The weirdness over at Wake Forest and the ‘Wakeyleaks’ scandal has claimed another victim and this time it is a member of the Army coaching staff.
The Black Knights announced today that the school has fined defensive coordinator Jay Bateman $25,000 and that he has been suspended from football-related activities for two weeks for his role in the scandal. He is said to have accepted leaked information from former Wake Forest radio announcer Tommy Elrod.
“Our commitment is to foster a culture of excellence and winning in everything we do,” said U.S. Military Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., who conducted the investigation. “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 institution and a nation. When we win, we will do so honorably, remaining true to the values and standards that define us.”
The internal investigation found that Bateman and former assistant Ray McCartney had accepted “non-public information and took actions to conceal the information and its source.”
Bateman is also being required to attend an ethics course by Army athletic director Boo Corrigan. Corrigan also apologized to both the Wake Forest administration and to the community and fans at West Point for the actions of his defensive coordinator.
This makes Army the third program so far to admit that coaches took information from the radio announcer, who was a former Demon Deacons player and assistant. Louisville and Georgia are the other two schools to take action, also going with fines and suspensions as punishment. The case of Georgia is maybe the most interesting as they fined coach Shane Beamer even though his information gathering was done while an assistant at Virginia Tech.
In reality, the fine is little more than a slap on the wrist for Bateman. This seems appropriate as he did not go looking for this information and it was merely dropped into his lap by a clearly disgruntled employee. Hopefully, this is the end of the matter from an Army perspective and if anything like this happens in the future it is immediately reported to the school in question.