UNC Athletics Scandal: Sporting News Joins the unc Bashing

[PackMan97]

http://paperclassinc.com/pre-march-madness/

CHEATED has been released! Enjoy!

[BigWayne]

http://paperclassinc.com/pre-march-madness/

CHEATED has been released! Enjoy!

Well, not exactly. "Potomac Books has announced the official release of our book, "Cheated"....In anticipation of the book’s distribution, we would like to make available some documents that help to fill out the context for the story we tell."

Amazon lists it with a March 15th release date and has some review quotes, etc. up.

http://paperclassinc.com says it will be posting supporting documents during the intervening period. 1st one is a letter from Jay Smith to Holden Thorp from 2010 voicing his concerns about the scandal. There's nothing really remarkable in it if you have been following Willingham/Smith the last couple years, but it is put out to combat some of the naysayers that attack Smith for attracting publicity in recent times.

[PackMan97]

Dagnabit! I'm gonna go shoot myself with a BB gun now.

[BigWayne]

Dagnabit! I'm gonna go shoot myself with a BB gun now.

I did find this, which is a preview portion you can read online. Haven't had time to read much, but here's a sample:

"In 2007, not long after Butch Davis had taken over as the head coach of the UNC football team, a visibly agitated
Beth Bridger stepped out of the office of Wayne Walden, the counselor for the basketball team. A football academic counselor for the football team, Bridger was angry about the courses available to her football players for the upcoming semester, and she blamed the basketball team for the dearth of options. "We deserve the same help and the same treatment that basketball gets when choosing classes. We bring in more money!" What she specifically had in mind, recalls Mary Willingham, who overheard the conversation, were slots in paper classes. Too often, Bridger thought, basketball got all the preferential treatment. She insisted that football players have equal access to the independent study and no-show classes offered by Julius Nyang'oro and Deborah Crowder, the classes that the basketball team had taken by the bushel over the previous several years."

[devildeac]

Dagnabit! I'm gonna go shoot myself with a BB gun now.

Just go get a massage instead. Safer for all parties involved.

[PackMan97]

Bloomberg Business has a review of the book online.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...college-sports

Some of the most startling findings in Cheated:

• How the well-intentioned attempt to build a Department of African and Afro-American Studies devolved into a patronizing and destructive program that encouraged mostly black football and basketball stars to enroll in rubber-stamp courses of virtually no intellectual value. By doing the black athletes the “favor” of inflating their grades, UNC actually exacerbated the mistreatment of students whose value as athletes eclipsed their education beginning in high school and even earlier. It may not have been intentional in the sense of Jim Crow oppression, but this soft, covert racism could be every bit as harmful.
• How a conspiracy of silence helped insulate the scam. In some instances the classes were real, but the athletes nominally enrolled in them rarely showed up. The authors quote Adam Seipp, now an historian at Texas A&M, who majored in what was known as the AfAm department: “It was commonly understood in these classes that the athletes were not being made to do the work the rest of us were doing,” Seipp recalled. The “running joke” whenever regular students encountered the ballplayers was, “‘So did you guys do the [AfAm] paper?’ And everybody would laugh. And we all knew what was going on. It was not like it was under the table.”
• How Willingham witnessed the undisguised ghostwriting of papers for athletes, as well as rampant plagiarism. Ballplayers routinely copied their supposedly original work directly from library or Internet sources—except when mentor/tutors did the copying for them

.

[Dukehky]

Speaking of, what's the status of this whole thing? Are they still being investigated?

[dukebluesincebirth]

Speaking of, what's the status of this whole thing? Are they still being investigated?

Good question. I felt like they got a huge free pass on the cheating scandal from the crazies last night. I haven't seen/heard of any chants/signs/prompts from the game that would've brought this to light in front of a big audience. I'm a little disappointed actually. I thought they deserved much worse, but all anyone can talk about is how great the rivalry is and the Dean smith thing. I didn't hear any mention of the cheating from espn either.

[elvis14]

Good question. I felt like they got a huge free pass on the cheating scandal from the crazies last night. I haven't seen/heard of any chants/signs/prompts from the game that would've brought this to light in front of a big audience. I'm a little disappointed actually. I thought they deserved much worse, but all anyone can talk about is how great the rivalry is and the Dean smith thing. I didn't hear any mention of the cheating from espn either.

You won't hear much from ESPN. They have minimally covered the scandal from the start. If it were a different school they'd have dug deep and exposed all they could. It would have been covered over and over on Sportscenter until even Duke fans were almost tired of hearing it. But since it's UNC they only mention it quickly once someone else exposes something major and then they stop covering it as soon as they can.

[Duvall]

I didn't hear any mention of the cheating from espn either.

I mean, you wouldn't. It's ESPN. Gotta protect that inventory.

[throatybeard]

The great thing about this board is that eventually all the threads on page one will be about UNC academic fraud.

[Henderson]

The great thing about this board is that eventually all the threads on page one will be about UNC athletic and academic fraud.

FIFY.

I'd get a TV and a cable package if there were a UNC Cheater channel.

[Pghdukie]

Rumor has it - the connect the dots and color by numbers tests were omitted !!!

[BigWayne]

Latest example of the cover up.

Trying to have their cake and eat it too.

“That foundation is a North Carolina nonprofit corporation and is exempt from tax under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)3,” the public records office said in its response.

But the foundation has also not filed a Form 990 since fiscal year 2007-08 — a document the IRS requires 501(c)3 non-profits to file to maintain their status. "

[PackMan97]

Latest example of the cover up.

Trying to have their cake and eat it too.

“That foundation is a North Carolina nonprofit corporation and is exempt from tax under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)3,” the public records office said in its response.

But the foundation has also not filed a Form 990 since fiscal year 2007-08 — a document the IRS requires 501(c)3 non-profits to file to maintain their status. "

Dear IRS - We don't have to file, we are part of a state or local government entity

Dear Public - We don't have to answer a public records request, we are a 501(c)3 non-profit that is exempt from public records requests made to a state or local government entity.

Interesting that logic. It's the same defense they are using with the NCAA/SACCS.

Dear NCAA, it isn't cheating you guys let each institute handle it's own academic issues.
Dear SACCS, it isn't an academic issue were just about athletics.

[Tom B.]

This thread needed a bump, so...

UNC and Mary Willingham apparently have reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the university.

No details yet. My guess is that the settlement agreement will require the terms of the settlement to be kept confidential.

[OldPhiKap]

This thread needed a bump, so...

UNC and Mary Willingham apparently have reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the university.

No details yet. My guess is that the settlement agreement will require the terms of the settlement to be kept confidential.

Don't know about NC law, but oftentimes you cannot reach a confidential agreement with a public entity. They are subject to open records requests.

Still, there could be a non-disparagement clause of some sort, I guess.

[moonpie23]

i hope she got a bizillion dollars....

[Tom B.]

Don't know about NC law, but oftentimes you cannot reach a confidential agreement with a public entity. They are subject to open records requests.

Still, there could be a non-disparagement clause of some sort, I guess.

You're right -- I'd forgotten about the possible impact of the state public records law. Someone just e-mailed me the relevant statutory section:

§ 132-1.3. Settlements made by or on behalf of public agencies, public officials, or public employees; public records.

(a) Public records, as defined in G.S. 132-1, shall include all settlement documents in any suit, administrative proceeding or arbitration instituted against any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions, as defined in G.S. 132-1, in connection with or arising out of such agency's official actions, duties or responsibilities, except in an action for medical malpractice against a hospital facility. No agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions, nor any counsel, insurance company or other representative acting on behalf of such agency, shall approve, accept or enter into any settlement of any such suit, arbitration or proceeding if the settlement provides that its terms and conditions shall be confidential, except in an action for medical malpractice against a hospital facility. No settlement document sealed under subsection (b) of this section shall be open for public inspection.

(b) No judge, administrative judge or administrative hearing officer of this State, nor any board or commission, nor any arbitrator appointed pursuant to the laws of North Carolina, shall order or permit the sealing of any settlement document in any proceeding described herein except on the basis of a written order concluding that (1) the presumption of openness is overcome by an overriding interest and (2) that such overriding interest cannot be protected by any measure short of sealing the settlement. Such order shall articulate the overriding interest and shall include findings of fact that are sufficiently specific to permit a reviewing court to determine whether the order was proper.

(c) Except for confidential communications as provided in G.S. 132-1.1, the term "settlement documents," as used herein, shall include all documents which reflect, or which are made or utilized in connection with, the terms and conditions upon which any proceedings described in this section are compromised, settled, terminated or dismissed, including but not limited to correspondence, settlement agreements, consent orders, checks, and bank drafts. (1989, c. 326.)

Subsection (a) seems to say no confidential settlements, though subsection (b) seems to provide an exception. I'm not sure how broadly the exception has been construed by North Carolina courts, and if this is the type of scenario where a court could find that an "overriding interest" in keeping the settlement secret overcomes the presumption of openness.

[MarkD83]

Would a settlement and a agreement of confidentiality mean Willingham could not talk to the NCAA?