After seeing Thorp to WashU this morning; with this entire mess pretty much coming full circle; it reminds me of Lefty Driesell's situation at Maryland.

Obviously I am not comparing a gifted young man's life (Len Bias) to academic and athletic$$ violations. But the reactions by the school, fans, and media seem to have numerous parallels.

Just from memory, I believe their Chancellor immediately targeted Lefty as the problem, but kept him on the payroll for sometime. He then brought in a replacement with no college head coaching experience as he forced the AD to move on. Finally a couple or so years later the Chancellor's handling of the matter contributed to him moving on also. Fans tended to be supportive of Lefty while he was more targeted by the media.

Thoughts?

It was a little more than that with Lefty. One of his players, Herman Veal, was accused of raping a UM coed and Lefty (allegedly)called her up and tried to "persuade" her not to testify against Herman. There is nothing like that in the UNC situation. But you raise a good point that there are SOME similarities.

I see the Lefty-Butch comparison more in terms of 1) both could bring in good talent. 2)recruiting players of good character didn't appear to be a top priority, and 3) neither were considered particularly good game coaches. When Lefty's teams faced Dean's teams, if we were close with 5 minutes to play, we'd either find a way to win, or Lefty would find a way to lose (the Len Bias game in CH the exception).

How many freaking kids were on police blotters under Butch? Not many at all, significantly less than under Bunting. A couple kids went to some parties like, as the sports reports overwhelmingly showed, so have hundereds to thousands of other top flight players did their time in college. Its not like they were inventing something new. They got busted unlike the others because they weren't from a traditional football factory.

---------------------------------------------
--- Kenan75 wrote:

I see the Lefty-Butch comparison more in terms of 1) both could bring in good talent. 2)recruiting players of good character didn't appear to be a top priority, and 3) neither were considered particularly good game coaches. When Lefty's teams faced Dean's teams, if we were close with 5 minutes to play, we'd either find a way to win, or Lefty would find a way to lose (the Len Bias game in CH the exception).

---------------------------------------------

I look at character a bit broader than "freaking kids on police blotters". I've been very disapponted over the past couple of years concerning comments from pro scouts about Carolina guys with reputations for not playing hard all the time. Note the plurals: comments and guys...