Valvano Criticism Expands : College basketball: Editorials, faculty seek ouster of N.C. State coach in wake of alleged point-shaving incidents.
As calls for Jim Valvano’s resignation resonated throughout North Carolina Friday, the embattled North Carolina State basketball coach continued to distance himself from the point-shaving allegations swirling around his program.
He also said he would give up his job if school officials thought it best.
“I’m as angry as I’ve ever been in my life,” Valvano told reporters at Raleigh-Durham International Airport after a flight from New York. “I am not implicated in any way in any violations from the start. I think it’s time some of the blame be put where it belongs, on the people involved.”
The alleged point-shaving scheme is the latest--and certainly heaviest--shoe to drop on Valvano’s program in a year of problems. Citing those problems, several newspapers in North Carolina Friday called for his ouster, as did a petition circulated among N.C. State faculty.
Valvano said he wants to sit down with university officials as soon as possible. “I am perfectly ready to accept what the university thinks is best,” he said.
Asked if he would consider waiving a clause in his contract that guarantees him $500,000 if he is terminated without appropriate cause, Valvano said: “Whatever is done is going to be fair and equitable to all parties. I consider the university my friend.”
Still, Valvano was combative, saying those who suggest a coach should know if players are shaving points are “people who have never been in that position.”
ABC News, citing unidentified sources, reported Wednesday that as many as four N.C. State players, including star forward Charles Shackleford, conspired to hold down the scores of four games in return for cash payments from a New Jersey contractor during the 1987-88 season.
According to Shackleford’s lawyer and agent, Sal DiFazio of Bridgewater, N.J., Shackleford has never shaved points, although he has admitted taking $65,000 from two men--one of whom was identified by ABC as the key figure in the point-shaving scheme--while playing for the Wolfpack.
Shackleford is with the New Jersey Nets in the NBA and has not commented publicly on the allegations.
North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation acknowledged Thursday that its preliminary look into the point-shaving scheme has become a full investigation.
Bureau officials said the investigation was initiated at the request of Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby.
The ABC report said one of the games in question is N.C. State’s four-point victory over Wake Forest on March 6, 1988. The Wolfpack had been favored to win the game by 16 points, and the player Shackleford was guarding, Ralph Kitley, scored a career-high 22 points. Kitley had been averaging seven points that season.
Bill Dowdy, the chief investigator for the State Bureau of Investigation, said the investigation probably will take “a pretty long time.” He added: “Certainly, we’re aware that certain individuals will not be cooperating with us.”
According to ABC, the point-shaving scheme was “masterminded” by Robert Kramer of Denville, N.J.
Kramer, a native of North Carolina, has admitted lending Shackleford $20,000 over about eight months in 1988. But Kramer has denied any involvement in a point-shaving scheme, saying the money was to keep Shackleford out of the clutches of a sports agent who was pressuring him to leave school early for the NBA.
“I’m from North Carolina,” Kramer was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “and my home is very close to Charles’ home. I’m a very big ACC fan, particularly North Carolina State. After I befriended Charles, it came to my attention that he had taken money from an agent to support himself and his family. I interceded when Charles told me he was thinking about quitting school after the basketball season.”
The agent has been identified as Larry Gillman of Ridgefield, Conn., a former head basketball coach at East Carolina University.
ABC, quoting unidentified law enforcement authorities working on the N.C. State case, reported Friday that the investigation is focusing on Western Union cash transfers. In March of 1988, ABC reported, two transfers for $400 each were sent from a pharmacy in Orange, N.J., to Shackleford. Although the transfers identified the sender’s name as George Shackleford, ABC reported that the phone numbers on the transfers trace to a phone paging device assigned to the construction company owned by Kramer.
According to ABC, the law enforcement authorities are wondering why, if Kramer was simply trying to help Shackleford deal with Gillman, the money was sent under a fake name.
Valvano was removed as N.C. State athletic director but allowed to continue as coach last year after evidence of academic irregularities and NCAA rules violations surfaced. The NCAA placed his program on two years’ probation for violations that included the sale of complimentary tickets and athletic shoes by Wolfpack players. Valvano said he had no knowledge of the violations.
With the point-shaving allegations coming to light, however, the pressure on Valvano to leave N.C. State has intensified.
The Charlotte Observer editorialized: “For the sake of a great sport and a great institution, Jim Valvano has to go. Now.”
Said the Winston-Salem Journal: “For Coach Jim Valvano, it’s only a matter of time. The game is over.”
But Larry K. Monteith, N.C. State’s acting chancellor, has said he would not suggest that any action be taken against Valvano until a review of the basketball program, begun about a year ago, is completed.
“Everything is relevant to that review,” Monteith said Thursday. “Obviously, I don’t have the circumstances at the moment to ask him to step down. We will make no judgment until the allegations have been corroborated.”
A Milan sports newspaper, Gazzetta dello Sport, reported that Valvano is negotiating to become the coach of Phillips Milan of the Italian Basketball League. Tony Cappellari, the team’s general manager, called the report “groundless.”
Valvano, in his airport talk with reporters Friday, said: “Dealing in the present is what my intention is, and there’s no need to speculate about the future.”
Shackleford must deal with another matter--his arrest Thursday night in Orange, N.J., on a charge of possession of a small amount of marijuana.