UNC back in the news in a bad way

[Russ Smith]

This is just getting crazy. Seems back in 2008 Tyler Hansbroughs mom decided to move from Miss. to NC to see her son play his senior year. So she moved, and got a job, at UNC, fundraising in the school of Dentistry for 95K a year. Local papers broke the story(first I saw of it was last night) and apparently everyone agreed it was legit, UNC athletics played no role in her getting the job, she wasn't hired until Dec no problem.

She was divorced and started dating another guy at UNC who was also in fundraising. 2012 someone doing an internal audit discovers some interesting trips and does the math and realizes Tami Hansbrough and her boyfriend were using UNC money to travel around watching her other son Ben play for Notre Dame his senior year! They confronted the boyfriend who offered his resignation. Tami is on administrative leave.

Further investigation reveals she apparently did the same thing Tyler's senior year, used UNC money to follow him around on the road. UNC has determined those trips were "appropriate" because there would have been lots of UNC fans at the games so she could have reasonably been fundraising.

A cynic would suggest kid is probably going to turn pro when someone offers to get his mom a job that would pay her to follow him around as a senior in college. Kid comes back to school, they delay job offer so she starts in December for appearances.

Then some pencil pusher auditor exposes the whole thing. UNC says it's a school matter not related to athletics at all.

 

[Dback Jon]

UNC and Duke are both very dirty. They pretend to run clean programs, but are not

 

[Russ Smith]

Story looking even worse. The guy she was dating, last name Kupec, made 350K a year, yet was using UNC money to pay for these trips. he got divorced in 09 when his wife filed citing marital misconduct, gee I wonder if dating Tyler's mom had anything to do with that?

Sometime in 2010 Kupec created a fund raising position on his staff and tried to hire Tami Hansbrough. The Chancellor of the school, Holden Thorp, blocked the hiring saying it violated school policy on nepotism since he knew the 2 were dating. Note, Kupec never hired another person for that position. Another department then suddenly had an opening for a fundraiser and voila, after a job search Tami Hansbrough is hired. She then starts travelling around following son Ben's games, and who is travelling with her, Kupec.

So clearly he created the position to hire his GF, when the chancellor blocked it he simply dropped the position and they got someone else to create a position to hire her. So in 10 there is reason for the Chancellor of the school to wonder if there's an issue with Kupec and Tami yet it takes 2 more years and an internal audit before someone figured it out?

 

[Southpaw]

Kupec was employed by the University for more than 20 years and served as vice chancellor for advancement for 16 years. From July 1989 to June 1995, as associate vice chancellor for development, Kupec led campus fundraising during the Bicentennial Campaign, which ultimately raised $440 million. In 1996, under then-Chancellor Michael Hooker ’69, Kupec was named to a newly created position of vice chancellor for University advancement, which manages development and University relations. In that role, Kupec directed the Carolina First Campaign, which raised $2.38 billion — $500 million more than its original goal.

Maybe the UNC owes him a bonus.

 

[Russ Smith]

Maybe the UNC owes him a bonus.

Yep that's the amazing thing he was by all accounts very good at his job, but let his affair with Tami Hansbrough completely corrupt him.

There's a story out today that says the documents UNC released showed that there was a trip to Memphis in 09, when Tyler was playing there, that the accountants flagged as "questionable". They eventually agreed to accept Tami's explanation for the trip and her assertion she was fundraising because another person on the trip confirmed her story.That other person was.... Kupec!

So she used the guy she was dating as confirmation and the UNC crack investigative team cleared her. That's apparently what Chancellor Thorp(who's now resigning in June) meant when he said they decided those trips to watch Tyler were appropriate but the ones to watch Ben weren't.

Basically it sounds like someone figured out if they deem those trips inappropriate to watch Tyler, suddenly there's an NCAA issue.