The N&O yesterday blew the whistle on a topic that we’ve kicked around for years on Meck Deck: the NC High School Athletic Association and its piles of cash.
The paper reported two wrinkles I was not aware of — that NCHSAA director Charlie Adams is the highest paid prep sports czar in the country at $190K a year and that the association with almost $12m. in the bank was dragging its feet on spending $322,000 for defibrillators for high schools across the state. Once the N&O asked why that was, the NCHSAA magically reversed course and said it would buy the devices ASAP.
It should be obvious that this is a rogue organization without any meaningful oversight from any quarter.
Bonus Observation: Maybe there would not be so many layoffs coming at the Uptown paper if reporters would dare to go after the powerful insiders more often. I’ve begged the Observer to go after the NCHSAA with a skeptical eye. Last September I emailed Langston Wertz after a fawning interview with Charlie Adams:
Please test Adams’ thesis that NC football playoffs are not pay-to-play this fall. I GUARANTEE some team hosting a 3-8 team is gonna lose money putting that game on — fixed costs like lights, security, painting the field, etc. cannot be recouped when a tiny gate is split with Adams’ HQ.
Nothing.
In fact, I went back and checked my old copy of Outlook to find that I emailed Wertz in November 2004 about schools losing money to the NCHSAA on football playoff games. I said it would be nice to hear from principals on this topic and Wertz came back with essentially the NCHSAA party-line that the organization distributes money back to schools.
