UNC Athletics Scandal: UNC releases response to NOA-3

[BLPOG]

The redefining of student-athlete seems like a really boneheaded move by UNC. Thirty percent is still an outrageously disproportionate number, to the point that the argument that the classes were primarily for athletes or unfairly benefited athletes remains pretty much as strong as with 50%.

That 20% former athletes really makes things look much worse for UNC. While it might mean fewer declarations of ineligibility than a scenario in which all had been active, it actually reinforces the idea that the classes were for athletes. It shows that athletes were admitted to the school without regard for their academic abilities and that they needed these classes as a cover even if they weren't on a team any longer. It shows that they were aware of the classes because of their athletic involvement. The only thing it does sort of in favor of UNC is possibly show that those students chose the classes rather than being told by athletics staff to take them. Of course, to properly evaluate that, you'd have to see why they left the teams, if they ever rejoined, and whether they were active when they enrolled. I'd bet the answers to those questions would not be favorable to UNC's portrayal of events.

[davekay1971]

The redefining of student-athlete seems like a really boneheaded move by UNC. Thirty percent is still an outrageously disproportionate number, to the point that the argument that the classes were primarily for athletes or unfairly benefited athletes remains pretty much as strong as with 50%.

That 20% former athletes really makes things look much worse for UNC. While it might mean fewer declarations of ineligibility than a scenario in which all had been active, it actually reinforces the idea that the classes were for athletes. It shows that athletes were admitted to the school without regard for their academic abilities and that they needed these classes as a cover even if they weren't on a team any longer. It shows that they were aware of the classes because of their athletic involvement. The only thing it does sort of in favor of UNC is possibly show that those students chose the classes rather than being told by athletics staff to take them. Of course, to properly evaluate that, you'd have to see why they left the teams, if they ever rejoined, and whether they were active when they enrolled. I'd bet the answers to those questions would not be favorable to UNC's portrayal of events.

From UNC's comment and the way they define it, they aren't even saying the participants are all former athletes. They strictly define an athlete as someone currently participating in athletics. They IMPLY that Wainstein unreasonably included all these people who had played a sport once upon a time but are not longer involved in athletics. What UNC's definition allows is an athlete who is simply out-of-season to not be counted as an athlete. IE: a football player taking a bogus spring class or men's basketball player making a bogus summer class to keep their GPA above water is, by UNC's entirely invented definition, not actually an athlete.

Every interaction they have with the NCAA is basically to fart in their general direction and wave their private parts at their aunties. Either they really believe the NCAA has no stones at all, or their strategy is to be so obnoxious that they can ultimately claim that whatever punishment the NCAA ultimately gives is the NCAA just being vindictive because UNC was being so obnoxious.

[swood1000]

Except that "bogus classes" would probably violate the institution's academic policies, so rsvman's "copycat" example would fall on the left side of the flow chart. For UNC, they were cited and penalized for academic misconduct by SACS, so that's where they would go too, I think, except that this is the post-UNC policy and not applicable (as swood points out).

That's the loophole though — the institution's academic policies. For example, Syracuse was charged with improper academic support but Syracuse determined that this did not violate its academic misconduct policy and claimed it had to end there because the NCAA had stated that schools had the final say on academic misconduct. The enforcement staff turned around and charged extra benefits. (That's one reason they came out with the new rules.)

Furthermore, the position of UNC from the beginning was that these classes should be considered valid since there is no evidence that the students did not put a lot of work into them. Only after pressure from SACS did they announce that the classes would not be good for graduation.

In their response to NOA-2, in discussing the charges against Boxill, UNC said, "The new NCAA rules adopted as NCAA Proposal 2015-66, currently in effect, substantially changed the rules that pertain to unauthorized academic assistance. Under these new rules, the enforcement staff likely would not pursue a violation in the circumstances presented here."

Also, it's kind of an odd ball type of setup and might not violate the published academic policies. Or put another way, schools such as UNC will have an incentive to formulate their policies tightly, to minimize the possibility that a provision, construed broadly, could be seen to prohibit many types of things.

[Tom B.]

Yes, and the athletic department and the student-athlete advisory organization offered services and assistance to athletes with respect to these courses that were not available to other students.

And let's not forget this:


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Seriously, why doesn't this slide alone blow their "It was strictly an academic issue, nobody on the athletic side was in on it" defense out of the water?

[swood1000]

Would this also include, for example, a football player who played in the fall of the semester, but took a "paper class" in the Spring semester? I wonder.

I think so, because the athlete out of season is still governed by NCAA rules. They said:

"We define an “active student-athlete” as one who was participating in intercollegiate athletics and governed by NCAA rules at the time they took one of the Courses."

They used 'and' instead of 'or' but it's inconceivable that they would make a blunder so transparent as trying to exclude football player in the Spring. I mean, their lawyers wouldn't open themselves up to that kind of ridicule would they?

[OldPhiKap]

I think so, because the athlete out of season is still governed by NCAA rules. They said:

"We define an “active student-athlete” as one who was participating in intercollegiate athletics and governed by NCAA rules at the time they took one of the Courses."

They used 'and' instead of 'or' but it's inconceivable that they would make a blunder so transparent as trying to exclude football player in the Spring. I mean, their lawyers wouldn't open themselves up to that kind of ridicule would they?

Frankly, I would LOVE to see a pattern that football players took these courses excessively in the spring. It would establish that this was a directed activity from the football team.

[Indoor66]

And let's not forget this:


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Seriously, why doesn't this slide alone blow their "It was strictly an academic issue, nobody on the athletic side was in on it" defense out of the water?

Maybe it does. Patience, Grasshopper.

[Olympic Fan]

And let's not forget this:


PP.jpg


Seriously, why doesn't this slide alone blow their "It was strictly an academic issue, nobody on the athletic side was in on it" defense out of the water?

Great point. I don't see why everybody is sweating UNC's absurd defense.

(1) as noted before, saying phony classes are open to all students is no defense -- FSU was hammered for a phony class that was open to all students and had a majority of non-athletes involved.

(2) We have evidence -- the slide show presentation that Tom B. cites and dozens of e-mails uncovered by Wainstein that show that many of the phony classes were set up specifically for athletes -- often at the request of the sports' academic advisors.

I am frankly amazed that this is the best UNC has got after $18 million in legal fees.

[MarkD83]

Did unc exclude folks in summer school from their calculation. That would be hilarious

[MarkD83]

Great point. I don't see why everybody is sweating UNC's absurd defense.

(1) as noted before, saying phony classes are open to all students is no defense -- FSU was hammered for a phony class that was open to all students and had a majority of non-athletes involved.

(2) We have evidence -- the slide show presentation that Tom B. cites and dozens of e-mails uncovered by Wainstein that show that many of the phony classes were set up specifically for athletes -- often at the request of the sports' academic advisors.

I am frankly amazed that this is the best UNC has got after $18 million in legal fees.

They did get two final fours and a national championship

[devildeac]

And let's not forget this:


PP.jpg


Seriously, why doesn't this slide alone blow their "It was strictly an academic issue, nobody on the athletic side was in on it" defense out of the water?

This appears to be the slide that budwom referenced as the one he wants made into a 6' x 6' banner for the COI to see.

[crdaul]

Obnoxious, hypocritical asshats!

[SilkyJ]

All I know is OPK was WAYYYY off. He said they'd release this on the Friday before memorial day and here they went and released it on a totally different day before memorial day. (In his defense, that day also ends in Y)

[YmoBeThere]

Wasn't it determined that the AFAM courses in question, since you didn't go to an actual class, were independent study courses? I thought unc had a limit on the number of independent study courses you could take at one time and participation in these no class classes put some of the athletes over the allowed number. Am I remembering incorrectly?

I think your recollections are correct.

What I would be really interested to know is how many of the course enrollees were ineligible at the time they were taking the class(and thus not active) but used the AFAM courses to regain eligibility.

[sagegrouse]

I think your recollections are correct.

What I would be really interested to know is how many of the course enrollees were ineligible at the time they were taking the class(and thus not active) but used the AFAM courses to regain eligibility.

Let's not forget that the independent study courses were 400-level courses, as well.

[martydoesntfoul]

Seems like they're in so far deep that there's no turning back now. Not sure if this type of strategy has a name so I'll call it the Big Lie defense. Of course there's nothing to see here. This is all ridiculous and a waste of time, and if we say that enough people will believe it. Man I hope it doesn't work.

[Owen Meany]

I think your recollections are correct.

What I would be really interested to know is how many of the course enrollees were ineligible at the time they were taking the class(and thus not active) but used the AFAM courses to regain eligibility.

The drop from roughly 50% to 30% is huge (40% of the athletes Wainstain identified are not considered athlete's by UNC's definition). It is very difficult to imagine what could possibly account for nearly half of these kids, who were at least at some point an athlete, under any definition becoming a non-athlete. This was a very large group of athletes. There is no way that 40% were kids who dropped their sport.


Unless I am missing something, it would seem like there must be something like you have suggested (athletes trying to regain eligibility). But I can not possibly imagine UNC using this tactic because they would basically be highlighting and underscoring the fact that the classes were used for fraudulent purposes. Pointing out that nearly half of the athletes were ineligible would be malpractice. But, in my opinion, so was challenging the watered down 1st amended NOA.


I think there is a chance UNC has, perhaps, once again been too clever for their own good. It will be interesting to find out exactly how they justify challenging the classification of almost half of the athletes Wainstain identified. It will be ironic if they unwittingly help expose the purpose of the entire scam.

[Devil549]

This is really very simple case but UNC trying to make it more difficult...plain & simple:

UNC put SA (student athletes) in easy classes and they were given benefits all students do not receive. Yes the frat boys and other students learned about the classes probably from the SA...it is not rocket science.

Any student taking 400 level classes in the summer before their freshmen year is receiving a benefit not available to all students.

Also this is a textbook case of LOIC...Lack of Institutional Control....an Adminsitrative Asst/ Secretary graded papers and gave final grades for said classes. Also athletic academic advisors recommend these classes. They communicated with said Secretary and sometimes added SA after the drop/add date.

IMO if NCAA does not punish UNC then why have rules and the NCAA to enforce them?

[Olympic Fan]

This is really very simple case but UNC trying to make it more difficult...plain & simple:

UNC put SA (student athletes) in easy classes and they were given benefits all students do not receive. Yes the frat boys and other students learned about the classes probably from the SA...it is not rocket science.

Any student taking 400 level classes in the summer before their freshmen year is receiving a benefit not available to all students.

Also this is a textbook case of LOIC...Lack of Institutional Control...an Adminsitrative Asst/ Secretary graded papers and gave final grades for said classes. Also athletic academic advisors recommend these classes. They communicated with said Secretary and sometimes added SA after the drop/add date.

IMO if NCAA does not punish UNC then why have rules and the NCAA to enforce them?

Easy classes would actually be okay.

These are phony classes -- classes that never met, were never taught and in many cases were listed as taught by professors who had no idea that their names were used. Some of the classes required a short term paper -- which was graded by a secretary, not an educator. And the same papers were recycled year after year.

I've had UNC apologists tell me that there's nothing to the scandal because every school has easy classes and they stick athletes there. Well, that's true.

But in UNC's case, these are not easy classes -- they are fictional classes or, as Wainstein called them, paper classes. He found dozens and dozens of such classes covering more than 18 years and involving more than 1,500 athletes. We don't know the names of athletes who took advantage of the scam -- except one - Rashad McCants in the spring of 2005, when he was a big part of UNC's national championship team. We know because he released his transcripts and every course he took that semester was a phony class. We don't know about his teammates, except we know that the top seven players on that team were all majoring in African-American Studies.

[dukelion]

Andrew Carter has an article up about the 10 most important arguments UNC makes in their response....this one made me chuckle.

5. Wainstein got some things wrong … and his report shouldn’t be used as evidence.

University leaders praised Ken Wainstein’s report when it was released in October 2014. Wainstein, a former federal prosecutor who is now being considered to lead the FBI, concluded that for 18 years the African studies courses in question helped athletes, including many football and basketball players, remain eligible.

[Read the Wainstein report]

Despite the earlier praise, though, UNC in its latest response distanced itself from the Wainstein report, and also rebutted some of the data Wainstein presented. He found that athletes accounted for approximately 47 percent of enrollments in the classes. In its response, UNC said then-current athletes accounted for 37.2 percent of the enrollments.

UNC argues that the Wainstein report “was never intended to be used for NCAA purposes” and that “it does not reference a single NCAA bylaw.”

http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/c...152704974.html