As the fallout continues with reports that former North Carolina assistant John Blake attempted to steer players to an agent friend, his former boss now appears to be admitting publicly he regrets ever bringing him into the Tar Heel fold.
Speaking for the first time since the latest reports emerged regarding ex-associate head coach John Blake, UNC head coach Butch Davis apologized for the stain brought to the program by a person he had once taught in high school.
“Let me tell you, here’s how I feel: I am very sorry that all of this stuff has tainted the football program,” Davis said. “And as the head football coach, I take a tremendous amount of responsibility for all of the football-related issues. I’m the head guy.
“I’m sorry that it has affected the football program. But I’m going to tell you what I’m more sorry about, I’m sorry that I trusted John Blake.”
Blake allegedly lobbied Alabama defensive tackle Marcell Darius and former South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders over the phone this summer to pick Gary Wichard as their agent when they went professional. The financial relationship between Blake and Wichard has been at the heart of the NCAA’s investigation into the UNC football program.
Darius’ head coach was asked Monday about reports that Dareus had told NCAA investigators he was being steered to Wichard by Blake. The coach, it appears, wasn’t in much of a mood to get into any further pimp discussions.
“First of all, I don’t know anything about this,” Nick Saban said. “Secondly, to me, it’s something that’s been water under the bridge for several months now and is somewhere down in the Gulf of Mexico now.
“I really don’t have much care about talking about that. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the honesty, integrity and professionalism of what we do as coaches. And if somebody does something to violate that, everybody can make their judgment as to what that is.”
It’s interesting how everybody knew this guy was a snake except Butch Davis.
Something tells me that he is only sorry because he got caught
Butch is completely shocked that a guy nicknamed Black Santa would give gifts to athletes. I like butch but…..c’mon man!
[...] although it appears those players will in all likelihood be lost for the season as well. One of Davis most trusted assistant coaches “resigned”‘ in the wake of allegations made against him that he allegedly had a financial relationship [...]