Breaking News: Tarheel Football

Nothing more than follow up.

 

Just sayin'......

 

Tarheel coaching staff now part of investigation.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/09/1612668/associate-coach-said-to-be-part.html

Franchise, you were going to post this, right ?

 

Probably not. Franchise is more thorough than that. http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/footba...Xhn6ArwMJjsmWQs5nYcB?slug=ys-agentcoach080910

 

Read about it yesterday. It essential says since Blake has and agent and agents are "bad", Blake must be bad. Grasping at straws.

Watch and see... teflon.

 

You didn't read the article, did you?

 

I already said I knew about this YESTERDAY. Maybe you didn't read what I said.

 

Yes, I did. I knew yesterday as well that it was coming to print. I knew Saturday what the content of the print would be. Did you read the Yahoo article?

 

Yes I did and I made comment to it. Did you read the one I posted?

 

In a 92-minute telephone interview, Wichard repeatedly questioned why the NCAA would be looking into his relationship with Blake. Asked if Blake had ever been a Pro Tect employee, Wichard repeatedly stated that he hadn’t.

“No, no, no, no,” Wichard said. “John lived [in California] after he was the head coach at Oklahoma. He lived out in [Los Angeles]. We’ve socialized. We’ve been friends. His son is my godson. It has nothing to do with that. He hasn’t worked for me at all. I don’t get where that is coming from.”

Asked if Blake had ever been the vice president of football operations for Pro Tect, Wichard replied, “No. When he left Oklahoma, all he ever did was work out some of my veteran guys. He had his own camp out here. He was doing his own thing.”

However, Wichard’s statements about Blake never having been employed by his agency appear to contradict a Pro Tect Management brochure obtained by Yahoo! Sports.

Prepared for prospective clients, the brochure contains multiple pictures of players, including a handful who were selected as recently as the 2001 draft. The inner cover features large photos of both Wichard and Blake. Under Blake’s picture, his title is listed as “Vice President/Football Operations.” The brochure goes on to detail Blake’s role in the company with several statements.

Brochure

The inner cover of a Pro Tect Management brochure details John Blake’s role in Gary Wichard’s agency.

• “Joining forces with Wichard, his close friend of nearly 20 years, John Blake heads Pro Tect’s football operations, bringing a most distinguished resume.”

• “Blake made the move into athletic representation because he feels he can have a greater on-going positive impact on the careers of athletes than merely coaching them in college for four years.”

• A quote from Blake: “Together with Gary, I can utilize what I’ve learned and be there for our clients to help lead them down the road to NFL prominence.”

• A quote from Wichard: “John brings the knowledge of someone who has actually evaluated players as a coach at college All-Star games, the Combine and individual player workouts. He will be able to pass along firsthand to our clients his experiences so they can benefit and be better prepared to maximize their value through the draft process and beyond.”

When informed that Yahoo! Sports had a copy of the brochure, Wichard said that although Blake had worked with some of his players, the brochure was “meaningless.”

But sources say the NCAA has taken great interest in the brochure, and it may have triggered a second visit by investigators to North Carolina last week. The school has not detailed why the NCAA was on campus again, after investigators previously visited in July. The NCAA’s probe has also prompted North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall to launch an investigation into potential agent impropriety.
While sources said the NCAA is investigating whether Wichard and Austin have had improper contact, Wichard said he never spoke to Austin while he was in California working out at Proactive Sports.

“I spoke to him once,” Wichard said. “I told him to go back to school when Kentwan Balmer put him on the phone in January. I said go back to school and be [like] Ndamukong Suh and make some money. … I’m not even recruiting the kid. I’ve never said one word to him about the business other than football – go back to school. Now, if I wanted to represent him in January, I could have said ‘Come on out, guy. Let’s roll. Let’s make some money.’ That’s not who I am.”

“I never even talked to Marvin,” Wichard said. “Kentwan met me [at Proactive Sports] and I gave him shoes and I saw these two guys with him. They were out on the field. A couple of guys who played with him. That’s all. How did [Marvin Austin] get out here? Kentwan Balmer paid for him. They were hanging together. I can’t tell you exactly what went on from that standpoint, but they were all together.”
Asked if he spoke to Balmer on other occasions while both Balmer and Austin were in California, Wichard said he had not.
“No. Heck no,” Wichard said. “Heck no. [Kentwan] knows that I’m not interested in that.”

The NFLPA’s own executive director, DeMaurice Smith, promised the union would sanction offending agents heavily, and in some cases, would consider pursuing prosecution.
“I think that any agent or contract adviser who [engages in rule-breaking], and preys upon kids like that in college, is something that we’re going to deal with extremely aggressively,” Smith told ESPN radio. “Frankly, God help those agents if they’re found to be in violation, because I’ve given our [licensing body] the green light to take the most aggressive steps that they want to take.