"Um, we're going to need a bigger glove compartment ... "

Killick,

The tickets have nothing to do with NCAA violations and, as pointed out by some who know Chapel Hill much better than I, they're common on campuses built with few, if any, parking lots for thousands upon thousands who visit the campus on a near-daily basis.

But the fact is that a university that always gave onlookers the impression that it took pride in doing things within the rules is letting a known rule-breaker - that is, one who actually violated basic NCAA guidelines while on that job - stay. Everyone can claim Butch Davis didn't break the rules, that it was an less-than-honest assistant coach that just made Davis look bad. That kind of stuff falls on the head coach. He is responsible for hiring John Blake, and the air that many Chapel Hill supporters had always offered is that it did things the right way and wouldn't ever go down that road.

Yet Dick Baddour doesn't have the stones to can Davis because the program seems to be aching to be a winner at just about any cost and Davis is pulling in more and more NFL-caliber recruits. Are the numerous parking citations directly on Baddour and Davis? No more than it is on any coach of a major-college program with players who commit these infractions. But does this show a program losing control? Some might say yes, while others will claim that's quite the ivory tower. A reason this thread might linger on, if you will.

It's not sinful, physically harmful, etc., but that many citations point to an attitude that entirely too many football players think they're above the system. For someone who is quick to take a lot of credit that he cleaned up things in Coral Gables before embarrassing himself in the NFL, he's not helping his reputation in Chapel Hill. Yet, after they've been found guilty of the questionable crap - parking citations are not among them - the athletic department has clearly placed winning above all else. Kind of a problem at many of the athletic factories found in Division I schools these days.

Chapel Hill isn't alone, to be certain, but for a school that used to take pride in doing things better, it's disappointing.

 

Almost definitely were consequences he just didn't find out until the end of the year or when he went to graduate. Most schools, at least to my knowledge, will hold your degree until you pay your parking tickets and tuition in full. At Ball State I had my diploma held due to a $17 dollar bill that they told me nothing about until I called a year later asking about my diploma. They couldn't even tell me what the bill was for. It wasn't a parking ticket. I got the boot during finals week and had to pay $300 to get it off right away.

 

I don't think University Police has anything to do with regular citations, which means you could get hundreds of tickets on campus and it would not impact your driving record at all.

Most schools are horrible about the way they hand tickets out. If you have a car that you used regularly in college, more than likely you got your share of tickets. I know I had to pay a couple hundred dollars in past tickets to get my diploma.

 

It's a revenue stream and most colleges treat it as such.

 

So do cities in some cases. The city my alma mater sits in set up a neighborhood parking permit requirement around our campus and writes a shitload of parking tickets as a result. They could probably put gold-plated plumbing fixtures in every precinct bathroom with the money they've raked in at this point.

 

Do most colleges get a cut of the money? At least in Rhode Island, all the money goes to the state traffic tribunal. While theoretically that could then be redistributed to higher education, the state share in Rhode Island for URI has gone down and down for most of the past decade.

 

Many schools have their own parking dept. of some sort with their own enforcement nazis. Some are handled with campus police. I'd guess schools in the middle of a larger city might handle it differently.

 

Every large college (15,000+) I have ever been to has had their own police, parking meters ... etc. Also every single friend I've talked to, rather listened to bitch about their school, says the campus maids are assholes.

 

I have a parking ticket 16 years old that I blew off because they got the state wrong on the ticket. Screw 'em. Let 'em prove they intended the right state.

 

My old roommate lives and works in New Orleans but uses his parents vacation house in Mississippi (Biloxi) as his address for his vehicle. Reason being, when he gets a parking ticket in New Orleans he doesn't have to pay because he is out of state. Sure if he gets enough of them he can be booted or towed but the only ones he gets are from cameras on the corners of intersections.

I know a lot of commuters who live in Indiana but work in Chicago and never pay parking tickets.