UCF Scandal

Iliana Limon |Sentinel Staff Writer

July 21, 2008

 

UCF Coach George O’Leary declined to answer questions from the Orlando Sentinel and barred his players from granting interviews with the newspaper during Conference USA media day on Sunday.

He also refused to speak with other reporters if a representative from the Sentinel was present at the UCF table during the only session for print reporters at media day.

O’Leary said last week he would not speak with the Sentinel until the newspaper corrected errors in its coverage of Ereck Plancher’s death.

The newspaper has asked UCF officials to outline the mistakes, but the school has declined to discuss the errors in detail.

Conference USA officials and Ryan Powell, the media relations representative for the UCF football team, attempted to mediate the situation and allow a reporter to sit at the UCF table without asking questions, but O’Leary would not change his stance.

“We are sensitive to the needs of the Orlando Sentinel to cover the University of Central Florida, and we’re also sensitive to the passion Coach O’Leary brings to his job,” Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky said. “It’s our hope that this issue can be resolved so that Central Florida fans can enjoy coverage of their team throughout the football season.”

Orlando Sentinel

What gives with this guy and this school?  A player dies and the head coach pouts about errors in the reporting but refuses to identify the errors?  Sounds like a smokescreen to me.  There is too much that does not add up.

and do just one search to find

Former UCF Football Star Sentenced To 5 Years For Armed Robbery

Charles Lee was stone-faced Thursday as he pled no contest to the robbery charge as part of a negotiated settlement with the state.

Lee was arrested December 5, 2007, a week after he held up two students at Pegasus Landing, an off-campus student housing complex near UCF. Lee stole more than $11,000 in cash from his victims at gunpoint.

Blah, blah, blah…read more on the UCF football player by visiting WFTV.com

This is too sick EVEN for our staff.

I hope you UCF people find the right vehicle for repentance.

Disgusting.

Friday, May 02, 2008 12:21:45 AM

ORLANDO — News 13 has learned the University of Central Florida fired baseball coach Jay Bergman because of allegegations of harassment.

Bergman has been coaching the Knights for more than 25 years.

The school said he’s being fired because of a personnel issue. But sources close to the school told News 13 it was due to allegations of harassment from a fellow worker in the athletic department.

Bergman did not accompany the team to New Orleans for its most recent round of games.

The school only released a short statement saying a national search will begin for his replacement.

The Knights have 10 games left during this year’s regular season.

Link to story at 13 News

---

Man, it just keep getting funnier over there at UCF. Scandal karma killin’ you guys.

From Mike Bianchi’s Orlando Sentinel column:

Short stuff: UCF Coach George O’Leary continues to take shots at the Sentinel for our reporting on the Ereck Plancher story. O’Leary spoke to a booster club in Brevard County Thursday night and questioned the motives and even the authenticity of the four football players who spoke anonymously to the Sentinel in the aftermath of Plancher’s death.

“I don’t want to dignify any comments by responding to unnamed sources,” O’Leary told Florida Today columnist Peter Kerasotis. “Who knows who they were, or if they were even players?”

We have now reached the irony of all ironies: George O’Leary accusing somebody else of making stuff up. . . .

no further comment necessary….

Yes, it’s been too much on the readers, I see the complaints. We need to cover more than just current scandals and controversies. While I take this Plancher situation very seriously, we can take a respite from it and look at other great moments in UCF history. Without further ado, we knock the dust off the archives and hopefully lighten the mood around here a bit:

From the archives (12/10/05):

Charges filed against former UCF quarterback Culpepper

Jeff Baenen

MINNEAPOLIS - Quarterback Daunte Culpepper and three Minnesota Vikings teammates were charged Thursday with indecent, lewd and disorderly conduct for participating in a bawdy boat party that drew national attention.

Culpepper, a former star quarterback at UCF who is currently on injured reserve, Bryant McKinnie, Fred Smoot and Moe Williams each were charged with three misdemeanors for their behavior aboard a boat on Lake Minnetonka, according to court papers.

If convicted, each player faces up to a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine for each count.

“The night of the incident, there was no shortage of inappropriate behavior on both boats,” Hennepin County Sheriff Pat McGowan said.

Prosecutor Steve Tallen charged the players based on an investigation by McGowan’s office, which reviewed allegations of lewd and drunken behavior aboard two craft chartered for the outing on Oct. 6.

Crew members complained that some people took off their clothes and engaged in public sex acts during the cruise, according to Stephen Doyle, an attorney representing the boats’ owners, Al & Alma’s Supper Club and Charter Cruises in Mound, Minn.

…Read the entire account at the Central Florida Future.

According to reports on local Orlando television WFTV.com’s site, slated starting running back Phillip Smith has left the UCF Football Program:

First Running Back Kevin Smith leaves school early to head to the NFL. Now, it looks like the man called upon to replace him in the backfield might not be around either. Sources close to the UCF football program tell Channel 9, Phillip Smith is no longer with the team, adding they were not sure if he quit or was kicked off. Phillip Smith was UCF’s 2nd leading rusher last season and was expected to be the starter in 2008, but a leg injury had kept him out of action since the 2nd week of spring practice. When asked if Smith was still on the team, a UCF spokesman told Channel 9 he has no information to confim or deny our report.

With information from UCF at a premium these days as the athletic administration continues a “lock-down” on the media, we may not know for several days, if ever, the reason for Smith’s departure. Smith’s departure makes it two Knights to leave the program after the death of Ereck Plancher and the subsequent media firestorm over UCF’s handling of the death itself.

The Orlando Sentinel UCF beat writer Kyle Hightower published an open letter to UCF fans in which he attempted to explain the media responsibility and interest in the untimely death of UCF football player Ereck Plancher. This excerpt alone explains the reason Hightower and his paper have not rested on this story:

“Bottom line, players described a version of events that was different from what George O’Leary and Keith Tribble told the media. We NEVER have said which account is right/wrong or tried to blame ANYONE in anything we have written. “

Therein lies the problem. A coach with limited credibility when it comes to telling the truth describes a situation far differently than the players. The players’ description likely puts UCF in NCAA violation and O’Leary a knowing participant in the eventual collapse of Plancher.

Lying on one’s resume is one thing. Lying at the scene of a young man’s death is fully another. It remains to be seen if that is the case - and the Sentinel is the major party pursuing the truth, or at least trying to reconcile the two sides.

UCF hired O’Leary knowing the faults he’d presented in the past from lying to physically abusing his players. The administration to this day defends that decision and allegedly is crawling in bed right along side their hire, O’Leary.

Kudos to the Orlando Sentinel for seeking the truth, regardless of the maelstrom of insults and profanity being tossed their way by UCF fans.

Plancher story has not ended

Sports columnist Pete Kerasotis

COCOA — Anything written right now about Ereck Plancher needs ellipses dots.

You know what I mean. Those three little dots . . . that indicate a sentence, or a story, is not complete.

This story is not complete. It might never be. The only thing we know for sure is that Ereck Plancher is dead.

Goodness, we don’t even have the autopsy report yet. How can you possibly put a period at the end of a sentence when we still don’t know why or how Ereck Plancher died?

What we do know is that the UCF football player collapsed March 18 during an offseason, on-campus workout, and was pronounced dead about an hour later at Florida Hospital East.

When he spoke to local boosters Thursday night, UCF head coach George O’Leary referred to it as “the incident.” It seemed odd, how O’Leary chose not to say Ereck Plancher’s name, but rather call the player’s death “the incident.”

…

What we do know, though, is that UCF changed its initial depiction of the workout, doubling its duration from the originally stated 10 minutes and 26 seconds, to 20 minutes.

There’s also criticism that in its internal investigation, UCF didn’t interview any of its players. I’ve been told from university spokespeople that this is protocol, and that they also wanted to honor the players’ grieving process.

But wouldn’t you want to be the ones interviewing your players about a teammate’s death, rather than the local newspaper?

Listen, it isn’t uncommon for authorities to tactfully interview grieving family and friends about a death that needs explanation. They do it all the time. UCF should’ve done that, too, and done it right away. They didn’t.

Now it is a month to the day later, and when I asked UCF spokesperson Grant Heston Thursday afternoon exactly how many players the university had interviewed to try to determine what happened, he said he thought there was one player.

One?

“I’ll get back with you on that,” he said.

Later, he sent me an e-mail telling me he was still trying to find that information. At 9:22 p.m., he sent another e-mail telling me he was still “looking into” my question.

I still don’t have an answer.

“I’m confident,” O’Leary said, “that in the long run things will come out that will prove what I said to be true.”

You know what that means?

To be continued . . .

Read the full story at FloridaToday.com

The Naples News has published an editorial calling on a full investigation into the death of Ereck Plancher. The paper’s editorial suggests perhaps the NCAA or even Florida’s Governor - Charlie Crist - may need to get involved.

There is too much at stake and one young man has died. As more time passes, recollections and will become diluted. UCF should be pressing forward and providing objective answers. The Naples News agrees:

Editorial: Football star’s death

UCF, or higher authority, must settle discrepancies

6:29 p.m., Monday, April 14, 2008

Until now, last month’s death of former Lely High School football star Ereck Plancher, 19, while practicing at the University of Central Florida, has been regarded as one of those tragedies that too often are part of life. A strong young person with a bright future is suddenly and unexpectedly snatched from our midst.

But now, Plancher’s death takes on another perspective, that of a tragedy that might have been avoided.

Four teammates — speaking under condition of anonymity — tell the Orlando Sentinel newspaper that Plancher was struggling to keep up with the rigor of the team’s workout that day and he was being scolded by the coach. He denies cursing at Plancher, but recalled telling people around him, “He’s better than that,” the Sentinel says.

In football there is nothing wrong with a hard workout. But why the differing stories? UCF officials call the workout routine while the interviewed players call it unusually tough, with other players vomiting and Plancher showing the most signs of distress.

There are NCAA rules for how strenuous springtime workouts can be, and UCF says the ill-fated March 18 indoor, air-conditioned session was within bounds.

Plancher’s loved ones say they want the truth. We all want to make sure of that. UCF also needs to know everything about what happened. The safety of future players and the integrity of its athletic program are at stake.

If the university is unable to conduct a timely and objective investigation, then someone else — such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, perhaps — ought to be recruited.

Gov. Charlie Crist, by virtue of being the No. 1 elected official in a state where UCF is a prominent member of the public university system, ought to be in the wings ready to step in, if needed.

Nothing that anyone can do can bring back Ereck Plancher. Yet, the new comments from his teammates are serious. His legacy merits answers.

NaplesNews.com