… BUT IT’S TIME TO FIX A FEW THINGS
We’ve struggled for several weeks regarding how we should address this issue. In fact there have been many times over the last few weeks that we’ve been literally consumed determining the best way to handle it.
This probably isn’t the best way … but here goes:
For those of you who don’t know it, our founding editor Will Folks (a.k.a. Sic Willie) has been attending University of South Carolina football games since he was in the womb. He has two degrees from USC, was a former sports columnist for the student newspaper (The Gamecock), and worked in the school’s sports information office for three years. Additionally his father has taught at USC for the last forty-three years – helping build the best international business program in the entire nation.
This website bleeds garnet, in other words … from way back.
Anyway … it goes without saying that FITS has also been harshly critical of the current direction USC is taking under president Harris Pastides. Rather than focusing on its core mission of educating students, the school has been gambling with our tax dollars on all sorts of speculative “economic development” nonsense. As a result of these failed boondoggles tuition has gone up … but the school’s national ranking has gone down.
And as long as USC’s leaders continue to believe it is their job to “create jobs,” expect those unfortunate trend lines to continue.
Athletically, there hadn’t been very much to crow about at USC either … at least not until recently. In fact less than three years ago we can recall freezing our buttocks off in a ghetto-fied football stadium in Birmingham, Alabama – watching our beloved Gamecocks get manhandled by a friggin’ Big East opponent (call it the Todd Ellis curse). At the conclusion of that game head coach Steve Spurrier owned a less-than-impressive 35-28 overall record at USC – including an 18-22 mark against the SEC.
Things were stuck in neutral …
Since then, however, there has been a resurgence. Not only has USC’s baseball team appeared in three straight College World Series finals (winning two of them), but Gamecock football has also caught fire. Since that frigid day in Birmingham, Spurrier’s teams have gone 26-8 – including a 10-0 mark against Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Clemson. They’ve also been ranked in the Top Ten for a record ten consecutive weeks.
Suddenly it’s cool to be a Gamecock fan again.
Given this unprecedented level of sustained athletic success, it absolutely baffles us that several members of the USC football team seem perfectly willing to throw it all away – putting their teammates, coaches, families and fans in terribly untenable positions in the process.
What (and who) are we talking about, exactly?
Well, over the course of the last few weeks we’ve discovered that several prominent members of the USC football team are habitually using – and routinely dealing – all manner of illegal drugs (including marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and various prescription medications).
We’ve also learned that law enforcement is aware of these activities thanks to a recent cocaine bust involving the dealer to a former South Carolina player (a prominent member of the 2010 SEC championship squad). According to our sources, a major national media outlet has been investigating the allegations tied to this former player – seeking to leverage specific information in an effort to connect him to several current Gamecock players who are presently dealing drugs.
We don’t know what level of detail this national outlet has obtained (or hopes to obtain) about current Gamecock players, but it didn’t take us long to nail down a whole host of details. In addition to the players involved (and the substances they’re selling), we know who they’re buying from, who they’re selling to and where they go for pick ups, money orders and checks made out to “cash.” We also know how they pass “random” drug tests.
In other words, this is potentially a national scandal waiting to happen … not unlike the steroids scandal that rocked USC back in 1988.
Fortunately we’re not referring to anyone named Jadeveon Clowney or Marcus Lattimore (both of whom, we’re told, are nowhere near any of this nonsense). And thank God for that – otherwise we’d be entering a witness protection program right about now. But we are referring to some “name” players on both sides of the football – including a few who get serious playing time.
Of course when it comes to “names,” you will never see any of the players involved in this activity ever identified by this website. Nor will we leak their names to anybody – law enforcement, the University, the SEC or the NCAA.
Why not? Well for starters, we don’t believe there’s anything wrong with smoking and/or selling pot. We’re libertarians, and we believe in the full legalization of all drugs. We also believe that football players who are the lynchpin of a multi-billion dollar business should be allowed to supplement their income by engaging the entrepreneurial spirit that forms the basis of the free market.
Seriously … they’re getting completely cut out of proceeds generated by a product that they exclusively produce. Can we really blame them for trying to make some bank elsewhere?
Having said that the fact remains that thanks to a failed federal prohibition policy, these drugs are currently illegal – and anyone choosing to sell them assumes a risk. And any football player on a Top Ten team who chooses to sell them assumes an infinitely higher risk. In fact such an individual who makes that choice is literally courting disaster for himself, his teammates and his program.
That’s why it’s our hope that this activity will stop before it gets out of hand at USC. The Gamecock football program simply cannot afford to sacrifice its current trajectory on yet another embarrassing national scandal.
***
77 comments
Will, you have boldly gone where no man has gone before. If you are right, then what will be will be. But should you be proven wrong, your welcome will be as worn out in Columbia as Ron Morris and everyone else who matters.
Oh, and First.
Just read it again, again.
Hahaha you wrote the first half of this article in 3rd person. Wow
I am reading it for the fourth fucking, dang sorry, time.
Well let’s hope Will finally got a story right…….
Not much room for error with this story Will.
I hope for your sake you have some pretty good information here.
Claiming a kid got 5 grand from some nameless, faceless booster is one thing. This is a much more specific, and potentially devastating, accusation.
As a diehard Tiger–I’m saying this is another move for page views. We are all still waiting on the details about Sammy’s family receiving benefits, dabp getting officers fired and Wingos SAT scandal. Just not buying it
Tiger fan also. Will is just a scandal seeker without a thread of evidence to any of the bull shit he so freely reports. He is just scum looking for a scum partner to wallow with. We all know that if of his claims were happening at usc#2, the shit would have already hit the fan on high speed. Suck it will. That’s something you’re very good at!!!
take every thing will says with a grain of salt.after all still waiting for the proof of an affair with nikki.other than some phone records when he worked with her.
yeah we’re just fucking liars yeah you got us. we made it all up. BTW we have requested an audience with USC president Harris Pastides this week and we will be taking him our Wingo documentation – which we turned over to our attorney prior to filing that story.
So yeah …
-FITS
Yeah, you have a record of making stuff up. So yeah, fucking liars…
Why not just have your meeting with Pastides, Tanner and Spurrier. Why the “we are gonna expose you” write up? Also please explain to us why you need to curse readers out in replies.
This isn’t journalism.
“We are gonna expose you?” Pretty sure the article definitively stated the opposite.
-FITS
“We don’t know what level of detail this national outlet has obtained (or hopes to obtain) about current Gamecock players, but it didn’t take us long to nail down a whole host of details. In addition to the players involved (and the substances they’re selling), we know who they’re buying from, who they’re selling to and where they go for pick ups, money orders and checks made out to “cash.” We also know how they pass “random” drug tests.”
Sounds like a “We are gonna expose you” article to me. What is the purpose of this article then? Is it to plead to the University and the Athletic Department to make it stop? You could have done that without the article. But hey, whatever gets hits right?
ill give you and audience anytime you want. Just have the shemale wife prep the bandaids
I bet Papa Folks is so proud.
Just so you all know I am a Clemson fan. How is it that you can write this article then say you will not tell anyone what you know. If you are a Carolina fan you would think you would want to tell what you do know to the right person at the university so they could get rid of the ones involved. No one or two players are bigger than a program and keeping them around would cost more in the long run. I truly think all of this is BS. Go Tigers!!
It only takes one Aw Shit to screw up years of Atta Boy!
2011 around 30 people were arrested in a drug supply chain. They are using all kinds of ways to go from there. “including, but not limited to, court-authorized wiretaps, undercover operations, surveillance, witness debriefings, and a review of financial records. The primary agencies participating in the investigation and today’s operation were the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI); State Law Enforcement Division (SLED); Columbia Police Department (CPD); and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD); assisted by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA); Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); Lexington County Sheriff’s Department (LCSD); and the United States Marshals’ Service (USMS).”
From that bust, we saw another 23-31 people arrested last June in Columbia and California. The “134-count indictment charging members and associates of the United Blood Nation” is the result from 2011’s bust.
From the 2012’s bust, they now are getting more names and addresses?
http://www.fbi.gov/columbia/press-releases/2012/bloods-street-gang-members-and-associates-arrested-following-the-return-of-a-134-count-federal-rico-indictment
Better get with the program and know that drugs is a con game. Our government brings in the stuff and they use you to stuff the courts and prisons. Good way to earn that retirement check….for them!
Our government brings in the stuff and they use you to stuff the courts and prisons.
Wow, just wow.
Did they crash the planes into the Twin Towers as well?
States that utilize private prisons usually have some sort of condition where they get a special deal (and the connected politicians get some sort of compensation) if the prisons remain at 90% capacity or higher, thus those states have an enormous vested interest in making sure non-violent drug offenders stay behind bars to meet the quota.
Now, suggesting that the government is actually facilitating the drugs that lands those arrests is a bit over the top.
They sure as shit do not stop the stuff from coming in the CONUS, that makes them an accomplice in my book. The shit is pouring in from Mexico, and last I looked up, we sent them guns through straw purchases. Even the Mexican cartels are saying our government is giving them weapons to apply their drug trade.
If this was Clemson this site would be naming every single player involved.
You know how I know you guys are credible? You cuss at people in the responses. Very professional of you. What a joke of a site. Nothing but lies at every turn, topped off with pathetic writing.
What you said…
I totally agree with you too!
Steroids have to be a factor again too. These guys have blown up over the last few years and no strength program is that good
Someone needs to inform our O-line of what steroids are and how they work.
And where to find the ones you can hide from the tests….
It is or it isn’t. Time will tell.
Sounds like the plot of season 6 of The Wire.
Say it ain’t so joe.
In the interest of accuracy, the players are not getting “completely cut out of the proceeds generated by a product that they exclusively produce.” Granted, the NFL and NBA get free farm systems while MLB has to pay for it’s minor leagues, and the colleges get a cash cow; however, the players do get tuition, room and board, laundry money, and a few other perks so they are not “completely cut out”, and there are coaches, trainers, officials, etc who keep the product from being “exclusively” produced by players, That being said, Bernie Kosar got it right when he played for Univ of Miami when he said, “Hell, they ought to pay us.”
This is the formula for any no good low life wanna be journalist to get hits to a no good wanna be blog. Make up lies like you slept with Haley, SAT scandals and drug scandal lies. Pretty pathetic…but hey, your aka name fits….sick
The closes he ever came to sleeping with Haley, was at his desk at work. Haley will get you back for that lie, rest assure. If I had been her husband, I would have beat the white off fat willy.
Like i have stated before please stay home. If i ever see you around section 5 or premimium south parking hold on to your hockey jersey cause its going over your face NHL style. Please come stroll around those areas. Please bitchboy
will’s father is a douche.
wow someone else is writing with my name. my guess is BWS or petey (but they are the same person anyway)
I have no clue what the point of this article is. He begins by pretending to profess his love for USC, then trash talks the Innovista project and tries to say Innovista is the reason tuition has gone up and university rankings have gone down (doesn’t really substantiate this), then he trash talks the mediocre athletic history, etc. Then he says athletes are dealing drugs, and things need to stop. If this accustation is true, I guess he figures the best way to get the athletes to stop dealing drugs is for him to post about it on the internet? And why does he say “We’ve” struggled for weeks on how to address this issue? Does Fits have a staff of writers that stuggled together over how to write an article as pointless as this one?
Money, honey. Hit count needs a boost. “Howie” column contract not renewed.
“Liber-Tea” fund not raising the much needed consultant revenue as anticipated.
Manic phase of the Bi-polar cycle more pronounced this time.
Any number of reasons; none good.
Potentially very explosive info. I am at a loss to understand why as a fan of USCe you would publically put this out there unless arrests are imminent. Otherwise I would think that you would be culpable for witholding infornmation germaine to an ongoing police investigation. As a hit grab it only makes sense of you want to set yourself up as the heel of USCe. Either way as with most things time will tell.
The important thing here, is that this can’t linger until the end of the season, when/if things are going well for us and all of a sudden BAM. We need to stay on FITS and try to find out if this bullshit is true, or if this is bullshit that is being written to try to hurt our program.
I think Fits got his scoops mixed up….. Lexington Ring ~ USC ????
I will say this the article is true but its about 4 years to late, I remember being a student at USC and living in a certain apartment complex and had plenty of friendships with players most of whom lived beside me. It is pretty commonly know that some of the players were dealers and I can even recall a starting offense player not name Garcia who could get you whatever you wanted. Being a student at USC and having a family who donates loads of money to the Club it did bother me to see it going on but talking to friends at other schools it happens everywhere and you really can’t stop it. That whole 2007-2008 recruiting class was filled with bad eggs most of whom aren’t with the program anymore. I would say its less than a handfull who are doing the same things now and would be suprised it if was any actually starters, the football team as a whole has a different outlook then previous years they have a great core of guys and they are making sure everyone is falling in line.
Wow….I am still waiting on this solid information on Wingo not taking his own SAT test. You guys are just too much. You are the world leaders in unnamed, unproven, unreliable, unrealistic, un-newsworthy, events in modern times. I guess when you have nothing, provide nothing, then in reality you are NOTHING.
We forget … did Wingo ever sue us for defamation? Oh RIGHT. Wingo can’t. Documentation for that story is with our attorney and redacted copies will be made available to President Pastides if he decides to meet with us.
If not, whatever. His call.
Documentation for this story (audio recordings, text messages, etc.) is also with our attorney but as we wrote above we will NOT be ratting anyone out by name.
-FITS
Please take me up on the offer no need to lawyer up lets handle it the old fashion way. Please Bitchboy
You guys were the ones who said you would publish solid proof. Your lawyer has the proof….Wow. I really and truly believe that too. Waiting on Pastides to meet with you ? Dude you guys are a local National Enquirer wannabe’s. If not….then stop planting stories with nothing to back it up. I heard that, you heard, that he heard about it….my lawyer heard it to…
I take it by the opening that sic Willie is okay and supports the 20% payraise for Pastides but might have issues with The Prez’s wifes cookbook. Apparently she did not include the recipe “How to Heat Up a Future Governor in a Parking Lot”.
These articles simply take away from the legitimate ones that take on our sorry government. Stick to simple “yellow Page” Journalism. Some of that will stick.
You will not be able to clean up USC or Clemson until we take care of a good many elected and unelected politicans in this state.
I think we should offer them incentives to leave: Free clothes and transportation:
For clothes I recommend roofing tar (applied warm) with a coat of turkey feathers (no offense intended to the bird). For transportation I recommend a slow ride on long slender diamond profile rail.
Uncle Bob
Here’s our story on Pastides pay raise …
https://www.fitsnews.com/2012/10/09/usc-president-gets-125000-raise/
I am getting zero love from my one insider, though he tells me that even his uncle at CPD knows about the “investigation” and story…
Has this website ever been right about anything like this? Ever? One Time?
First it was the USC Baseball Team going to get all their NCs revoked, then it was Sammy Watkins Hotel Scandal, both turning out to to be total BS
Clemson and Carolina fans can agree that this site blows and is hardly, if ever, accurate about anything it reports.
The purpose of this site is of course, not to be right, but to be controversial.
More hits, more money. More bullshit, more hits. More stories, more bullshit. More informants, more stories. More axes to grind, more informants. More losers, more axes to grind.
Jack Anderson was a muckraker, but at least he presented facts
in his prattle.
Will, for a Gamecock fan you have a funny way of showing your support for your school. Couldn’t you just text the players and tell them to stop!? Geez man…you know how many people read this blog.
Don’t know about football, but I DO know how the baseball team does it’s “random” drug testing. Maybe Tanner has spread his tactics to the whole athletic program?
Is this the same Will Folks that pleads guilty to CDV?
http://www.wistv.com/global/story.asp?s=3911359&ClientType=Printable
(Columbia) September 28, 2005 – Former gubernatorial spokesman Will Folks has pleaded guilty to criminal domestic violence in a Columbia court.
Sure is. Nothing like reading lies from a blogger who beats his Fiance!
(Columbia) September 28, 2005 – Former gubernatorial spokesman Will Folks has pleaded guilty to criminal domestic violence in a Columbia court.
Wow, why wouldn’t the president of a major university want to meet with a convicted domestic violence blogger?
The name says it all…..unfair and imbalanced.
Will Folks is a Ron Morris homer and this story is a joke.
I like how the FITS idiots argue and cuss at their readers. Good job dumbass, do you know what business your in? #moron #didIsaymoron
Any time someone accuses Will of playing fast and loose with the truth, he raises the defense that he wasn’t sued for libel. It’s a pretty difficult tort to prove, and some folks like to stay out of the judicial system: so, that seems to be unsurprisingly sophomoric reaction.
This may or may not be accurate. If it is accurate, I hope the first thing Will did was turn the names of suppliers in to the police. Cocaine and ecstasy can be incredibly dangerous. Our young people are dying and getting into serious trouble because of drugs. Hopefully, his undying loyalty to the free market doesn’t extend to dangerous and ridiculously addictive substances.
Knowing is one thing, doing something besides publishing a quick piece on a sensationalist blog is another thing entirely.
Smoke a Bowl it will help you
I think that Will and this site are full of shit. Still waiting ot the evidence that he slept with Gov Haley.
What a dickwad.
My sources say Will was high on meth when he was beating his fiance. The police know about it, but it was turned over to the FBI who are still investigating it. I know where he got his meth,drop off points and everything. We also obtained the pictures of his fiance’s injuries and they have already been turned over to our attorney, along with the drug test they made Will take after his domestic violence was over. Obviously we can not release our sources, the pictures, or the test results at this time…but I swear our attorney has them.
Side note: We are huge supporters of Fitsnews.com and are trying hard to set up a meeting with them so Will can get his life back in order.
YAY, I’m a journalist!
Saying you have sources and using satire is easy for anyone to do, as proved above.
Hilarious!
Will is a toolbag. He hides behind the fact that he hasn’t been sued. Unfortunately, he can’t hide behind anything else because he is not a journalist. He is simply a blogger, which requires no skill, no intelligence, no sources, and no ability to write. He fits that description to the max. What amazes me is that he aspires to be the National Enquirer of South Carolina, which would be something to mock and laugh at if you were an actual journalist.
These guys all LOVE tube steak. I have proof. You can call my attorney and ask. His number is easy to find on daytime television.
~~~ Call Joel Bieber ~~~
LOL.
How is this website still running? I wish you had named names so that they could sue your ass for defamation.
I’d rather read Ron Morris than your garbage. I’ll be sure not to click another article from this website, and I’ll be sure to encourage others not to as well.
Nixon was busted on one source. Oliver North was busted on one source (who happened to have posed for racy pictures). Does that mean that the Watergate incident or Iran/Contra were completely fabricated? If we (the news consuming public) do not like what Sic has to say, then don’t visit the blog. Use his “tools of the free market” against him. However, killing the messenger for the sake of the message only perpetuates the underlying crime. Sacking Folks because he doesn’t “protect his alma mater” or because he didn’t “text them and tell them to stop” is not stopping what is the patiently illegal act of selling and using illegal drugs
Whether various forms of drugs should or should not be illegal is a valid argument, one that is being taken up by Colorado, Oregon and Washington as they have bills that propose fully legalizing recreational use of marijuana.
Another valid point, should student athletes be compensated for what is a multi-billion dollar industry? Sure, they receive an education, room and board along with books and a laundry stipend. As a blue-collar type of guy, I’m not sure what the athlete is getting is a proportional slice of the income generated by their work. What would happen to college athletics if the worker (athlete) went on strike against management (the college) by refusing to play/practice? Would 85,000 people still pack the Brice? What would happen to the TV deals and endorsements? Should the athletes be paid on a level similar to the NFL or NBA? Absolutely not. After all, most typical college educations are worth between $70,000 and $100,000. But, keeping the athletes “unpaid” only perpetuates this insidious and unfair system of competition where the college with the best scam gets the best athletes.
Kids these days…
Looks like Will knows how to create an alias and post on his own comments section.
wow….
Just for the record I am a Clemson fan and totally do not understand why a USC fan would get on a blog and drag their team through the mud…Why not contact the university unless you’re just a internet whore wanting to see how many hits you accumulate…jmo
Did you say “President Harry Pairatesties”?
OK….for the record….you have solid proof of an affair with Haley and you will publish it soon….you have solid proof that Wingo did not take his SAT and someone took it for him and you will publish it soon….there are USC players that are selling drugs and you have solid proof that you will present to Pastides as soon as he meets with you….and your founder is accused of CDV…..I guess we should just trust you on these things…..speaking of trusting….maybe Will can become a trustee….get it ? Trustee…lol.
Struggled for weeks? BULL CRAP, you print stuff and never think about it.