RALEIGH, N.C. — It was a regularly scheduled Board of Governors' meeting in a nondescript state building in nearby Chapel Hill.
It was Item 9 on the agenda, noted only as, "President's Report."
It was the reason that an otherwise barren meeting room was jammed with reporters and the proceedings were being covered live statewide on radio and television.
It was the release of an internal report detailing results of a six-month investigation into alleged corruption in the North Carolina State basketball program. And it was a bombshell.
The report was delivered last Friday by C. D. Spangler, the president of the Board of Governors of the 16-school University of North Carolina system. Spangler found widespread academic abuse in the basketball program, saying, "The rules have been manipulated in order to serve one overriding purpose: Keep the players eligible."
Spangler was sharply critical of both the system that fostered the abuse, and the coaches and administrators who engineered it. As a result of the report, Wolfpack Coach Jim Valvano must quit as athletic director by Dec. 31. The dual role was judged to be a conflict of interest.
Spangler also suggested reforms in an academic oversight system that appeared ripe for abuse and manipulation. He suggested a mandatory drug-testing program to replace the school's voluntary, non-punitive program, in which few athletes had participated.
He noted that some players had sold complimentary tickets and traded their basketball shoes for goods at local stores. Players received a discount at a local restaurant and were given special payment terms at a Raleigh jewelry store.
It was clear from the report that Chancellor Bruce Poulton, who had resigned earlier in the week, had been a willing enabler of Valvano and others in athletics who sought to wrest control of the players' academic standing. The report, which stopped short of fixing blame on any one individual, nevertheless showed a basketball program that held the academic performances of its athletes in low regard.
Samuel H. Poole, who headed the investigating commission, complained during the probe that Valvano and some of his players were not fully cooperating. In return, the chancellor complained that the commission was improperly conducting "a criminal investigation."
Spangler and others were clearly concerned that the scandal had stained the integrity of the entire North Carolina University system.
"Historically, it has been, it is, and will continue to be a constant struggle to maintain athletic integrity," Spangler said. "Athletics and academics are in tension by the nature of their time demands, but athletics and academics cannot be allowed to be in conflict in a great university."
The Book That Loosed a Thousand Lips
Peter Golenbock has written nine books, most about professional baseball. His collaboration with relief pitcher Sparky Lyle resulted in "The Bronx Zoo," a best-selling book about the New York Yankees' 1978 championship season.
His new book, "Personal Fouls," has been the source of more than a year's worth of speculation and controversy. The book's subtitle promises information about the broken promises and broken dreams at North Carolina State. But months before the book was published, some of its allegations were widely known.
Golenbock says he doesn't know how an advance copy of the book's dust jacket--promoting allegations in the book--was released to some bookstores in North Carolina months before the book was to have been published by Simon and Schuster. Those dust-cover proofs began a controversy that still rages. Not only was a book being judged by its cover, but Valvano and the entire university as well.
In the resulting hubbub, Simon and Schuster canceled its plans to publish the book. Not until "Personal Fouls" was actually published, six months later and by another publisher, were the specific allegations made public.
Yet, based on that proposed dust jacket alone, the University system launched its internal investigation--using State Bureau of Investigation officers. Results of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.'s investigation are expected by November.
Among other things alleged in the book:
--A player dumped the Florida game in the 1987 NCAA tournament because he wished to avoid drug testing that winning teams were subject to.
--Players were given masking drugs to ensure that they would pass mandatory NCAA tests.
--At least one star player had a habit of playing while under the influence of cocaine.
--Star players received lavish gifts of jewelry and even automobiles.
--Coaches steered players into classes where sympathetic professors would take care of them.
--Valvano and his coaching staff cared only for keeping players eligible, not educating, or graduating, them.
--There was racial dissension among the players and discipline was nonexistent.
Few of the more serious allegations made in the book were found credible by the university's investigation.
