Butch Davis explains ‘you should have went to Harvard’ comment

Amidst a widespread academic scandal at North Carolina, the words of a former head coach of the Tar Heels football program created a little bit of a ripple earlier this week.

In a call to a Greensboro, NC, radio station Monday, a man claiming to be ex-UNC defensive tackle Tydreke Powell stated that former Tar Heel head coach Butch Davis “came into a meeting one day and he said, ‘If y’all came here for an education, you should have went to Harvard.’”

That, of course, implied that Davis didn’t really give two rips about academics and/or education, which doesn’t exactly sit well in the midst of an academic situation that both heavily involves the football program and, in part, happened on Davis’ watch. Davis, who was fired as UNC’s head coach just prior to the 2011 season, talked to the online-version of Time magazine to give his side of the story as it relates to Powell’s claims.

While Davis acknowledges making the “Harvard” statement attributed to him by the former player, he claims that Powell didn’t get the point he was trying to make. From Time‘s website:

“I said that, OK, in the context that I made that statement one time, and it was a poorly phrased context, but I said it half comical and half in the form of ‘stop complaining,’” Davis says. “Your days are long. It’s a long, hard day. You’ve got to practice, you’ve got to study, you’ve got to go to class, you’ve got to take notes, you’ve got to do extra work. If you wanted to just get an education period, and you didn’t want to play in a high-profile football program, and you didn’t want to chance to go to the NFL, you should have gone to Harvard. It was totally kind of halfway joking and halfway whimsical, comical, and halfway saying ‘hey guys, I hear you. I know being a student-athlete in a Division I major college program in any sport is harder than just being a student.’ If you just wanted to be a student, you should have gone to Harvard, you know?”

I don’t know whether Davis’ explanation helps or hurts his image. What I do know is the fact that Davis being jobless coaching-wise for four straight seasons is one of the more bizarre and head-scratching aspects of this wide-ranging scandal.