The Real Truth - UNC Most Likely Conducted Initial Investigation

When you are an accused, are you told to talk or to stay silent?  Usually, the accused is told to say nothing.  Not only are they usually unskilled in controlling their comments, the accused are usually involved in some activity that has led to the investigation itself. 

If you are buddies with the prosecutor, or part of the prosecution, there is no doubt what you do.  You say nothing until the chief prosecutor tells you to do so, and then only what you are told to say.  And if you began your own investigation, you stay silent because you know everything.

University members of the NCAA fall in both camps.  Members who really run the NCAA, universities are essentially the prosecution.  At the same time, the NCAA acts as an independent investigatory arm with the ability to sanction member institutions for conduct occurring under their watch.  Often, universities discover the improprieties and disclose them to the NCAA for further investigation.

What has not occurred to date as best we can tell is that the NCAA and a university work together in order to discover improprieties of other schools with the initial university and/or the player(s) involved being clean of any impropriety themselves.

Could this have happened here?  In fact, could the UNC players involved have created the entire senario to discover improprieties going on with football agents?

Dick Baddour, the Athletic Director of UNC, is quoted to have made the following initial statement after talking with the NCAA.

"I was told that I could limit my comments to the fact that they had been here and they wanted me to say that we had indeed been cooperative," said Baddour, adding that the inquiry "has our full attention."

Baddour has also said:

"I can acknowledge that representatives from the NCAA have been to Chapel Hill to speak with some of our student-athletes. However, they have instructed us to maintain the confidence of this review by not discussing it publicly. We have cooperated fully with the NCAA and will continue to do so."

Another representative of the Athletic Department is quoted to have said:

"When they were here, they told us they do not want us commenting on the investigation," North Carolina associate athletic director for communications Steve Kirschner said. "As Dick Baddour has said, we will cooperate completely with the NCAA. Part of cooperating is doing what they told us to do and not commenting on it. To this point, we have not even confirmed what sport is involved. We certainly have not confirmed what the issue is."

There are subtle aspects of these statements that have not been discussed so far.  For example, the first Baddour statement says he "could" limit his comments.  Since this was almost certainly prepared by attorneys as the first public statement, the use of "could" shows that there was no NCAA prohibition on discussing an on-going investigation.

The NCAA's position on investigations was in an email, according to the News & Observer, a McClatchy newspaper, which said: "The NCAA does not prohibit the schools under investigation to comment to the media, however, they are advised not to make any public comment that could hamper the investigation."

The University of South Carolina was the next university to speak about what is apparently the same investigation.  In this situation, either their coach Stever Spurrier spoke without authority or he was the selected spokesperson in connection with the investigation.

"All I know is they had talked to him, and talked to some players at North Carolina. That's all I know," Spurrier said. "Whatever comes (of it), we'll just have to wait and see. But I can assure that all of our players, our team, has been well-versed or taught about agents or people giving them gifts or money or whatever. … So if we have a player that accepts money, gifts from agents or whoever, they'll be ineligible to play."

Spurrier's comments do not ring entirely true, and seemingly were not prepared by attorneys.  If they were, they missed some crutial points.  Surely, Spurrier knew of UNC's comments by the time he made his comments.  He knew about that discussion.  Unlike UNC's Baddour, Spurrier offered an insight into his or USC's thinking by saying that the players will "be ineligible to play."

Only time will tell if the NCAA told South Carolina that the university would not be sanctioned for any actions that had occurred under Spurrier's watch.  However, one begins to see why silence may be appropriate here.  The more said, the more difficulty in ascertaining what is going on and what may happen.

Most important to this mix is that the athlete and university are often tied at the hip in any finding.  If the athlete is guilty, the university also is found guilty.  While this is not always the situation, there is no doubt but that there are divergent interests when player and university are the subject of an investigation.

Today's Triangle Pigskin Preview will include the first press appearance by Butch Davis, UNC's football coach, since the investigation.  The betting here is that there will continue to be silence.

The reasons for this remain unclear.  Did UNC initiate this investigation?  Did UNC learn of Little's contacts with an agent that included improper offers by the agent?  Did the NCAA and UNC act together to discover the depth and breadth of this and other agent situations?

One thing is almost certain.  If UNC knew nothing about Little's Tweets and perhaps other Tar Heels players' involvement, the gig could be over for UNC if Little and/or others received improper gifts.  UNC will almost certainly be sanctioned.

On the other hand, if UNC is involved in an investigation that helps lead to cleaning up the agent mess in college football, their reputation will remain intact.  Indeed, the NCAA's comment above reports that "schools under investigation" are not prohibited from comment.  Could this mean that UNC is not "under investigation?"  Was the use of "could" by Baddour a mistake?

If it is something with both participation and wrongdoing by UNC, then the NCAA could do almost anything.

What we do know is that among all the senarios, the silence from UNC means they almost certainly conducted the initial investigation.  And if this is the situation, then sanctions against UNC are less likely.

Only time will tell.