As the flames from the UNC football dumpster fire still blaze high over Kenan Stadium, the main point that seems to be in the middle of every argument is related to the timing of the termination of head football coach, Butch Davis. In a story that was scooped by WRAL (I’m winking at you, Eddie Landreth), a group of boosters supporting the UNC football program are discussing a law suit against the school and against Holden Thorp, alleging that Thorp delayed the firing of Butch Davis just long enough to reach some threshold of fundraising for the new addition to Kenan Stadium, the Blue Zone. While Thorp certainly strikes me as the kind of criminal mastermind that could milk millions of dollars from fans of his school’s football program, a more likely theory is that those donation dollars were used to extort UNC into keeping Davis on the sidelines in Chapel Hill through this mess. In other words, “you’re not getting our money unless Butch is our coach”. But hey, a promise is a promise regardless of what kind of gun is being held to your head when you make it, right?
So when is the right time to fire Butch Davis, UNC fans? I agree that it’s certainly not a week before camp begins, and it’s certainly not the week after you’ve raised enough money to make budget on Blue Zone construction (allegedly). But I also bet you’re thinking it’s not any time before National Signing Day, right? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with stringing on a bunch of kids who will choose UNC while being told “Butch is our guy” and “This will all be over in a few weeks”. But string on boosters? Are you crazy?
This lawsuit talk has nothing to do with timing, or doing the right thing. This is a case of Thorp getting “their guy”, so now they’re going after Thorp. Classic Capulet, Montague beef. There’s even a population of Tarheel nation who actually believe that if these boosters get to Thorp, it will clear the way for the return of Butch Davis. And it’s certainly not lost on me that a very influential group of Tarheel boosters is now demanding transparency when the exact same group was sitting back just a few short weeks ago perfectly content with their school’s tight-lipped approach to information requests. Let’s blow the doors off of this thing! Oh wait, we only want these last two doors opened, let’s leave those others closed and just pretend they’re not there, right?
At this point, it’s pretty clear that Thorp isn’t going to survive this. At the very least, this all happened on his watch, and that’s enough, in my opinion, to remove him as Chancellor. I also believe the Board of Trustees has seen a shift from Buddy Garrity sitting at the head of the table to someone who sees the booster culture as being part of the problem, which means I believe the boosters are hurting their own cause with this lawsuit. Honestly, which is more embarrassing for a University, firing their football coach because PackPride broke a story about academic fraud? Or having a bunch of football fat-cats run off your chancellor for firing their dirty football coach?
This is not going to end well for UNC. Especially not when the academic faction, the football boosters, the chancellor, the football coach, the NCAA and the media all have their guns drawn like some exaggerated mexican standoff from a Tarantino film. It will be fun to see who’s left standing to limp off into the sunset dragging behind a trail of blood from the massacre as the ‘Ozymandias Zone’ is left to crumble.
