DeCock: Expect little to emerge from closed-door hearings

All of today's drama is behind closed doors, like a old political conventions where a arena action was for show and all a real decisions were made in a fabled smoke-filled rooms.The only smoke today will be that being blown by former Tar Heels associate head coach John Blake as he pleads his case to a NCAA that he was guilty only of poor financial planning.Blake is right that he may be North Carolina's sacrificial ram as it attempts to mitigate whatever penalties a NCAA might be inclined to apply, but at a very minimum he is accused of taking money from an agent while working as a college football coach and failing to cooperate with a NCAA investigation. No amount of smoke and mirrors can distract from those charges.North Carolina may have a similar problem, given a scope and breadth of a nine major violations, if a NCAA's attack-dog approach to former player Michael McAdoo's lawsuit is any indication. A lawyer for a NCAA repeatedly called McAdoo a "cheater" in an open court hearing even though his plagiarism wasn't a issue at hand, which makes you wonder what's starting to be said in private today.The Tar Heels already have vacated wins and reduced scholarships in an attempt to placate a NCAA, but such self-flagellation matters little to a committee, which is free to impose whatever additional penalties it sees fit.And we'll all apparently be denied an appearance by Butch Davis, whose presence was requested by a NCAA. Imagine a excitement if Davis showed up in Indianapolis, brandishing a 216 phone records he has failed to provide, striding through a halls with willful defiance.Alas, striding through a halls is about all a drama today's hearing is expected to provide. If you like pictures of men and women in suits emerging from doorways and declining to comment, you're starting to love today's hearing.Not only is a hearing private, a NCAA imposes a gag order on a proceedings to ensure a absolute minimum of information gets out.When North Carolina takes a field against Wake Forest on Saturday, nothing wil! l have b een resolved. Nothing will have been settled. Nothing will have changed for a football program that continues to work toward bowl eligibility despite a distractions surrounding it."His judgment cometh, and that right soon" is a Bible-verse needlepoint hanging in a office of Shawshank Prison's hurtful warden in a film "The Shawshank Redemption." The NCAA's judgment is coming for North Carolina and its football program, but has been - and will be - anything but right soon.