The NCAA has announced that two football players from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will never again compete in an NCAA program, because both accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from sports agents and then lied about it.
Greg Little and Robert Quinn were declared permanently ineligible after the NCAA found that each had accepted about $5,000 in gifts—including jewelry and trips to Miami—from sports agents. In three interviews with university staff members and NCAA investigators, the athletes had provided “false and misleading information” about their actions, the association said, in violation of ethical-conduct rules.
The multiple occasions on which Little and Quinn accepted the gifts, as well as their lack of truthfulness about it when pressed for information, were key factors in the decision to declare both athletes permanently—rather than temporarily—ineligible, the NCAA said.
The university announced the dismissal of the third player, Marvin Austin, this morning, for accepting agents’ gifts. (Unlike the other two, Austin’s case did not go before the NCAA’s student-athlete reinstatement staff.)
None of the players has competed in a game this season; Austin had been suspended since September 1.
North Carolina’s athletic director, like other leaders who have vowed in recent weeks to shield college athletes from the influence of agents, said today that he would “repair the environment” in which the rules violations occurred.
“College football is a wonderful game, but we need to closely examine and address the agent-related problems,” Dick Baddour said in a prepared statement, ESPN.com reported. “The University of North Carolina pledges to do all it can to do that.”
North Carolina has reluctantly been in the spotlight ever since news reports surfaced in August that some football players had accepted perks from agents and that a tutor had written papers for several of the students. (The NCAA is investigating the latter claims as well.)
Robert Malekoff, an assistant professor of sport studies at Guilford College, said the turmoil at a university that has long been considered one of the “good guys” in college sports could tarnish more than just the Tar Heels’ reputation. The whole enterprise of big-time college sports suffers, he said.
“When there’s huge publicity about something like this, that’s one more chink in the educational nonprofit status,” Mr. Malekoff said. “The worst thing about it is now everybody gets painted this way.”
16 Responses to Game Over for 3 UNC Football Players Who Accepted Agents’ Gifts
11272784 - October 11, 2010 at 4:14 pm
So – who has been hurt? Just the athletes. Not the team, the school, or anyone else. Why don’t we let athletes sign with agents if they want to? If all we’re doing of preserving a notion of “amateur athlete” that is different than other parts of the world, maybe it’s time to change our rules. The comment in the last paragraph makes it sound the school’s main interest is maintaining educational nonprofit status…which should not be the focus here. Appropriate real-world rules could accommodate that easily.
11294136 - October 11, 2010 at 4:22 pm
When are coaches ever banned?
princeton67 - October 11, 2010 at 8:05 pm
College musicians can go on tour, sell records, accept branded instruments; college artists can sell their work, contract with a gallery for showings. But, apparently, to the NCAA, signing with an agent improves an athlete’s performance.
rmalekof - October 12, 2010 at 5:26 am
One of the NCAA’s (and its member institution’s) primary interestes is to maintain educational, non-profit status. If they lose it they will be paying many, many millions in taxes. Perhaps they should be already (an ongoing debate).
bee12457 - October 12, 2010 at 9:39 am
Could someone please explain the correlation between a student athlete taking gifts and partying with an agent and the risk to the NCAA and its member schools non-profit status that high ticket prices and rights fees to their competitions has not already done? Or how about those sales at the university owned bookstore or hotel? I am sure the student athletes at UNC and across the country do not realize the enormous power they possess as year to year contract employees. They need to form a union and use some of that power. The UNC athletes could have used that leverage and power to have their sanctions reduced. Should the Chronicles editors print such hyperbole from Mr. Malekoff? It is amazing that a fraternity can haze a pledge to death or near death just about every year with no threat to the university enterprise. But an athlete can take some money and party with a slimy agent and the whole system is in jeopardy. People Please!
rmalekof - October 12, 2010 at 11:23 am
To be clear, I’m not saying that the NCAA (particularly Division I-A college sports) SHOULD enjoy non-profit status. I’m saying that they do, and that when high profile incidents like this occur it brings the logic of that status in question for many people. And there have been some discussions about athletes “unionizing” in response to what some see as unfair/inequitable treatment. So again, whether or not the NCAA should be considered as an educational/non-profit organization is a topic worthy of further discussion.
labjack - October 12, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I’m a Duke fan and I thought these students were a great example of what the student athlete should be. They came to UNC and rather than making millions of dollars in the NFL, they stayed in school and came back for their senior year.
Don’t forget these are young men who for the most part are very good young men. I am saddened by the reaction they are receiving for accepting some gifts and travel from agents, while other ‘student athletes’ commit violent crimes, and it is bussiness as usual. Why doesn’t the NCAA punish schools for rapes, and robberies?
The problem with big money college athletics, is the big money. With so much money at stake, they are willing bend the rules and take chances. Flying a few kids down to Miami to get in good with some of them is very cost effective. Assume this never came out. Dropping $5k each and signing even 1/3 as clients to get 3% of their contracts (not even counting endorsement deals). Averge salary 2 million, so $60k/year and typical 4 year career. $5k to make $240k. These are not the average guys, and would be looking to make alot more, so this is an even better investment. And as easy as it is to blame the agents for the problems, thay aren’t slimy evil scum. They are trying to line up future clients, to feed their families, and they provide a useful service to these young men.
Why can’t athletes declare for the draft, and decide to return to school after they know what they could be making in the pros?
Is it to protect the pro leagues? Is it to trick kids into playing for free another year in the hope of raising their stock? I haven’t heard any argument about how that helps the students. That should be our # 1 goal Helping students.
I wish these young men the best of luck in their future, and hope this doesn’t discourage them from finishing their degrees from a great school. Let’s hope their ‘mistakes’ can help future student athletes.
hamsandwich - October 12, 2010 at 12:22 pm
11272784 -
In this case, these athletes will probably NOT be hurt by this scandal. Not only did they get the money and the gifts and attend the parties (all KNOWINGLY cheated), but all 3 (especially Austin) will get to sit out for a year and prepare for their high selections in next year’s NFL draft – similar to the Dez Bryant situation last year at OSU. Butch Davis will continue to collect his $2M plus yearly salary, Dick Baddour will continue to collect his large salary, and the Tarheels will continue their recent trend of being lousy in football. So who’s hurt by this? Probably just the fans (and the other guys on the team) who had really, really high expectations for their football team.
goxewu - October 12, 2010 at 2:39 pm
If universities with big-time football and men’s basketball programs were also running record labels or movie production companies on the magnitude of those in the professional world, maybe an argument such as princeton67′s could be made…
Wait a minute! Big revenue-sports universities ARE running the equivalent of professional record labels and movie production companies with their football and men’s basketball programs. Given that, they ought to be on the ethical spot either to a) own up to running professional (for their bottom line, that is) football and men’s basketball operations, and start paying their athletic talent*, or b) admit that football and men’s basketball have spiraled out of control (e.g., Pete Carroll at USC was the HIGHEST PAID PERSON IN ALL OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION before he scurried back to the pros) and scale them back to some reasonable semblance of amateurism.
Since (b) is probably not feasible (tons of toothpaste out of hundreds of tubes for decades, and lots of people who paint themselves funny colors and who might march on the school with pitchforks and torches if their big-time college sports were ever taken away), (a) ought to be implemented as soon as possible. Whatever might work–”student”-athletes’ unions, anti-trust suits, lawsuits from screwed-over athletes, etc.–should be tried.
* No, the “free education” provided by athletic “scholarships” isn’t sufficient payment. D1-A football and men’s basketball players spend much more time on their sports than on their academics; too many are shunted into stay-eligible majors such as “recreation administration” and “leisure studies”; and, of course, a lot of them never graduate with certificates for even those dubious fields. As for money, look what player pay vs. coaches’ pay is in the NFL and NBA to see who’s really more important to a team. Finally, there are about 12,000 – 15,000 scholarship football players on D-1 college teams, and only about ten percent of that number on NFL teams, total. But the odds of a D-1A scholarship football player making the final cut on an NFL roster is about one half of one percent. So the argument that playing D-1 college football is a good deal for players because it’s really prep for a pro career is bogus.
hamsandwich - October 12, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Ok,goxewu (or anyone, for that matter), although I fundamentally disagree with you (which is ok), I see some of your points. However, I am curious to hear a couple of details for your proposal.
1. Do we pay all of the players the same amount, or do we pay star players at bigger-name universities more money (like they do in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL)? Would Mark Ingram at Alabama make more than, say the second-string kicker at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette?
2. When would these salaries be negotiated (a la your pro analogy)? In high school? Who would be involved?
3. If a kid’s not performing as he should on the field, can he be cut? Or do universities have to pay salaries for those players that just don’t, for some reason, pan out (don’t work hard enough, gain enough wait, won’t listen to the coach, can’t learn all of the offensive playbook, etc)?
4. Would you take the value of their scholarship into account – would a kid getting a 4 year full ride to Duke (worth ~$200,000 or more) get paid the same or less pay than a similar player at a cheap(er) state university?
I’m really curious to hear a plan for HOW to distribute the monies to pay all of the players. And one that is reasonable, taking into account the reality that the Big-10, the SEC, and Notre Dame will NOT be willing to share the revenues they make from lucrative TV deals with, say, the Mountain West Conference.
If these are easy issues, then maybe I’m just not smart enough to know how to address them.
lacey - October 12, 2010 at 4:35 pm
hypocrites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
akrugger10 - October 12, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Many good points being made here. hamsandwich especially has raised a number of practical questions that I, as someone who has advocated dropping the pretense of “student-athlete,” had not previously considered.
That being said… labjack, while I don’t know these men and don’t presume to impugn their personal character, as an alumnus of UNC-Chapel Hill, I cannot help but making generalizations about the behavior of varsity athletes with rosy professional prospects (and even those that don’t have much in the way of professional prospects at all) that I witnessed firsthand. In short, I don’t think we can call them “students.” I, for one, was not able to absent myself from class on exam days, drive a fully-equipped luxury SUV, be admitted into bars and clubs when underage with no questions asked, etc. While there are many NCAA athletes in many sports, the vast majority in fact, that do deserve the title of “student-athlete,” I sincerely doubt that these blue-chip NFL prospects were among them.
goxewu - October 13, 2010 at 7:38 am
Re hamsandwich:
1. Probably a system with a couple or three tiers: highest, the BSC bowl schools (maybe split into two–”major” programs and “mid-major” programs) and the “championship” (i.e. that now have playoffs) schools. A bunch of people–lawyers, ADs, NCAA suits, TV people–sitting down in a room can work out the details that I can’t at my kitchen table after a cup of coffee.
2. No individual negotiations; salaries would be determined at what level a kid is recruited.
3. Cuts from the team, but no cuts from the salary, a four-year commitment, i.e., guaranteed contract. (I’d peg salaries at maybe $30k a year, plus room, board, books, tuition, so we’re not talking pro-level salaries.)
4. No. A good state school education (e.g., Michigan, Berkeley) is just as good as a private-school education (e.g., Duke or Vanerbilt). I don’t think you see a lot of recruits right now picking private schools or state ones because the tuition part of the athletic scholarships are nominally worth so much more.
MLB seems to get along without a lot of revenue-sharing. Maybe some schools will give up football (horrors!) and concentrate on basketball, which is cheaper.
Anyway, once the bogus arguments of “free education” and the overrated value of “auditioning” for the NFL or NBA (applicable to only a small percentage of players) are dismissed, the ethical choice will be clear: either pay players for being the real talent in a multibillion-dollar entertainment business, or retrench to some kind of D-III-like amateurism. No more of this BS plantation system (and it is a plantation system–maybe not like an antebellum Southern plantation system, but like a colonial rubber or pineapple plantation).
hamsandwich - October 13, 2010 at 10:13 am
Re goxewu:
Do you really think that a bunch of lawyers, ADs, player reps, NCAA suits, and TV execs could get together and work out a deal? I personally think we’ll see peace in the Middle East before we’ll get that self-serving group together who all have COMPLETELY different ideas/interests/motivations to agree on how to equitably split up the revenue.
I think also you’d have a REALLY hard time separating which schools get your top-tier designation versus mid-tier. Many state schools that fancy themselves top-tier (but are actually probably mid-tier) will sue if they are left out of the big money (a la Virginia Tech using the state legislature to force their acceptance into the ACC a couple of years back). Try telling, for example, East Carolina University that UNC and NC State (as well as private schools Duke and Wake Forest for basketball) are top-tier, but they aren’t. There would be a meltdown in the state of NC. Lawsuits, legislative action, threats, etc. I would imagine that in reality it would be an all-or-nothing proposition for D1.
So, if you pay each kid $30K (plus benefits) – that would be roughly $3M per year for each university (assuming ~80ish scholarships). Then you’d add on top of that the tuition, room and board, free books, tutors, athletic apparel, medical care, etc, and the costs would skyrocket above that. Does the NCAA bring in enough money to pay for that for every school, all the while supporting all of the non-revenue generating sports and paying all of the other expenses? If not, which schools do you exclude (see my above prediction for how well I think that would go over)? Also, what would you do with the walk-on programs/scout team players that are a huge part of the development for a lot of programs (eg Nebraska), and are an opportunity for “late bloomers” who didn’t get recruited b/c they grew up in South Dakota or gained 30 lbs and 6 inches their senior year of HS? Do they just play for free?
And as for the “just as good as a private-school education” – ok, you listed 2 of the top 5 public unis in the nation (UM and Cal) – what about MTSU? Or La-Lafayette?
And as for “MLB seems to get along without a lot of revenue-sharing” – that’s a joke, right? MLB has the least competitive balance in all of pro sports, and should NEVER (IMO) be used as a benchmark for designing anything.
And another aside – isn’t graduate education like a plantation system too? Those learning/auditioning for any profession or trade (from science and medicine to bricklaying and plumbing) always seem to get paid squat while the “pros” make all the money and get all the benefits. That’s just our reality, living in a capitalistic society.
I think it’s an easy thing to say “pay the players”, but the details are (IMO) too complex…
goxewu - October 13, 2010 at 1:53 pm
The rules and pay schedules for paying the players wouldn’t be any more complicated than the current rules under which they’re not paid (at least not above the table).
Yes, I think that a deal could be worked out. The pros (teams, leagues, TV networks) do it; the colleges could do it. A deal would probably require, however, a preceding court decision (NCAA antitrust would be the best bet) or legislation requiring colleges to do it. They won’t do it voluntarily because they’re in the catbird seat and players are basically chattel. (I’m more or less designing automobile seatbelts in the mid-1950s here, before the legal action it took to compel American car companies to install them.) My specific recommendations for paying the players are based on the assumption that the colleges would have to.
There’d be some shuffling around as to tiers, and which schools opt up or down. (There’s a lot of it right now, with conferences.) I’d simply put the BCS schools tentatively in the top tier and the FCS in another. Schools such as Duke would decide whether they want to continue to be top-tier and pay the player salaries necessary, or drop down a notch. Boise State would have to decide if it wants to pay the price of being a small-market top-tier school. (And none of this “Cinderella” sentiment. It isn’t worth having an entire corrupt system for the dubious value of the occasional Boise State in football or George Mason–or Cleveland State; remember how that worked out?–in basketball.)
I don’t assume 80 scholarships. NFL teams require rosters in the 40s, and they play 20-game seasons, continuing pre-season games, and more than that if they make the playoffs. Perhaps the player payroll would make it necessary to reduce head coaches’ salaries to–my preference–no more than what the President or Chancellor of the school makes. And without those millions of bucks to chase, perhaps schools wouldn’t have to suffer the take-the-money-and-run Pete Carrolls, Bobby Petrinos, Nick Sabans, Lane Kiffins, Brian Kellys and Rich Rodriguezes, et al., of the world.
My point about private vs. state universities was simply that you don’t see football prospects choosing to attend, say, Vanderbilt over the University of Georgia because private-school tuition make the athletic scholarship nominally worth so much more money.
MLB may have the least competitive balance of the pro sports, but it still makes money. Actually, people (which is to say TV audiences) like competitive imbalances, dynasties, etc. They like it when year after year it’s the Yankees in the Series, the Lakers in the Finals, Tiger Woods atop the leader board, and the SEC champion in the national championship game. What is hamsandwich, a socialist? (Just kidding.)
Just because there are other aspects of academe (e.g., graduate education, in hamsandwich’s opinion) that are corrupt or plantation-like doesn’t mean that one should refrain from reforming one because you can’t reform them all.
Yes, it’d be more difficult to actually work out and implement a plan to pay the players than it is to say here, “Pay the players.” On the other hand, what you’ve got now in college revenue sports is a stinking, festering, exploitative, corrupt, brutal, vulgar, hypocritical, avaricious, and academically counterproductive enterprise. So the solution is “but the details are (IMO) too complex”?
hamsandwich - October 13, 2010 at 2:44 pm
goxewu:
I still don’t agree with you, but I really like your arguments. Very thoughtful, thanks for that…