initial mess an "opportunity") to delve into the entire athletic program (so we are lead to believe) and leave no stone unturned. That's how the entire academic scandal came about anyway, from the self-evaluation. And we've tried to fix things. Staff has been re-educated on how to monitor, how to hire tutors, how to ensure that assistance is provided in the appropriate fashion. We're trying really hard to clean things up. I have a hard time believing that our program is any "dirtier" than most others, but hey, we got caught and are trying to fix it. Not so much to avoid punishment, but to reiterate our commitment to The Carolina Way. And that's a good thing, something all major programs should do on a regular basis. The complacency within UNC, the idea that "we're Carolina and we don't screw up like that" was a big factor in allowing things to spiral out of control with few checks and balances in place and properly enforced to prevent an issue. The problem is this "fixing of issues" is at the long-term expense of the football program.
Play Smart. We have not. For an institution lead by so many intelligent people, playing smart could not be further from the truth. There was the overreaction of sitting every player who may or may not have had anything to do with a tutor. There was the misrepresentation of Michael McAdoo and what his role was in the scandal, basically telling the NCAA that he was permanently ineligible when the punishment did not fit the crime, then trying to backtrack almost a year later. And of course, there was firing a coach on July 27th. No mater how you cut it, that's not smart. The lack of common sense by people in power is baffling. Yet, while I say on one hand that I can't believe this has happened, I say on the other that this was an almost-predictable mismanagement by UNC.
Play Together. Again, we have not. And never have. What a lot of folks do not realize is that there has long been a power struggle within UNC. On one side, there are the supporters of our athletics program (that would be me, duh). They want to see the Tar Heels succeed in every sport, winning championships along the way. They want to grow revenue, outsource marketing rights, build new facilities, and compete at the highest level. And, they want to do this The Carolina Way. On the other side, you have the detractors of our athletics program. OK, "detractors" is an understatement, but I can't think of a bigger word without going to Dictionary.com (I placed out of English 11, they assumed I already knew those synonyms - oops), and I'm on a roll here and can't stop to look it up. Let's just say they freakin' hate sports and think college should only involve a classroom, not an athletics field. This faction of academia is present at a lot of higher education institutions, but is particularly prominent in Chapel Hill. They protect the value and emphasis placed on academics, many times in good faith. Usually within an institution, this group is a minority that just talks a lot, but really can't win. Athletics is the snowball rolling downhill that can't be stopped; haters gone hate, but they ultimately have to deal with it. Until now.
A bit more detail on this battle at UNC reveals that the football program has been a target for a long, long time. The men's basketball program has been so good and so clean (knock on all the wood you can find) for so long that the academia couldn't say much. To attack the basketball team, especially under Coach Smith or Coach Williams, is blasphemous. Other sports have been successful: men's lacrosse, women's soccer, baseball to name a few. But none of these sports garner the attention or revenue of football, nor carry the negative stereotypes that are frequently placed on the football program - don't worry, I'm not going there. But, the fact remains that there is a large contingency of power players at Carolina who don't want to Play Together. They would rather football remain obsolete as it has for thirty years or so and protect its emphasis on academics at the expense of the program. The supporters of Carolina football finally garnered enough support and power in recent years to hire a big-name coach and staff, raise funds for growth, and expand Kenan Stadium. This momentum has now been halted. The scandal, in the minds of the academia, only validates what they feared would happen with a big-time football program. But that's where they get a bit off-kilter.
The division within UNC has driven the leadership of the institution to overreact at an inopportune time. Firing Coach Davis early in the investigation would have been without proper cause (not enough information at the time). Firing him after last season was tough after the bowl win and probably would not have been quite justified given that the NCAA had not released any findings at the time. Once the allegations were communicated, if Chancellor Thorp felt Davis was ultimately responsible (which Coach Davis said at the ACC Kick-off event this week) and deserved to be fired, the prudent decision would have been to allow him to coach out the season and then make a move. At least that was the right thing to do in the best long-term interest of the football program. It is clearly to the detriment of the program as a whole (current players, staff, fans, etc) to make this move right now. As I stated after the firing was announced, it shows a complete lack of the big picture effect on the program. The allegations-turned-violations-turned-sanctions are in and of themselves enough to really put the program in a bad spot. Add in firing the coach and you've got a worse spot. But essentially ruining another season while undermining the supposed emphasis and support the football program receives is enough to set this program back for years and years to come - and that's the worst spot of all: hopeless.
An already-bad situation has been made worse. This is not a mole hill; the issues are bigger than that. But a situation that should have been just a rolling hill has now been made into a mountain. It's almost like we're trying to give ourselves the Death Penalty (SMU-style, not electric chair). The self-flagellation by the institution's leadership is set to ruin the program long-term. No prominent coach will look at UNC as the "sleeping giant" it is; instead, they will see a coach fired after trying to fix his errors. They see an institution that does not truly support, and nearly attempts to screw over, its football program.
To me, the Play Together trait should have led to the entire university coming, you know, together, to build towards a solution. A program that wins the right way, year after year. When a child makes a mistake, yelling at him or her and putting them in the corner is only half the battle. The NCAA and/or self-imposed sanctions are punishment enough, the equivalent of putting UNC in the corner. But, teaching that child the error of his or her ways and allowing the issue to be fixed moving forward - i.e. "learning their lesson" - seems to be the other half. A unified institution would have done this. And it would have done this at the proper time, not at a time where it screws over the current football student-athletes and remaining staff. How are we supposed to play with our own university leadership against us? How are fans expected to fill the new Blue Zone and support the school, along with these players? How are we supposed to recruit the next generation of student-athletes when they don't know who might be around to coach them? Until the University of North Carolina decides to Play Together, these types of problems will continue.
For now, academia has won. The right people are ultimately in power to make these decisions and have done so....at completely the wrong time, at the expense of the student-athletes and the program as a whole. It's a really tough time, a time when it's a little bit embarrassing to be a Tar Heel. Tough to encourage and implement The Carolina Way when our leadership is not embodying the traits themselves.
A few other thoughts, in a less-poetic form:
- I don't see how Carolina is going to be able to attract a coach with any decent resume following the season. So here's hoping that the interim coach (Pittman, Withers, whomever) is a good one and ready to stick around. Hopefully that will help ease the recruiting impact to some extent.
- That said, if they go outside the current staff after the season, they're going to have to grab a young head coach from a smaller school or an assistant looking for his first "big" gig. Mike London, Derek Dooley types. Or, one might say, a Mack Brown type. IMO, there's a high-level recruiter who's worked really hard for a number of successful programs and whose father has won the right way for a lot of years at an ACC rival in Blacksburg that might be that type of fit. I know he hasn't been a head guy before, but I'm just saying. Biased, yes, but I'm just saying.
- I fully expect the current edition of the Tar Heel football team to unify and be very, very motivated for this season. I hope the coaching staff and leaders on the team can bottle this feeling of betrayal up (cause let's be honest, that's what they feel right now) and turn it into something positive on the gridiron.
- I doubt Dick Baddour is sleeping well these days. This happened on his watch too.
- I'm betting State fans are sad to see Butch go given his lack of success in the rivalry. Now you know how we felt after you fired Sidney. And ran Herb off. And Les Robinson.
- Could you imagine if this had happened to the basketball program? Riots in the streets. Football is a big, big deal to me, probably more so than most others. But still...I'd jump off something really high if it were hoops. For now, I'm just turning to Goldschlagger.
- Just kidding.
- Again, for now. I'm just kidding for now.
- In his relatively brief term as Chancellor, I have found Holden Thorp to be engaging and fun. He seemed to "get it". I'm not sure his ability to relate to people has changed through this decision, but I can promise you that folks' ability to like him has. It's a bit tough anytime you're in a high-level leadership position to please even a majority of people, much less all of them. But I think anyone with a remotely-high level of common sense would say that the timing of his decision, which he is claiming is his and his alone, is horrendous. Ridiculous. Lunacy. Sabotage. It, um, blows.
- The last time I stayed up late to write about Carolina athletics was this here. Boy, what a different feeling that night.
- A writer friend and I were discussing earlier about Carolina football as a sleeping giant. We've heard it for years: the recruits are close by (NC, SC, VA, and select others), the facilities are built, the school is excellent, yada yada yada. It would seem that folks would be excited, dare I say hopeful, about becoming a program who is at the top of both revenue sports. Texas, Florida, Ohio State...and North Carolina. But it is almost like the school has a collective fear of being that good in two sports, for being known as an elite athletics institution as opposed to an elite basketball school. Of any school in the ACC, Carolina is probably the best bet to ever become that. At least until now.
