Spoke with a person last night and we discussed our impressions.
In his professional capacity he is in contact regularly with UNC Athletics, coaches or staff.
His impression, from 3 conversations, is that the NCAA wants to avoid being embarrassed. They are in a tough spot. Further, he said that at least a couple of our folks have said they think it may go well for us as to the Report. He seemed to think not all 5 level charges will stick. WBB will more than likely have some penalty. Overall he said "our folks" attitude is that we may not suffer near as much as some are "rumoring"
Tom, that IMO makes a lot of sense because the NCAA has to understand its record when they have gone to court has just not been good. With all this going on for the last couple weeks, it only stands to reason that the last thing the NCAA needs right now is to go to court and lose big, you really have to pick your battles and this one just is not a smart one for them. As for us, really, if they come out to hammer us we have nothing to lose by taking this to court.
Lets say this goes to court, I am not an attorney but it seems to me the NCAA would have 3 major bars to jump over and all of them seem to have huge obstacles.
1) Is this an athletic violation or an academic issue, the later not being within the NCAAs scope of authority per its guidelines. In order for this to be deemed an athletic violation of NCAA rules coaches or the ADs department itself would have to have interceded in placing athletes in specific classes and influencing the grades athletes received in those classes.
Lets say a woman's ball staff member sends email to Deb Crowder and says she needs a specific player to get a specific grade in order to remain eligible to play, that would be a problem for the women. But the assumption can not be made that it included men's basketball or football. It could be a institutional question but if every violation is not institutional or systemic.
There would have to be some email, some piece of paper, some voice recording more than he said she said. You could compel testimony under oath if someone's testimony is about an occurrence within the statute of limitations. Suppose they wanted to bring Rashad in was anything he could testify to within the statute of limitations time frame, which I think is 10yrs, don't think he could be a useful witness (using this purely as example). This with all we have seen fits as a academic issue and that has been handled by the authoritative body.
Are there easy grade classes at pretty much every college that athletes and non-athletes alike take advantage of? Knowing full well the judge was highly educated and fully realizes there are easy grade classes everywhere.
2) If it is deemed to be an issue within the NCAAs scope of authority, then is the proposed punishment fair and just as compared to similar punishments in the past. That opens up a brand new can of worms tat the NCAA does not really want to crack. But for example, why are major programs all over the country allowed to get grade credit for practicing for their sport and non-athletes not allowed and that not called a "special benefit" allowed athletes? Why is this so common place and receives zero punishment and yet you want to hammer UNC for classes that included as many non-athletes as athletes, that does not seem equitable. Just one of hundreds of potential examples that can be used.
3) Finally, by the delay in this issue, UNC has already paid a very steep price on many fronts. If found guilty of these violations to what extent does the price UNC has paid for 6yrs of public ridicule mitigate the proposed punishment? And if not found guilty how does the NCAA make UNC whole again via restitution on a monetary basic, meaning how many millions does the NCAA pay us!
