UNC athletics scandal - McCants points finger

[Kfanarmy]

For those interested, I ran across these blog posts that relate to the UNC academic issues.

About Coaching the Mind
Coaching the Mind is maintained by Bradley Bethel. He created this blog as a venue to discuss issues related to student-athlete support services. Here you'll find commentary, model practices, research briefs, reviews, and more. The views expressed on this blog are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of his institution. If you have questions or would like to make suggestions, you can email CoachingTheMind@gmail.com.


April 1st post.

April 10th post.

To be honest, it reads like just another he said-she said article, wherein this guy from the "university protectionist society", got into an arguement with a prof from the "academics are everything society" and now wants to litigate the argument publicly. What I find most interesting is I haven't seen one author, who dismisses Willingham's reasearch: "claiming that 70% of a large sample of UNC athletes read below a high school level is unfair and insulting when the real percentage is undoubtedly much lower," give the actual percentage using actual data in a transparent anayltic effort. I have a hard time getting behind people who claim to know what isn't right, but have no idea what is. The bottom line is that UNC was not educating student athletes in Basketball and football so that they could suit up kids who were not academically capable, either through preparation or potential, of making the grades. In doing so they cheated the system and the student athletes. UNC won two NCAA Basketball championships cheating students and cheating the rest of the basketball world. They have circled the wagons in an attempt to keep those two championship trophies.

[Kfanarmy]

Good God, I hope this is not representative of unc's response to the issue. Dodge, dip, dive, duck, and dodge.

First, kill all the messengers ... (apologies to The Bard)

So the Patches O'Houlihan strategy, how devious can they be? It's a bold strategy, BD80. Let's see if it pays off for 'em.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

As the world turns....

"....Stated simply, the story Mary Willingham has been telling since January 7 is one based on counterfeit numbers, rendering it more fraudulent than Julius Nyang’oro’s classes."

I haven't been following all this stuff much until recently when I ran across this blog..and as so often happens, he makes the case that the media has chosen the sensational angles over the facts.

I'm making no judgements for any side of all this, yet, because it seems that the real truth is still out there somewhere.

[Olympic Fan]

Not surprising that Wheat (and the UNC nation) would swallow another UNC "review" without choking. How many is this? And how many of the previous ones have any validity?

Wheat, if you are open to finding the real truth, you stand in stark contrast to the UnC administration, which has done everything possible to deny, deflect and obscure the evidence.

For a different take on the latest "review" you might want to check Bloomsburg Business Week's response to the latest UNC attack on Willingham:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...hletes-scandal

I especially like this graph:

Then there’s this perplexity: The majority of the students Willingham evaluated were “special admits,” meaning their enrollment at UNC required officials to give extra consideration and weight to their athletic prowess. Without their running or dribbling or passing talents, they might not have gained admission (to put it politely). Yet the trio of retained experts “determined that the majority of the students … scored at or above college entry level.” I’m no literacy guru, but if the young jocks are scoring at or above college level, why did they require special consideration to gain admission in the first place? Why were they being screened for learning disabilities? Weird.

I do agree that some sloppy reporting has confused things. Even the DBR incorrectly suggested that Willingham claimed that 60 percent of UNC athletes failed to meet college literacy standards. That's not what she said ... she claimed that 60 percent of the 183 special admission athletes she worked with between 2004-2012 read below college levels. That's a very different claim.

Of course, while UNC continues to quibble about how many unqualified athletes were admitted, they ignore he most explosive claim -- that at-risk student-athletes were steered into the phony classes in the African-American Studies Department that UNC has admitted existed.

[arnie]

As the world turns....

"....Stated simply, the story Mary Willingham has been telling since January 7 is one based on counterfeit numbers, rendering it more fraudulent than Julius Nyang’oro’s classes."

I haven't been following all this stuff much until recently when I ran across this blog..and as so often happens, he makes the case that the media has chosen the sensational angles over the facts.

I'm making no judgements for any side of all this, yet, because it seems that the real truth is still out there somewhere.

Wheat reads a blog from the hired liar Bethel. Bethel's job description is to attack Willingham and others who dare question the integrity of UNC athletics. I really enjoyed the comments from UNC faithful that believes this blog completely vindicates the program.

[BD80]

Wheat reads ...

Alas, the typical unc "student"-athlete cannot

[Atlanta Duke]

As the world turns....

"....Stated simply, the story Mary Willingham has been telling since January 7 is one based on counterfeit numbers, rendering it more fraudulent than Julius Nyang’oro’s classes."

I haven't been following all this stuff much until recently when I ran across this blog..and as so often happens, he makes the case that the media has chosen the sensational angles over the facts.

I'm making no judgements for any side of all this, yet, because it seems that the real truth is still out there somewhere.

When forming your judgments, you might consider that Mr. Bethel has only become a recent convert to the proposition that admissions standards for Chapel Hill athletes had not been seriously compromised in the years before he arrived from his prior position at Ohio State.

In a July 3 email welcoming Chancellor Carol Folt to campus, Bradley Bethel, a reading and writing specialist, told her she needed to look at the admissions process for athletes...

“Although we in the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes are capable of supporting many student athletes who are not as academically prepared as most UNC students, there have been many student-athletes who were specially admitted whose academic preparedness is so low they cannot succeed here,” Bethel wrote. “At a rigorous university like UNC, there are some underprepared students who, no matter how much support they receive, have too many hurdles to overcome.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/201...#storylink=cpy

A closer reading of the post and other correspondence Bethel has written shows he is not rebutting a key concern posed by the scandal: The university admitted athletes who could not succeed academically, and the tutoring program used the no-show classes to help keep them eligible...

The N&O asked Bethel if he had been at the university during the scandal, would he have recognized the classes were bogus?

“That is a good question,” he said. “However, because I was not here when the no-show classes were offered, I cannot say how I would have handled the situation.”

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/...#storylink=cpy

Smart tactical move by UNC to try and make the story whether or not Ms. Willingham's data was flawed. Certainly preferable to confirming whether their cheerleader in chief was correct when he said, within the past year, that many athletes had been admitted who under any rational standard (other than perhaps times in the 40 yard dash or average points per game) had no business being admitted at Chapel Hill.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Wheat reads a blog from the hired liar Bethel. Bethel's job description is to attack Willingham and others who dare question the integrity of UNC athletics. I really enjoyed the comments from UNC faithful that believes this blog completely vindicates the program.

Hired liar? Isn't this just this guys personal blog and not any sort of official UNC site?

This guy seems very willing to back up everything he has stated, and I have not seen him walk away from the notion that UNC had problems with those AFAM classes...he's just challenging this Willingham woman's data results on her claims of student/athlete reading level's being as low as she had claimed...and the motivations behind her actions, and the media's actions.

When I see results from three outside independent studies from professors with no dog in the fight, and they reach the same conclusion that her data was faulty, incomplete, or whatever...I have questions about her claims too.

[Duvall]

this Willingham woman

Uh, okay.

[grad_devil]

.. this Willingham woman's data ...

Whoa. Not touching that one.

...
When I see results from three outside independent* studies ...

I may be getting confused here, but who commissioned these studies? Wasn't it UNC-CH?

*emphasis mine

[Wheat/"/"/"]

...Smart tactical move by UNC to try and make the story whether or not Ms. Willingham's data was flawed. Certainly preferable to confirming whether their cheerleader in chief was correct when he said, within the past year, that many athletes had been admitted who under any rational standard (other than perhaps times in the 40 yard dash or average points per game) had no business being admitted at Chapel Hill.

I honestly don't know what to think about how schools determine how athletes are admitted and "educated". I've never delved into any of this stuff before, I just followed the hoops games, but it seems to me no two students are the same and each needs to be judged separately by professional educators.

What I also wonder is how is it that these same student/athletes that are supposedly so poorly educated and were still magically able to pass admission into UNC by nefarious means, have multiple scholarship offers from many other top schools around the country, including Duke in many cases?

It's all a big soap opera to me.

[Newton_14]

When forming your judgments, you might consider that Mr. Bethel has only become a recent convert to the proposition that admissions standards for Chapel Hill athletes had not been seriously compromised in the years before he arrived from his prior position at Ohio State.

In a July 3 email welcoming Chancellor Carol Folt to campus, Bradley Bethel, a reading and writing specialist, told her she needed to look at the admissions process for athletes...

“Although we in the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes are capable of supporting many student athletes who are not as academically prepared as most UNC students, there have been many student-athletes who were specially admitted whose academic preparedness is so low they cannot succeed here,” Bethel wrote. “At a rigorous university like UNC, there are some underprepared students who, no matter how much support they receive, have too many hurdles to overcome.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/201...#storylink=cpy

A closer reading of the post and other correspondence Bethel has written shows he is not rebutting a key concern posed by the scandal: The university admitted athletes who could not succeed academically, and the tutoring program used the no-show classes to help keep them eligible...

The N&O asked Bethel if he had been at the university during the scandal, would he have recognized the classes were bogus?

“That is a good question,” he said. “However, because I was not here when the no-show classes were offered, I cannot say how I would have handled the situation.”

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/...#storylink=cpy

Smart tactical move by UNC to try and make the story whether or not Ms. Willingham's data was flawed. Certainly preferable to confirming whether their cheerleader in chief was correct when he said, within the past year, that many athletes had been admitted who under any rational standard (other than perhaps times in the 40 yard dash or average points per game) had no business being admitted at Chapel Hill.

So what, dude fell and hit his head sometime after July 3rd? Forgot which side he was on in this matter? Or, told to get in line with his employer's position on this scandal or seek employment elsewhere? I'm going with the latter...

This whole thing moved past comical long ago. They cheated in a biggest way since SMU, we know it, they know we know it, but they will go to hell denying it.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

I may be getting confused here, but who commissioned these studies? Wasn't it UNC-CH?

*emphasis mine

The way I understand all this is that UNC claims the data Willingham used was faulty and the results were not accurate when she claimed the players reading levels were so low.

They then provided the same data Willingham had to 3 outside professors from UVA, Georgia st. and another that I can't recall, and they determined she was wrong.

[77devil]

What I also wonder is how is it that these same student/athletes that are supposedly so poorly educated and were still magically able to pass admission into UNC by nefarious means, have multiple scholarship offers from many other top schools around the country, including Duke in many cases?

Still trolling Wheat? Where did you read or find information that any of the illiterate admitted to UNC were offered a scholarship by Duke? Oh wait, there isn't any you say. I'm shocked. You're just trolling again.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Still trolling Wheat? Where did you read or find information that any of the illiterate admitted to UNC were offered a scholarship by Duke? Oh wait, there isn't any you say. I'm shocked. You're just trolling again.

I have no idea which athletes supposedly are "illiterate" (your characterization, not mine) and were admitted to UNC.
But I know UNC rarely recruits any players that are not also offered scholarships to other major schools, at least in basketball, and Duke and UNC often recruit the same players.

[arnie]

Hired liar? Isn't this just this guys personal blog and not any sort of official UNC site?

This guy seems very willing to back up everything he has stated, and I have not seen him walk away from the notion that UNC had problems with those AFAM classes...he's just challenging this Willingham woman's data results on her claims of student/athlete reading level's being as low as she had claimed...and the motivations behind her actions, and the media's actions.

When I see results from three outside independent studies from professors with no dog in the fight, and they reach the same conclusion that her data was faulty, incomplete, or whatever...I have questions about her claims too.

Keep the blinders on, they fit you well.

[gumbomoop]

... it seems to me no two students are the same and each needs to be judged separately by professional educators.

It's all a big soap opera to me.

Two disagreements here from me, stated, I hope, in a constructively critical fashion.

While it may be true that no two students are exactly the same, that's surely not anywhere close to the central issue in UNC's athlete-eligibility scandal. Once professional educators got wind of the scam, a few of them said, forthrightly, this was unethical behavior and a disservice to athletes enrolled in ghost courses. Several recently arrived academic administrators, after an initial attempt to deflect, backtracked enough to admit shame. Most faculty have remained silent, publicly, but with an occasional additional voice expressing dismay.

Second, to describe it as a "big soap opera" is to belittle the seriousness of the issues raised by the scandal. Ignoring Willingham's research altogether, just knowing the admitted facts and figures about the ghost courses, would anyone today deny that athletes were shepherded into ghost courses and awarded high marks in order to keep them eligible? Or deny that in yet other courses faculty signatures were forged and grades changed, in order to place on some student-athletes' transcripts high marks to balance low marks achieved [....] in real courses? Does that not raise fundamental ethical issues -- several -- for any university, especially one with an historic claim to excellence?

Although I infer -- perhaps incorrectly, about which I will await clarification -- that the word "big" here connotes "of little significance," I suspect that, ironically, soap operas have on occasion treated ethical issues more seriously than has UNC.

[77devil]

I have no idea which athletes supposedly are "illiterate" (your characterization, not mine) and were admitted to UNC.
But I know UNC rarely recruits any players that are not also offered scholarships to other major schools, at least in basketball, and Duke and UNC often recruit the same players.

Wheat, if you want to believe that any of the special admit athletes at UNC that read at an elementary school level were offered scholarships at Duke, have at it.

[Atlanta Duke]

What I also wonder is how is it that these same student/athletes that are supposedly so poorly educated and were still magically able to pass admission into UNC by nefarious means, have multiple scholarship offers from many other top schools around the country, including Duke in many cases?

It's all a big soap opera to me.

Saying it is all a big soap opera would appear to minimize the significance of fairly significant damage to the reputation of UNC-Chapel Hill, but maybe not.

As far as wondering "how is it that these same student/athletes that are supposedly so poorly educated and were still magically able to pass admission into UNC by nefarious means, have multiple scholarship offers from many other top schools around the country, including Duke in many cases," even Bethel is not saying that the athletes whom Ms. Willingham or he contended had no legitimate chance to succeed academically at Chapel Hill were offered scholarships at Duke.

I know admissions standards for athletes at Duke have been a sore spot at UNC for decades (e.g. - Dean Smith reacting to the "J.R. Can't Read" sign at Cameron by saying Ferry and Laettner had lower combined SAT scores than the combined SAT scores of J.R. Reid and Scott Williams), but unless UNC discloses the names of the students in Ms. Willingham's data, which is not going to happen, there is no evidence to establish any of the students that prompted her concerns or those of Mr. Bethel were offered scholarships to Duke.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Two disagreements here from me, stated, I hope, in a constructively critical fashion.

While it may be true that no two students are exactly the same, that's surely not anywhere close to the central issue in UNC's athlete-eligibility scandal. Once professional educators got wind of the scam, a few of them said, forthrightly, this was unethical behavior and a disservice to athletes enrolled in ghost courses. Several recently arrived academic administrators, after an initial attempt to deflect, backtracked enough to admit shame. Most faculty have remained silent, publicly, but with an occasional additional voice expressing dismay.

Second, to describe it as a "big soap opera" is to belittle the seriousness of the issues raised by the scandal. Ignoring Willingham's research altogether, just knowing the admitted facts and figures about the ghost courses, would anyone today deny that athletes were shepherded into ghost courses and awarded high marks in order to keep them eligible? Or deny that in yet other courses faculty signatures were forged and grades changed, in order to place on some student-athletes' transcripts high marks to balance low marks achieved [....] in real courses? Does that not raise fundamental ethical issues -- several -- for any university, especially one with an historic claim to excellence?

Although I infer -- perhaps incorrectly, about which I will await clarification -- that the word "big" here connotes "of little significance," I suspect that, ironically, soap operas have on occasion treated ethical issues more seriously than has UNC.

I agree this should not be taken lightly and is all a serious issue for the educators to work out. Nobody wants to see kids not get access to an education they deserve.

The "big soap opera" comment was meant towards how some fans, (both sides), seem quick to take sides without knowing all the facts.

Personally, I haven't made any decision yet on who is telling it like it is regarding the reading levels of those players, ...or if UNC as an institution was enabling the individuals directing players to those AFAM courses that they knew were bogus,... or if it was just one professor scamming the classes and pressured tutors directing them to easy courses not knowing they were bogus.

I just don't know what to think at this point without more facts. I'm a long way from being convinced what's the truth.

I will agree with those who believe that, at the very least, UNC has done a very poor job with oversight of athlete education. If the more serious allegations against UNC are proven valid, let the powers that be crack down on them, I'd be OK with that.