Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 29, 1990 TAG: 9004290070
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Or much ado about a slice of a man's career profile.
A few days ago, a North Carolina sportswriter produced what he believed to be an expose. He wrote that North Carolina State's new athletic director, Todd Turner, was something of a fraud, because, it was alleged Turner had claimed to be a four-year letterman on the North Carolina golf team.
When, the Durham writer charged, no such thing occurred.
This might be considered laughable, that perhaps an individual's resume had been fudged to the point that it claimed some great athletic feat that never occurred. Surely it happens all the time. Why I can recall my prep school batting average, which I believe grew in direct proportion to the number of years I was out of school and the likelihood that my numbers could ever be challenged.
Only this was N.C. State, which does not find anything funny about athletics these days, what with all the troubles it had with former basketball coach Jim Valvano. And there were at least a few who wondered, if only momentarily, what kind of man the Wolfpack had hired as the athletic director charged with picking up the pieces left by the present NCAA probation.
ACC Commissioner Gene Corrigan was concerned. Turner professed to be embarrassed. And the whole story was rapidly growing out of proportion.
So it was that a Raleigh sportswriter, having been charged by his boss with having missed this sensitive story, discovered that it was no story at all.
Turner, who held a variety of jobs during 11 years at Virginia before going on to Connecticut as athletic director in 1987, had not falsified his athletic achievements.
I have played golf on numerous occasions with Turner, who is an excellent player. I concede I always thought he had played on the Carolina team. Todd is, you see, the kind of guy who plays from the blue tees, which, if I attempted to do the same thing, would assure me (a) a hernia and (b) a diminished ball supply.
The key to this whole mystery is that Turner did, indeed, play on the Carolina golf team. He just didn't play in matches. He didn't letter. He was a scrub, a reserve, a bench-warmer (do they do that in golf?).
And, the Raleigh reporter discovered, that's all it said on Turner's application at State. "Member of the North Carolina golf team, 1970-72." That was accurate.
There are a lot of relieved people at N.C. State. After all, they surely wouldn't have wanted it known they hired a phony. I can assure them they have not hired a duffer. By my standards, Turner's a pro.
It's all a matter of perspective.
N.C. State has enough legitimate problems. When the NCAA reviewed the case of basketball center Avie Lester, it refused the appeal to grant an extra year of eligibility.
Lester is the 6-foot-9 player who could have been a starter last season, but he was benched by a self-imposed school rule.
It was to that rule, a source said, that the NCAA Council addressed Lester's appeal.
What had happened is that Lester played in one exhibition game last November against Marathon Oil before being ruled ineligible under N.C. State's new academic regulations, put in place because of the sorry academic records during the Valvano decade.
There was confusion. Nobody was sure to whom the rules were supposed to apply, freshmen and sophomores, or the entire squad. What's more, since the rules had been announced during the '89 fall semester, there was the question of when they should be enforced.
Like many things that happened recently at N.C. State, it wasn't spelled out.
The only guy who got hurt was Lester.
NCAA rules say if a player participates in even one exhibition game, there is no chance of a redshirt year.
Lester, a fourth-year senior, could have come back a fifth season but having played in that one game, he lost that extra year of eligibility. The NCAA ruled that, by its standards, Lester was eligible to play the rest of the season he had sat out, that he had been sidelined for his final year by a school rule over which it had no authority.
You can't blame the NCAA. And it wasn't Lester's fault. N.C. State fouled up big-time, but there was no recourse. Lester lost a year of basketball that he shouldn't have lost.
How much have athletic salaries escalated? Former Virginia star [and coach] Sonny Randle was an all-pro wide receiver with St. Louis in 1970. He was paid $48,000 "and I was the highest-paid receiver in the league," Randle said the other day. "At least, from locker room talk at the Pro Bowl, I think I was the highest-paid."
Now, some star players get that much per game.
by CNB