NC State Investigation Reveals Little Actionable Info for the NCAA
WRAL, the CBS affiliate in Raleigh, NC released the results of a three-month long investigation detailing continued contact between disassociated NC State booster Eric Leak and NC State student-athletes. The investigation found that despite being disassociated following violations involving CJ Leslie and another NC State basketball student-athlete, Leak continued to have contact with Leslie and David Amerson, then a football student-athlete for the Wolfpack.
As the article notes, the contact alone is not a violation of NCAA rules but rather a violation of the terms of Leak’s decade-long disassociation from NC State. The NCAA might be involved if the disassociation was part of the self-imposed penalties that resulted from the violation involving Leak and Leslie. But the institution has taken the necessary steps to now ban him from campus and notify the North Carolina Secretary of State about possible violations of the state’s agent legislation.
The only information that even hints at an NCAA violation involves parties at a property associated with Leak:
Neighbors of a property in Raleigh owned by Emily Carter, Leak’s wife, said they often saw Leslie coming and going – both during and after his playing days at NC State. They complained of loud parties at the townhome possibly involving NC State athletes.
When confronted with the information of Leslie sightings on his property, Leak only concedes that it is possible, but not while he was there.
Leak said Leslie had the garage code to get in.
All the NCAA can do with this information though is to reach out and try to interview Leslie and Leak. But that seems unlikely to work given the NCAA has to get cooperation from a former student-athlete and booster who have already suffered through another NCAA violation.
The investigation mostly revealed that NC State is doing rather well against impossible odds. All the institution can do to keep student-athletes away from a specific booster is to take steps to limit his access to the athletes, monitor for any contact, and educate athletes about boosters generally and Leak specifically. If NC State has done all that, then the consequences of a future violation involving Leak would not be severe for the institution.