At a news conference Monday, North Carolina football head coach Butch Davis said he would have fired associate head coach John Blake had he known Blake had improper relations with an agent.
“I can promise you and tell you that if we would have ever known that any of these allegations were absolutely true, Coach Blake would have been dismissed — I would have fired him.”
The statement comes just a day after a Yahoo Sports story reported that Blake had recommended agent and friend Gary Wichard to Alabama defensive lineman Marcell Dareus and former South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders.
Such an act is considered unethical conduct by NCAA by law 10.1, which states that a coach cannot facilitate or arrange a “meeting between a student-athlete and an agent.”
Blake resigned from his position with the football team last month.
“I am very sorry that all of this stuff has tainted the football program and as the head football coach, I take a tremendous amount of responsibility for all of the football-related issues,” Davis said.
“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.”
The associate head coach first came into contact with Dareus when Blake was recruiting the Huffman High (Ala.) star for UNC, according to Yahoo Sports. The story also reported that the two kept in contact after Dareus chose Alabama.
Davis said he has warned his coaching staff about linking players to agents and added that it was unusual for a coach to stay in contact with a player once that player had chosen to attend school elsewhere.
