Wake Forest's own Tommy Elrod caught leaking football information to other teams

[Teamramrod]

Actually, no. Elrod was a former Wake football player, former Wake grad assistant and then coach. He was much more a "Wake guy" and less a football coach who had the usual career of moving to different schools and head coaches. Those connections to Wake beyond coaching are why he was given the job as broadcast analyst and his job with the endowment management company. Those additional ties and the fact that Wake took care of him (job wise) when Clawson chose not to hire him was what made his betrayal of Wake all the worse.

We have a company that manages the endowment?!? That's why we'll never spend it!!!

 

[TheReff]

Well you can say the same about Elrod. He was able to keep his Wake ties and he still had animus. It was becoming clear Grobe and his staff thought they were entitled to keep cashing checks. This whole episode just confirmed it.

And he is still in town and coaching a team at a local Y, plus hanging around a local country club socializing. Go figure. Tells you how many in the area care about WF sports because if thus had happened in Tuscaloosa for instance, I doubt the person would stay in town or even the state!

 

[EagleDeac]

OK. That sounds great in theory on a message board. None of those guys are even close to the same level as Elrod.

We know of at least 4 assistants (Shane Beamer, Lonnie Galloway, Jay Bateman and Ray McCartney) that received information from Elrod, and there were likely others. Not one of these guys was fired by the coach that they assist under. This was a big story throughout college football and never heard a single coach say that any of these assistants should be fired. In competitive sports at the highest level, coaches look for every possible angle to get an advantage. The best coach in the NFL videotaped opposing teams practices, and broke league rules by video taping other teams game call signals (there was even an unsubstantiated report that when DC was the head coach at Bowling Green, he would direct grad assistants to sift through the trash cans of opposing schools to look for gameplan info). Again, I am not excusing the conduct of any coach that received the information that Elrod funneled to them, but it's apparent that the coaching world thinks that the appropriate sanction is a minor suspension and a fine. It's not a career ender.

What Elrod did (using his position with the university and the athletic department to gain confidential information from the WF football program, and then to seek out coaches from opposing teams to give to so they would have an advantage over the school that is paying him and the coaches that confided in him) is far worse and is a career ender, not just as football coach, but I can't imagine he could affiliate with any university every again.

So the head coaches won't fire an assistant that helped his team by cheating. Says more about the coaches than confirms your position.

 

[Pilchard]

So the head coaches won't fire an assistant that helped his team by cheating. Says more about the coaches than confirms your position.

Those head coaches (Kirby Smart UGA, Jeff Monken Army, Bobby Petrino L'ville, Paul Nichols Davidson, Bill Bellichick Patriots) cut a reasonably broad spectrum of football coaches. More likely its the nature of the profession to look for any angle to gain an advantage.

 

[ChrisL68]

And he is still in town and coaching a team at a local Y, plus hanging around a local country club socializing. Go figure. Tells you how many in the area care about WF sports because if thus had happened in Tuscaloosa for instance, I doubt the person would stay in town or even the state!

There's no way he can be hanging around town and not have many uncomfortable situations

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[coredeac]

The more I learn about this fucker the more I think the money angle needs to be explored. This is sounding like much more than simple revenge.

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[PhDeac]

Do that many people outside the Wake community know who he is or what he did?

 

[coredeac]

Do that many people outside the Wake community know who he is or what he did?

Well, we had 3 straight days of this featured on Mike and Mike. I can't say he's a household name but it certainly got the national media's attention.

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[DownEastDeac]

Stef Djordjevic says "fuck you." Don't lump Ampipe with those losers.

This photo is worthless without one of Lisa Lietzke's titties

 

[MysteryMen]

The more I learn about this fucker the more I think the money angle needs to be explored. This is sounding like much more than simple revenge.

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You think four different schools paid for this info? Occam's razor

 

[coredeac]

You think four different schools paid for this info? Occam's razor

I don't know. Do you? I think it's entirely possible coaches paid for it in the form of cash, drinks, dinner or all of the above. The guy is a complete sleaze. To pretend otherwise is really stupid.

 

[WFU1977]

McCartney is now coaching at Davidson. He has coached at 9 different colleges in his career; when assessing blame for this entire episode, the recipients of the info barely register with me. All those guys are mercenaries working on one year contracts, and if your unit has a bad year, you end up at Davidson or Stubensville Junior College or coaching at Ampipe HS. Wish that one of those guys had called out Elrod and stopped this long ago, but to me, all of the blame falls on Elrod. Can't imagine more evil behavior on the part of an university representative short of Jerry Sandusky conduct.

I always thought McCartney sucked because we recruited DL poorly under Grobe, but it seemed everyone else thought he was a "great guy". It seems that we got a bit snookered by Grobe's aw shucks good old boy style. Elrod, Galloway, and McCartney all filled with spite. Really disappointed with Grobe after the fact. Never replaced outgoing coaches with same caliber folks.

 

[PhDeac]

Well, we had 3 straight days of this featured on Mike and Mike. I can't say he's a household name but it certainly got the national media's attention.

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Name? Sure. Face? Not sure. I only remember seeing his picture in media a few times.

 

[WFU1977]

There's right and there's wrong, there's truth and there's lying, there's honor and there's cheating and these things come up a million different ways in life and just because you might be a "mercenary" doesn't exempt you or justify the choices you make. With regard to character, those guys are on the same level as Elrod.

Great post. The best I have read in a while, excluding anything from '94.

 

[PhDeac]

It may have been about gambling more than directly getting paid. We don't know. And it seems like MSD should have investigated motive but perhaps it would have cut too deep since so many people trusted Elrod.

 

[JamesSokolove]

I'm not mad at Army, but I'm disappointed.

 

[MysteryMen]

I don't know. Do you? I think it's entirely possible coaches paid for it in the form of cash, drinks, dinner or all of the above. The guy is a complete sleaze. To pretend otherwise is really stupid.

No. I think it's pretty unlikely that there was money involved, and none of the discovered conversations suggested that there it was

 

[WFU Lurker]

No. I think it's pretty unlikely that there was money involved, and none of the discovered conversations suggested that there it was

Eh, we don't really know whether or not there was evidence of that in the phone conversations, do we?

 

[BeatNavy]

FWIW, some information from Army's investigation can be found at http://blogs.hudsonvalley.com/west-...an-suspended-after-wake-forest-investigation/

(and other places too, I'm sure, but I happen to visit that blog regularly)

 

[06deacon]

“Our commitment is to foster a culture of excellence and winning in everything we do,” Superintendent Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen said in the statement. “It does not mean that we win at all costs. Rather, it means winning in accordance with our values and who we are as an institutions and a nation. When we win, we will do so honorably, remaining true to the values and standards that define us.”

Hard to square this with the subsequent slap on the wrist