Notre Dame joining ACC..

..With the exception of football, although the Irish will play five games against ACC opponents….

Re: Dookie Bling Bling and UNC soap opera

Headline of the day from Jay Schalin at the Locker Room, on the controversy surrounding the Duke and UNC hoops programs:

Dookie Bling-Bling No-No Needs Closer Lookie-Lookie, But Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge More Likely

Schalin notes “it will be much more difficult to uncover any corruption at Duke, which is private, than at public UNC, which is subject to freedom of information regulations.” But there’s also the NCAA. On that front, the N&R’s Ed Hardin forecasts doom and gloom:

The story involving (Tami) Hansbrough and former UNC quarterback Matt Kupec already includes divorce and marital misconduct, audits, nepotism, clandestine travel arrangements and all the juicy gossip of a soap opera, much of it playing out while UNC was on its way to the 2009 national title.

..This is nothing short of a crisis. At the very least, it’s a public-relations catastrophe. But already we know this isn’t some nightmare. It’s real. North Carolina’s football program has been dragged down by the NCAA, and it might not be over.

What if this turns out badly for Duke? What if there is no explanation of how a college athlete came up with $30,000 in cash right after a Duke road trip? What if the hiring of Tyler Hansbrough’s mom turns out to be an NCAA violation? What if the academic scandal in Chapel Hill seeps into its basketball past? What if national titles, the sacraments that drive the Duke-Carolina religion, are vacated?

Does it survive? Does Duke-Carolina survive?

No. It doesn’t.

Turns out Tami Hansborough had legal issues on the marital front before coming to UNC.

Jeff Gauger lives

First post in over a month from the N&R editor. Looked over the summer like he was going to be a strong presence in the local blogosphere.

PART’s perfect storm..

As High Point Mayor and PART chair Becky Smothers put it last week:

“In some respects, we have encountered the perfect storm,” Smothers told the board in her attempt to describe what PART is now facing.

Smothers was referring to Sebastian Junger’s book about the crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail, and it should be noted that the Andrea Gail went down and all of its crew members perished, and, in a nutshell, the special meeting was called because Smothers and the rest of the PART board wanted to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to a public agency that provides regional transportation for a 10-county area in central North Carolina.

This morning the N&R editorializes:

The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation is in trouble. It has cut back its routes, its executive director abruptly retired, and the company that provides buses and drivers is bankrupt. Can this vehicle be saved?

…PART’s original intent was not only to offer a viable travel alternative but to take a significant share of private vehicle traffic off Triad highways, reducing overall fuel consumption and cutting air pollution. That really hasn’t happened. The service has never become that popular. But the day will come when mass transit will be seen more widely as a necessity, as it is for many riders now. It’s important to keep the wheels on in the meantime.

Can’t say I agree with the view that the ‘day will come when mass transit will be seen more widely as a necessity.’ That’s been the vision for 15-plus years now, and still you see empty PART buses rolling up and down the road.

As for the three options to keep PART running, I’d say the best shot is they resolve the rate issue with TMS. The other option is the “patchwork model that uses local municipal transit providers.” I don’t ever see PART bringing operations in-house. The money’s just not there, and won’t be for a while.