John Wayne Gacy’s Basement

BobLee
July29/ 2012

This day was inevitable…. the days to come may bode unwell for Tar Heel sports loyalists.  The lynch mob barbarians have reached the gates of The Loudermilk Center For Recruiting & Eligibility.  That is akin to Chicago Police arriving at John Wayne Gacy’s house with shovels and pick axes.  When the backhoe arrives – Hang on Sloopy…. Sloopy hang on!

There are two categories of BCS / Final Four college sports programs – (1) Those that have their own fancy Loudermilk Center For Recruiting & Eligibility….. and (2) Those that have fancy architectural renderings for their proposed one on a wall in their booster club’s director’s office.  Decide where “your sainted school” fits in that short continuum.

No, this is not a plaintive cry that “everyone does it”.  UNC has screwed up and the debris field of that trainwreck is still being sifted thru by forensic investigators…. and amateur prosecutors on monkey boards.

If the Aurora Tragedy is a call to action for gun control reform…. isn’t the UNC Tragedy a call to action for college sports hypocrisy reform?

If you had asked me my personal opinion of elaborate academic support services for athletes prior to young Marvin learning to tweet, my answer would have been the same as it is today.

Such service & facilities are the penultimate evidence that big time FB & BkB programs are to raging hypocrisy what standing downwind tells one about an outhouse.

Cut thru the aberrant noise.  This whole mess with UNC Athletics is about FB and Men’s Bkb.

That the average SAT score of the fencing team is 1400 is irrelevant.  That the arrest rate among Chick Volleyballers is statistically zero is commendable but also irrelevant.  Using other sport(s) to dilute unfavorable statistics only fools old lady Kenan who is well beyond caring either way.

The Loudermilk Center For Recruiting & Eligibility was built “because Butch said so.”
Yes Sir, Mr Davis.  Anything else you want sir?
Howabout another $250,000 or a lava lamp for your office?

The LCfR&E had a two-fold purpose:
(1) To aid The Butcher in impressing and thereby “closing” on recruits’ mammas….. and
(2) Once recruited, keep their sweet baby boy eligible until he turns pro, blows out his knee, or uses up his eligibility.

That is why all such facilities are built in the never-ending BCS “arms race”. 
Fancier academic support centers are the “bigger Jumbotrons” of the New Millenium.

Show you how old I am.  I recall when “having a ping pong table in our locker room” was a touted reason to come to our school.  Of course, that was when having an AM/FM radio in one’s car was brag fodder.

In the late 60s, UNC FB and BkB programs involved the same number (roughly 100) of student athletes as it does today.  “Academic support” consisted of Bill Cobey and a geek-genius named Mike Malsky…. in a classroom above Woollen Gym.

Bill later became UNC AD and a US Congressman and, since he first arrived in Chapel Hill, a personal friend of yours truly.   My Friend is the only one of the three that he still “is”.

Mike Malsky (sp?) was 6’5”.  Resembled a brontosaurus.  Had a photographic mind and an IQ within sight of 200.  I have no clue whatever happened to “Mouseky”.   He probably became CFO for Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.  I recall he had a short attention span and was quite an odd duck.  I mean that in a good way.

So Bill and Mouseky ran UNC’s Athletic Academic support out of a classroom in Woollen Gym for about the cost of a new Buick.   Forty-five years later UNC Athletic Academic Support is a multi-million dollar enterprise employing over 100 people in a palatial facility worthy of a banana republic’s El Presidente.

How good were Bill & Mouseky?  Larry Miller and the late Tom Ingle managed to graduate.  That was no small accomplishment.

Yes, UNC FB & BkB back then was significantly different than today in ohhhh so many ways.   The same can be said for Big Time BCS/Final Four sports nation-wide.   E-S-P & N were just four letters of the alphabet back then.

Blah blah blah…. I‘ve heard all the jibber jabber about how college FB is a full time 24/7/12 job and the poor little dears are too tired after practicing and bench pressing to be expected to “do their homework”.  To quote MASH’s Colonel Potter – “Horse Puckey”.   Between boat courses (just sail thru’em) and taking five years to complete four, classwork loads can easily be minimized…. IF the “students” have any business being on a college campus without wearing a toolbelt…. or delivering pizza.

You want to dump the entire corrupt system and redesign it from scratch?  I’m on board to do THAT ….. all across BCS World.

Are you folks aware that Keeping College Athletes Eligible is a recognized “profession”.  There is actually a National Association of People Whose Job is Keeping College Athletes Eligible.  Betcha didn’t know that.  Didcha know that NC State’s person in charge of keeping Wuff-aletes eligible was the President of that Association a few years ago.  Yes, Really!  The cool stuff you learn here just never stops, does it?

The fundraising campaign for the Loudermilk Center For Recruiting & Eligibility / The Blue Zone mentioned all the computer labs and other academic support fluff in ALL CAPS and downplayed the VIP suites and bars and big screen doodads.   That was back in the day when Jennifer Wiley was a good little Christian girl from Charlotte without her own attorney and permanent place in UNC sports history.  We refer to those as “the good ol’ days”.

Have I mentioned that within the Loudermilk Center is The Richard “Dickie” Baddour Academy For CYA Memos & No Oversight?  I could not make this crap up if I tried.

Well, the backhoe has arrived at Loudermilk’s with The N&O’s Dan Kane driving.  He is going to be digging and digging.   If my fellow UNCers hate Dan Kane NOW, just wait.  If Dan Kane thinks whatever he finds will win him favor with WuffNation…. well that ain’t gonna happen either.

Someone asked me – is Dan Kane “doing this” to win an award?  Sure.  “Winning awards” and maybe gaining Woodward-Bernstein status is why investigative reporters do what they do.  That’s what motivated The N&O during Duke Lacrosse.  How did that work out for The N&O?  ??

Meanwhile we still await a Buford Pusser emerging from the fog looking resolute and carrying a 2×4.

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