Stand By Your Man
Being chancellor at UNC Chapel Hill ain’t easy. It’s a high profile job with constant demands and this leader has more bosses than you can imagine. There have been some great UNC chancellors, but none in recent history and few stay long enough to make a significant mark.
Holden Thorp was expected to be different. A North Carolinian who was an alumnus, had worked his way up the administration, was known to be extremely bright and a good communicator, and thought to be a good administrator who could balance the demands of parents, students, faculty, donors and alumni, especially athletic groups. Thorp is young and many thought he could be in office many years.
Then the football crisis arose. Hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy to look back and point to things Thorp could have and perhaps should have done in managing it. No one argues that his decision to fire UNC football coach, right as it may have been, was poorly timed. But should he lose his job over the firing of a football coach?
Make no mistake. What is going on today in Chapel Hill is a fight to determine who runs our university. Is it academics or the athletic boosters? That decision has already been made at many of the big-time college football or basketball schools in this country. The boosters almost always prevail.
So what’s it going to be? Which is more important? What should we, the taxpayers who provide a lot of the support for this institution, demand?
Bill Friday, North Carolina’s greatest mentor and the university’s biggest supporter, tried to warn us of the growing threat of big-time sports. He faced that demon while president of the university, cancelling the most popular sports event of his day, The Dixie Classic basketball tournament. He was right then and right now in admonishing us never to forget the primary and fundamental purpose of a university is the education of our students.
Holden Thorp stood up for academic integrity at UNC. No matter what your allegiance now is the time to stand by our man.
With all due respect to your comments and to Mr Thorp, where does the buck stop, at the football coach, the athletic director, or higher? Where did the mind set come for the actions of the athletic department? I personally think Mr Thorp must go because of all the apparent back room activity prior to the firing of Mr. Davis. What did he know and when did he know it, that famous set of questions?
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You nailed it, again. I have watched in anger and sadness as all the great schools where I have studied and/or worked have fallen to a sort of grim reaper swung by the athletic boosters, who work beneath the radar,actively undermining any administrator, alum, faculty rep, regent or board member who stands in their way. The secret war is even worse than their overt activities. While I am not a UNC alum, I fear for it, and am sad for the Thorps and Fridays who must withstand this modern version of Pickett's Charge.
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I agree entirely. Chancellor Thorp should be commended, not villified by short-sighted boosters who've lost sight of the primary reasons and responsibilities of a University.
A successful program for the student-athletes and the University is icing on the cake, but it's not the cake.
What's wrong today with a change in direction or reversal of a previously held view? Wishy-washy or prone to flip-flop? Without convictions?
The Rams Club should be getting behind the Chancellor and putting this sordid mess behind us and begin asking the question: How do we move forward collectively and what have we learned so that it doesn't happen again?
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If Holden Thorp is such a champion of academic integrity perhaps the UNC football players shouldn't be missing class to play VaTech in Blacksburg on a Thursday night nor should the basketball team miss all those classes playing away games and tournaments. Oh, that must be different since that puts huge amounts of money into the University's pocket.
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UNC-CH Should retain its current chancellor. Pro-college football cannot be allowed to take over this great university. A real university's first and predominant focus must be on academics, not athletics. JGM
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There is way too much "to do" about college sports. I personally think Mr. Thorp should stay. He at least had the integrity to do the right thing regardless of how much he knew about when. I also believe education should be about learning and not sports. Students should not be used for their physical abilities but for their minds. Universities should be about teaching knowledge without prejudice to political beliefs or benefits from athletic abilities of students.If a university cannot be sustained without the influx of dollars from corrupt sports entities then it needs to close it doors.
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I disagree with you and Thorp. I would like for the people on the governing boards to come forth and state their positions on this matter. Either he was forced to make this move or he was not honest with the public from day one. There is still nothing to come forth with anything the coach did wring.
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Thorp has stood up for academic integrity? My mouth literally dropped open when I read that.
Thorp aggressively stood by Davis until he was cornered - and told that he HAD to fire Davis.
And why was the timing so odd? Because the heat was on to release Coach Davis' personal cell phone records. UNC (Board of Trustees) HAD to get Davis off of the payroll, otherwise those phone records would be subject to open records laws.
For those not familiar, here's the summary: Davis was issued a university cell phone, but he did not use it. He used his own phone. Since he used his own phone to conduct university business, that made it subject to open records laws.
However, even though sued to turn over Davis' phone records, UNC ONLY released the university phone records which were empty and meaningless. So media officials and others were (are) suing to have the personal phone records turned over. And it was almost certain that Judge Manning would oblige, as the state laws are pretty clear that personal phones/email used for state business are subject to public scrutiny. (The UNC official handbook agrees with this position by the way.)
So the jig was up. There is information in those records that will hurt a lot more people than just Davis if it ever comes to light. Serious, hard core things will come to light, going well past concerns of NCAA regulations - with lots of powerful names involved.
So again, why the timing? UNC (and it's army of lawyers) calculated as thus: They fire Davis. Then they, by coincidence, decide NOT to keep any copies of Davis' phone records, even though the had had them in hand. So with that, no judge can order them to turn over records that they don't possess AND a judge can't compel a (now) private citizen to turn over his private phone records based on public records laws.
And thus, the records remain a dirty little secret. That is the plan anyway.
That is why you saw the odd timing - not because Thorp was "protecting academic integrity". That is why Davis was paid $2.7 M by UNC, even though it clearly had cause to terminate his contract.
We are beginning to see some small leaks in the press that show just how much Thorp and UNC prize "academic integrity". In short, it is hard to imagine there is such a thing in Chapel Hill these days. There, academics will always submit to the will of the athletics department.
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It appears that if you have the wrong opinion about UNC, NC Spin will muzzle you.
What a surprise.
Illinois only wishes that it had a political machine like we have in NC - even the favorite university is not to be questioned.
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