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Football coach Butch Davis and Athletics Director Dick Baddour of North Carolina promised yesterday to find and fix the problems that led to the dismissals of three players for NCAA rules violations.
"There's a lot of smoke around here," Baddour said. "We can't deny that there's a lot of smoke around here, which means we've got to go deep."
Robert Quinn, a junior defensive end, and Greg Little, a senior receiver, were declared permanently ineligible by the NCAA and UNC yesterday for breaking rules regarding benefits from agents and other violations. Marvin Austin, a senior defensive tackle, was dismissed from the team for the same reasons.
Eleven other players are waiting to find out their eligibility status, because of either the NCAA investigation into possible agent contact or a school investigation into possible academic impropriety.
"It is my responsibility to bring all of these issues to a close," Baddour said. "And I assure you that the university staff is working tirelessly to make that happen."
Davis said that he needed to do a better job, as head of the football program, to educate players and their families about dealings with agents and other NCAA rules, and two changes already have been made.
Players will be required to sign out with program and school officials when they will be off campus for extended periods and to reveal where they are going, with whom, and who is paying for the trip.
Davis said that any person who is a financial planner or agent will have to contact the UNC administration to set up appointments with players. All appointments will be in the Kenan Football Center.
Baddour said that one problem with agents was that all the contact took place during the summer, when school wasn't in session. Baddour wants stronger safeguards, but Davis couldn't say how players could be prevented from meeting with agents or their representatives when they were off campus, away from coaches and staff.
"Nothing, just their own personal honesty and their own personal integrity," Davis said.
Before the season, Quinn, Little and Austin were among at least eight UNC players considered possible top picks in the 2011 NFL Draft. Baddour said that athletics officials didn't recognize how prized they were until it was too late.
"That should have been on our radar more," Baddour said. "We know that now. You do want to treat student-athletes as much like students as you possibly can. (But) we should have been doing something else.
"We should have acknowledged the level that these guys are and that there were going to be people coming at them. And while we're preaching it, I wish we had done more. I'd like to relive that part."
Davis said he should have done more about outside forces for a program that grew quickly. He said UNC had only two highly regarded players his first season, 2007, and that agents were not a problem.
"Looking back on it, maybe we should have educated some of these guys even more earlier in their career so they would have heard it over and over and over," Davis said. "You make the assumption some guys have heard it 10 times. Well, some guys may have heard it for only the first time."
NCAA sanctions are still possible for UNC, but Baddour said again that Davis has his backing.
"I think we're in good stead," Baddour said. "I'm going to fight the institutional control issues (with the NCAA) because of what we had in place and because of the way we're handling it. I'm not fearful. I acknowledge that they have to ask those questions, and we have to anticipate that they're going to ask those questions.
"We're not going to operate this program, and (Davis) is not going to operate this football program out of fear. We're going to operate this program in a first-class way about doing things the right way and make adjustments. We will make adjustments, and we'll move forward."
