North Carolina
10 members of NC State’s 1983 national champs sue NCAA over NIL compensation
Ten players from North Carolina State’s 1983 national champion basketball team have sued the NCAA and the Collegiate Licensing Company seeking compensation for unauthorized use of their name, image and likeness.
The players filed suit in Wake County Superior Court on Monday, requesting a jury trial and “reasonable compensation.”
The late Jim Valvano’s 1983 team became known as the “Cardiac Pack” for a series of close victories culminating in a 54-52 win over Houston on Lorenzo Charles’ dunk in the final seconds. Valvano’s run around the court became an iconic moment frequently replayed as part of NCAA Tournament promotions.
“For more than 40 years, the NCAA and its co-conspirators have systematically and intentionally misappropriated the Cardiac Pack’s publicity rights — including their names, images, and likenesses — associated with that game and that play, reaping scores of millions of dollars from the Cardiac Pack’s legendary victory,” the lawsuit said.
NCAA spokesperson Michelle Hosick did not immediately return a text message seeking comment Monday from The Associated Press.
Plaintiffs include former team members Thurl Bailey, Alvin Battle, Walt Densmore, Tommy DiNardo, Terry Gannon, George McClain, Cozell McQueen, Walter Proctor, Harold Thompson and Mike Warren.
Charles died in 2011 while Dereck Whittenburg, whose missed 30-footer was collected by his teammate for the winning dunk, is a staffer in the North Carolina State athletic department. Whittenburg is not among the plaintiffs listed in the suit.
The suit contends that “student-athletes’ value to the NCAA does not end with their graduation; archival footage and other products constitute an ongoing income stream for the NCAA long after the students whose images are used have moved on from college.”
Pennsylvania
Motorcyclist sentenced 1 to 4 years in attack on woman’s car
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A motorcyclist accused of smashing in the back of a woman’s car near Philadelphia’s City Hall while her young children were inside and then waving a gun at her has been sentenced to one to four years in prison, according to court records.
Cody Heron, 27, had pleaded guilty in February to two counts of aggravated assault as well as possession of an instrument of crime in the Oct. 1 attack. He was sentenced to one to four years on one count and five-year probationary terms on two other counts, according to court records.
Heron was among a group of ATV, motorcycle and dirt bike riders that had gathered near City Hall and were around a sedan driven by a 23-year-old woman.
Video from another vehicle that went viral showed a motorcyclist wearing a helmet leaving his bike to jump on the back of the sedan, shattering the window with the two young children sitting inside. What appears to be a handgun drops from his waistband and he then appears to wave it at her as she emerges from the car, then headbutts and pushes her as she confronts him.
Defense attorney Justin Capek told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a statement Wednesday night that his client “wholeheartedly accepted responsibility” and had offered his apology to the woman and her young children.
Capek called the sentence “fair and just” for his client and added that it “does not foreclose upon his ability to be rehabilitated.” He said Heron “looks forward to reintegrating into society as a law-abiding citizen” and wanted to “move past this aberrant scar on his legacy.”
Court documents note that he will be “eligible/recommended” for the corrections department’s “motivational boot camp program,” a six-month military style program meant to reduce recidivism, and would also get credit for time served.
New Hampshire
Pamela Smart accepts responsibility for her husband’s 1990 killing for the first time
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for plotting with her teenage student to have her husband killed in 1990, accepted full responsibility for his death for the first time in a videotaped statement released Tuesday as part of her latest sentence reduction request.
Smart, 56, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old boy who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire. The shooter was freed in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence.
Though Pamela Smart denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes and sentenced to life without parole.
Smart has been incarcerated for nearly 34 years. She said in the statement that she began to “dig deeper into her own responsibility” through her experience in a writing group that “encouraged us to go beyond and to spaces that we didn’t want to be in.
“For me that was really hard, because going into those places, in those spaces is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder,” she said, her voice quavering. “I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind and my own heart how responsible I was, because I had deflected blame all the time, I think, almost as if it was a coping mechanism, because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me.”
She asked to have an “honest conversation” with New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council, which approves state contracts and appointees to the courts and state agencies, and with Gov. Chris Sununu. The council rejected her latest request in 2022 and Smart appealed to the state Supreme Court, which dismissed her petition last year.
Val Fryatt, a cousin of Gregory Smart, told The Associated Press that Smart “danced around it” and accepted full responsibility “without admitting the facts around what made her ‘fully responsible.’”
Fryatt noted that Smart didn’t mention her cousin’s name in the video, “not even once.”
Messages seeking comment on the petition and statement were sent to the council members, Sununu, and the attorney general’s office.
Smart is serving time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York. She has earned two master’s degrees behind bars and has also tutored fellow inmates, been ordained as a minister and been part of an inmate liaison committee.
She said she is remorseful and has been rehabilitated.
The trial was a media circus and one of America’s first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and a student. The killer, William Flynn, and three other teens cooperated with prosecutors. They served shorter sentences and have been released.
10 members of NC State’s 1983 national champs sue NCAA over NIL compensation
Ten players from North Carolina State’s 1983 national champion basketball team have sued the NCAA and the Collegiate Licensing Company seeking compensation for unauthorized use of their name, image and likeness.
The players filed suit in Wake County Superior Court on Monday, requesting a jury trial and “reasonable compensation.”
The late Jim Valvano’s 1983 team became known as the “Cardiac Pack” for a series of close victories culminating in a 54-52 win over Houston on Lorenzo Charles’ dunk in the final seconds. Valvano’s run around the court became an iconic moment frequently replayed as part of NCAA Tournament promotions.
“For more than 40 years, the NCAA and its co-conspirators have systematically and intentionally misappropriated the Cardiac Pack’s publicity rights — including their names, images, and likenesses — associated with that game and that play, reaping scores of millions of dollars from the Cardiac Pack’s legendary victory,” the lawsuit said.
NCAA spokesperson Michelle Hosick did not immediately return a text message seeking comment Monday from The Associated Press.
Plaintiffs include former team members Thurl Bailey, Alvin Battle, Walt Densmore, Tommy DiNardo, Terry Gannon, George McClain, Cozell McQueen, Walter Proctor, Harold Thompson and Mike Warren.
Charles died in 2011 while Dereck Whittenburg, whose missed 30-footer was collected by his teammate for the winning dunk, is a staffer in the North Carolina State athletic department. Whittenburg is not among the plaintiffs listed in the suit.
The suit contends that “student-athletes’ value to the NCAA does not end with their graduation; archival footage and other products constitute an ongoing income stream for the NCAA long after the students whose images are used have moved on from college.”
Pennsylvania
Motorcyclist sentenced 1 to 4 years in attack on woman’s car
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A motorcyclist accused of smashing in the back of a woman’s car near Philadelphia’s City Hall while her young children were inside and then waving a gun at her has been sentenced to one to four years in prison, according to court records.
Cody Heron, 27, had pleaded guilty in February to two counts of aggravated assault as well as possession of an instrument of crime in the Oct. 1 attack. He was sentenced to one to four years on one count and five-year probationary terms on two other counts, according to court records.
Heron was among a group of ATV, motorcycle and dirt bike riders that had gathered near City Hall and were around a sedan driven by a 23-year-old woman.
Video from another vehicle that went viral showed a motorcyclist wearing a helmet leaving his bike to jump on the back of the sedan, shattering the window with the two young children sitting inside. What appears to be a handgun drops from his waistband and he then appears to wave it at her as she emerges from the car, then headbutts and pushes her as she confronts him.
Defense attorney Justin Capek told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a statement Wednesday night that his client “wholeheartedly accepted responsibility” and had offered his apology to the woman and her young children.
Capek called the sentence “fair and just” for his client and added that it “does not foreclose upon his ability to be rehabilitated.” He said Heron “looks forward to reintegrating into society as a law-abiding citizen” and wanted to “move past this aberrant scar on his legacy.”
Court documents note that he will be “eligible/recommended” for the corrections department’s “motivational boot camp program,” a six-month military style program meant to reduce recidivism, and would also get credit for time served.
New Hampshire
Pamela Smart accepts responsibility for her husband’s 1990 killing for the first time
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for plotting with her teenage student to have her husband killed in 1990, accepted full responsibility for his death for the first time in a videotaped statement released Tuesday as part of her latest sentence reduction request.
Smart, 56, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old boy who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry, New Hampshire. The shooter was freed in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence.
Though Pamela Smart denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes and sentenced to life without parole.
Smart has been incarcerated for nearly 34 years. She said in the statement that she began to “dig deeper into her own responsibility” through her experience in a writing group that “encouraged us to go beyond and to spaces that we didn’t want to be in.
“For me that was really hard, because going into those places, in those spaces is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder,” she said, her voice quavering. “I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind and my own heart how responsible I was, because I had deflected blame all the time, I think, almost as if it was a coping mechanism, because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me.”
She asked to have an “honest conversation” with New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council, which approves state contracts and appointees to the courts and state agencies, and with Gov. Chris Sununu. The council rejected her latest request in 2022 and Smart appealed to the state Supreme Court, which dismissed her petition last year.
Val Fryatt, a cousin of Gregory Smart, told The Associated Press that Smart “danced around it” and accepted full responsibility “without admitting the facts around what made her ‘fully responsible.’”
Fryatt noted that Smart didn’t mention her cousin’s name in the video, “not even once.”
Messages seeking comment on the petition and statement were sent to the council members, Sununu, and the attorney general’s office.
Smart is serving time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York. She has earned two master’s degrees behind bars and has also tutored fellow inmates, been ordained as a minister and been part of an inmate liaison committee.
She said she is remorseful and has been rehabilitated.
The trial was a media circus and one of America’s first high-profile cases about a sexual affair between a school staff member and a student. The killer, William Flynn, and three other teens cooperated with prosecutors. They served shorter sentences and have been released.
