UNC Chancellor writes letter to Carolina community about report findings
Message from Chancellor Holden Thorp
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Dear Carolina community,
Today the University received the two independent, outside reviews that we commissioned in response to the academic irregularities found in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. I strongly encourage you to read both reports, posted at academicreview.unc.edu and covered on the University’s homepage, www.unc.edu.
The review conducted by former North Carolina Governor James Martin, also a former professor at Davidson College, was independent, objective and thorough. We cooperated fully.
His findings are sobering: The irregularities in the department date back to 1997.
Governor Martin confirmed that there were no problems in other departments in the University, and that only the two individuals we had previously identified in the African and Afro-American Studies department were implicated.
Governor Martin was assisted in his review by Baker Tilly, a management consulting firm with extensive national experience in academic performance procedures and controls. In a second report, Baker Tilly reviewed and validated the many improvements we have put in place to ensure that we never face problems like this again.
This is an important day for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For years, we’ve been proud that we did things the right way. We probably took too much for granted. We became complacent, and we made some mistakes. We acknowledge that. Now we have to get better.
We are embracing these findings, and we are moving forward as a much stronger university. I hope that ultimately we will be judged not only by what happened but by what we’re doing about it.
Sincerely,
Holden Thorp
Panthers say they’re peaking with only two games left
Panthers.com writer Max Henson says the Carolina Panthers are peaking. Unfortunately for them it comes with just two games left and no chance to reach .500 on the season.
Henson writes:
Beating the division champion Falcons before flying across the country to dominate the Chargers has inspired a ton of confidence in the Panthers locker room.
They are playing their best football of the year, and then some.
“I feel like we’re playing as well as we’ve played in about two years right now,” linebacker Thomas Davis said. “We are doing it as a team, doing it together.”
Third year defensive end Greg Hardy agreed with Davis’ valuation.
“Most definitely. This is the pinnacle of my career,” Hardy said. “It’s basically because everybody believes in it. We’ve always had talent, but it’s about the mentality and the atmosphere around here.”
That atmosphere has been noticeably different of late.
Offensively, the Panthers starting fast and stringing together lengthy touchdown drives consistently. The defense limited the Falcons to their second-lowest point total of the season before giving up just one touchdown against the Chargers.
All of that has added up to renewed confidence, and that’s been a key ingredient to the Panthers’ first back-to-back wins of the season.
“There’s a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” head coach Ron Rivera said. “Playing with confidence is big, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Said Davis: “It’s been going on around here for the last few weeks. Guys are really buying in to what’s going on. We are going out and making those (critical) plays, and once you start doing it, it becomes contagious.”
Sunday’s home finale against the Oakland Raiders presents Carolina with the opportunity to win three straight games for the first time since 2009, when the Panthers won their last three games of the season.
To read more, please click here.
Carolina baseball ranked 2nd while State is 11th in preseason poll
The Collegiate Baseball Newspaper released its 2013 Preseason Poll and North Carolina checked in at No. 2, one point behind preseason favorite Arkansas.
The Tar Heels are coming off a 46-16 season a year ago and will return seven starting position players and their entire weekend rotation.
Carolina earned 495 points in the poll, one shy of the total of No. 1 Arkansas, while Vanderbilt, LSU and UCLA rounded out the top five.
Six other Atlantic Coast Conference schools were named to the “Fabulous 40” poll: NC State (11), Georgia Tech (17), Florida State (19), Clemson (27), Miami (28) and Virginia (35).
The Tar Heels will open the season on Feb. 15 against Seton Hall at Boshamer Stadium. The 2013 season will mark the third time in the last five years that Carolina will begin a year ranked among the top 5 in the country.
Let’s face it – Tar Heels aren’t very good right now
Let’s face it, Wednesday’s 85-67 loss to a very average Texas team shows that the UNC Tar Heels just aren’t very good – at least right now.
If this needs to be a three-point shooting team, as experts expected at the first of the season, then the Heels are going to have to do better than 15.8 percent, which is what they got against Texas. They shot just three of 19.
As Coach Roy Williams said, there were a lot of silly mistakes. There were unforced turnovers, forced shots, ill-advised passes, strange fouls and just lazy play.
“It was a comedy of errors but it wasn’t too blankety blank funny,” he said.
The jury has been out on this Tar Heels team with its previous losses against good Indiana and Butler teams. But this Texas team was not only beatable – after all, they lost to Chaminade – but they didn’t play lights out against the Tar Heels in this game. The Longhorns took a slew of bad shots and finished shooting only 40 percent from the field. Of course Carolina shot only 31 percent.
For more on the game, please click here.
Who knows but I think UNC’s Bernard should have stayed in school
I get it – ballplayers have big egos and they want to get as much money as they can. I’m sure no one associated with Gio Bernard – by all accounts a classy, intelligent guy – will say he has a big ego or is motivated by money.
But, come on, here’s a talented if undersized running back with two years of eligibility left – time where he could grow in so many ways. In fact, he could grow into a legendary figure – that is, legendary for more than running back a game-winning punt return against N.C. State.
“I feel like the best decision for my future is to enter the NFL draft this year,” Bernard said. “I want to thank Coach (Larry) Fedora, this coaching staff and the previous coaching staff for putting me in a position to succeed. I am on track to graduate and I plan on coming back to earn my degree in the Spring of 2014.”
A college experience is more than coming back to earn a degree. Next year would have been a fourth year at Carolina, so even though he would be a junior athletically, he’d really be experiencing a senior season. Looking back on my senior season, it was one of the very best years of my life. Many people I know say that about their college senior years. When your life is over, I’m not sure how much one of the very best years of it is worth financially but to me it’s priceless.
Predictably the media is squarely behind Bernard’s decision. “To have returned for 2013 and maybe 2014 would have been too risky,” said the News & Observer’s Caulton Tudor. “One more knee injury could have equated to a multimillion-dollar mistake.”
That’s a reasonable stance but, actually, the money would still be there after next season. If he doesn’t get hurt and spends a season as a Heisman candidate, you can bet the money would be even greater. Plus, insurance policies would even ensure that should he get hurt and go undrafted, he’d be financially set for life.
I guess I’m more philosophical about these things. If he’s going to hurt his knee, he’s going to hurt his knee – whether it be in college or the pros. The only difference I guess is that he’d be getting paid for not working if he injures it after starting his pro career.
It’s not often that Carolina has a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate. Bernard would have started the season on the short list. That would have been a good way of showing his thanks to the University of North Carolina.
He could have grown as a player, had a chance for the Heisman and possibly lead the Tar Heels to an ACC championship. UNC’s chances are greatly diminished – in essence so that Bernard can make a boatload of money a year or two earlier and so he can be a small fish in a big NFL pond. But, again, players’ egos won’t allow them to believe they’ll be anything but a first-year starter, MVP and Super Bowl winner I guess.
I concede that we don’t really know all that is going on in Bernard’s life. Who knows? He could be making the better decision for his individual circumstances. I wish him luck. He’s been a pleasure to watch. Still, it could have been the year of a lifetime to compete for the Heisman and an ACC title.
State’s Gottfried to speak at Raleigh Sports Club, public invited
Mark Gottfried, in his second year as head basketball coach at NC State, will speak at Wednesday’s Raleigh Sports Club luncheon. It is expected to be a popular event so come early.
Coach Gottfried will break down his plan to keep the Wolfpack’s winning streak going with five more home games in the month of December.
The Highland UMC Kindergarten class will be singing Christmas songs starting at 11:50 a.m.
Emily Bedsole, a three-sport star for Ravenscroft School, will be honored as the Student Athlete of the Week. Bedsole has achieved a 4.27 GPA while participating in track, cross country and swimming, and volunteering in the community.
The RSC meetings emphasize friendship, fellowship, weekly door prizes, pick sheets, and great food. This is the 49th year of The Raleigh Sports Club.
The Raleigh Sports Club weekly Wednesday luncheon meetings are from 11:30-1 p.m. at Highland United Methodist Church at 1901 Ridge Road in Raleigh. The Forks Cafeteria caters a Southern Buffet with lines opening at 11:30 a.m.
Member attendance fee is $15 while guests are $25. For more details go to www.raleighsportsclub.org.
What they’re saying about Kirk Cousins leading Redskins to first place
“With NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate Robert Griffin sidelined with a sprained knee, Washington Redskins backup QB Kirk Cousins passed for 329 yards and a pair of touchdowns to Leonard Hankerson in his first NFL start as the Redskins cruised to a 38-21 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.”
— Brian McIntyre, Yahoo! Sports
“Griffin’s playing status was in doubt all week before the Redskins surprisingly announced late Saturday night that Cousins would start. If the Browns thought they were getting a break, Cousins proved to be as challenging to stop as his more elusive and hyped teammate.”
— Associated Press
“Mike Shanahan drafted Kirk Cousins for a day like this. He wanted to establish stability at the Washington Redskins‘ quarterback position. And with star quarterback Robert Griffin III watching from the sideline with a sprained knee, Cousins delivered.”
— Rich Campbell, Washington Times
“His first start in the NFL couldn’t have gone much better, and Washington showed that drafting two quarterbacks in 2012 was absolutely the right call as they moved into a tie for first place in the NFC East. Let me say that again: the Redskins, mostly behind the injured Robert Griffin III and heroics from Cousins the past two weeks, are tied for first place in the NFC East with the Giants and Cowboys.”
— Josh Katzowitz, CBSSports.com
“They would have been doing all the same things, with the addition of the option if RG 3 was in the game. That looked like the Redskins offense. I’d like to credit Kirk. He did a nice job.”
— Pat Shurmur, Browns coach
“I’ve been preparing to go all season as if I had to play knowing I’m one play away. This isn’t my first rodeo. I did play a lot of football in the Big Ten. We started slow, but you’ve got to have character to dig deep. We didn’t get spooked by a slow start.”
— Kirk Cousins, Redskins QB
“I talked to him about being cool, calm and collected and not to freak out. He did a good job of staying poised and staying confident in there.”
— Robert Griffin, Redskins QB
“Cousins said he saw it as an opportunity to show he could start and win a game in the NFL — something he felt people may have had reason to doubt after he was drafted in the fourth round to be a backup.”
— Dan Graziano, ESPN.com
“Cousins helped put the Redskins on more secure footing in the NFC playoff race, and prevented the absence of rookie star Robert Griffin III from undoing the team’s season. But Cousins knows he’s still the understudy; he said he will step aside willingly whenever Griffin’s sprained knee heals enough for him to play.”
— Mark Maske, Washington Post
“He did great. He did a lot of great things. He passed for over 300 yards. It’s his first start. He wasn’t rattled at all. He made plays with his feet and with his arm. That’s all you can really ask for.”
— Pierre Garcon, Redskins wide receiver
“He’s got a lot of confidence. You can see that in practice. I did not say anything to him. I just told the guys that we stopped ourselves a couple times with penalties. Just relax. He got out of the pocket on that quarterback keep and threw a perfect strike to Hankerson. Not a lot of guys can make that read . . . He made a perfect throw. That kind of gets you started. We needed that play at that time.”
— Mike Shanahan, Redskins coach
“I had all the faith in the world in Kirk. I never doubted him at all. Kudos to him. He did one heck of a job of going out there and playing and helping us get this win.”
— Alfred Morris, Redskins runningback
“He threw a 54-yard score in the first quarter and engineered four TD drives in the second half. Most of all, he foiled the Browns all day with bootlegs and rollouts off perfectly-executed play-action.”
— Branson Wright, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
North Carolina High School Athletic Association drops controversial football playoff pod system
The North Carolina High School Athletic Association Board of Directors completed its winter Board meeting.
One of the significant changes the Board made is the elimination of the “pod” system for NCHSAA football playoffs in 2-A, 2-AA, 3-A, 3-AA, 4-A and 4-AA. The pods will be maintained in 1-A and 1-AA because of the extreme travel that can happen in those classifications. Even though the straight seeding will increase travel in other classifications, the Board noted that the NCHSAA has increased travel allotments and has returned much more money for the schools that may help offset increased travel costs.
Among the other major items approved by the Board:
–Information was shared about the upcoming 100th anniversary celebration for the NCHSAA, which will be held during 2013-14
–Approved playoff calendar for 2013-14
–Increased length of both men’s and women’s lacrosse seasons by one week, with no increase in number of games; effective 2014
–Approved summer dead period of two weeks for all sports in terms of off season work; one week during the week of the fourth of July and one week during NCCA coaches clinic
–Approved change in basketball start date for non-football playing schools; they may start practice on October 15 and start playing games on first day of practice for football playing schools. Extra games must be completed prior to first playing date for football playing schools; those games will not count for seeding but it does give those schools additional revenue possibilities, and it actually goes back to a rule in place previously
–Recommend change in By Laws by changing time period for submitting proposed amendments; to change “no less than 20 days” before Annual Meeting to “by November 1”; this would be balloted to full membership, for 2013-14 school year, and would take a three-fourths majority of the total ballots distributed to pass
–Clarifying language in By Laws to say “Commissioner shall distribute” (instead of current language “mail”); the other adjustment would be”…three fourths of the total ballot distributed”, effective for 2013-14 academic year
–Clarifying language in current edition of Handbook relating to non-boarding parochial schools: “athletes shall not be given scholarship aid or other financial considerations with the exception of need-based aid as determined by an independent agency”; change would be for 2013-14 academic year
–Recommended moving forward with plans to renovate NCHSAA offices
–Restructured promotional points system for officials; proposal places emphasis on earning points in clinics, state rules clinics and scrimmages, reduces weight on exam (which is on line) and adds points for varsity games worked.
–Created new booking association since North State Association currently has 129 schools; North State will then have 73 schools and new agency 48
–Approved changing title from “booking agent” to “regional supervisor of officials” for those positions– reflects duties more accurately and the expectations to teach, train and supervise
— Approved fee increase for officials; no increase in football, for instance since 2006; 10% increase per game fee per sport beginning 2014-15 school year (average $6 per game), and fees remain the same until realignment year 2018-19. North Carolina is also one of few states that does not pay travel for officials.
The Board also agreed in principle on recommendations from two committees that have been operating during the fall. One set of recommendations came from the Non-Traditional Schools Committee and another from the Education and Athletics Committee. Further action will be taken at the Board meeting in May.
NCHSAA commissioner Davis Whitfield said, “We had a number of difficult issues to address and our Board worked hard to determine what was in the best interest of our membership.”
– News release
Griffin is day to day but Redskins may turn to Cousins against Browns
Redskins rookie sensation Robert Griffin III suffered a Grade 1 sprain of the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee during the team’s 31-28 overtime victory over Baltimore. He is considered day to day but some experts are saying it would be a risk for him to play at Cleveland Sunday.
“Based on my experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if [the Redskins] protect him and don’t rush him back,” said Neal ElAttrache, an orthopedic surgeon, who performed knee surgery on Tom Brady a few years ago. “[With] the way he plays — he’s not a stationary quarterback — and the fact he has his whole career ahead of him, I would be surprised if they weren’t very careful with him and let this thing heal up.”
During a news conference Monday, Coach Mike Shanahan said the Redskins will do what’s in Robert’s best interests. “Usually when you do that, it’s the team’s best interests as well,” he said. “We’re not going to put him out there if we think he’s not completely healthy and he can’t do the things that help us win.”
The Redskins, who at 7-6 are solidly in the hunt for a playoff berth, need to win out to take the NFC East title. They may have turn to fellow rookie QB Kirk Cousins who after all led the Skins from behind with a touchdown pass and two-point run to tie the game at the end of regulation.
“It’s a next-man-up type of league. Kirk did a great job, just came in and it speaks of his character,” Redskins guard Chris Chester said. “He has the natural ability to lead as well. He came in, didn’t miss a beat and called the play and got us ready to go.”