UNC athletics scandal - McCants points finger

[aswewere]

It just want go away. http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

[Olympic Fan]

The Student Athlete Human Rights Project (headed by NCCU professor Emmett Gill) has filed a complaint with the US Civil Rights Department, asking for an investigation if the UNC athletic department. The claim is that UNC routinely assigned black athletes in a far higher proportion than white athletes -- to phony classes in the African-American Students Department, thus depriving them of a real education:

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

This news comes a day after Mary Willingham revealed that the top six players on UNC's 2005 national championship team combined to take 69 phony "paper" classes.

[superdave]

The Student Athlete Human Rights Project (headed by NCCU professor Emmett Gill) has filed a complaint with the US Civil Rights Department, asking for an investigation if the UNC athletic department. The claim is that UNC routinely assigned black athletes in a far higher proportion than white athletes -- to phony classes in the African-American Students Department, thus depriving them of a real education:

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

This news comes a day after Mary Willingham revealed that the top six players on UNC's 2005 national championship team combined to take 69 phony "paper" classes.

Students do not get "assigned" to classes. I believe the only class you dont really have a choice in, and "have" to take at UNC is Freshman English (and you can place out of that via AP testing). Every student picks their own major and their own courses. I have never heard of the UNC athletic department (or any other athletic department) forcing athletes into a particular major.

Athletes were self-selecting into a major (or course) that everyone knew was easy. The article uses the words "assigning" and "directing" but students choose. That seems to be a bad argument. It seems that there was just an institutional laziness over there, not racially motivated "assignments". This is an odd story to me.

[Bluedog]

The claim is that UNC routinely assigned black athletes in a far higher proportion than white athletes -- to phony classes in the African-American Students Department, thus depriving them of a real education:

I would imagine that black students enroll in courses in African-American studies more frequently than white students at nearly every school across the nation...Am I stating the obvious? :p Clearly, there is a legitimate course of study in the discipline, so I'm not suggesting anything related to the courses being phony. I'm just suggesting that that department typically enrolls larger numbers from a certain demographic - I'm sure it's the same at Duke. I bet there are more Jewish students in Judaic studies too! :) (I'm not making a judgment on if they were assigned or not - just that larger numbers alone don't necessarily prove it on their own).

Edit: Also, the report notes this: "The disparity is an indicator (that) male UNC student-athletes are not provided with the same educational opportunities, including quality of education, as female UNC students-athletes," the group concludes." So, it's also arguing that UNC unfairly assigned male athletes to these courses over females.

[Olympic Fan]

Students do not get "assigned" to classes. I believe the only class you dont really have a choice in, and "have" to take at UNC is Freshman English (and you can place out of that via AP testing). Every student picks their own major and their own courses. I have never heard of the UNC athletic department (or any other athletic department) forcing athletes into a particular major.

Athletes were self-selecting into a major (or course) that everyone knew was easy. The article uses the words "assigning" and "directing" but students choose. That seems to be a bad argument. It seems that there was just an institutional laziness over there, not racially motivated "assignments". This is an odd story to me.

Read the complaint -- part of the argument is the testimony of players such as Michael McAdoo that they were assigned the phony classes.

[Atlanta Duke]

Students do not get "assigned" to classes. I believe the only class you dont really have a choice in, and "have" to take at UNC is Freshman English (and you can place out of that via AP testing). Every student picks their own major and their own courses. I have never heard of the UNC athletic department (or any other athletic department) forcing athletes into a particular major.

Athletes were self-selecting into a major (or course) that everyone knew was easy. The article uses the words "assigning" and "directing" but students choose. That seems to be a bad argument. It seems that there was just an institutional laziness over there, not racially motivated "assignments". This is an odd story to me.

"Self-selection" would appear to be somewhat different from what was described in the HBO Real Sports segment, assuming anything less than use of armed force to compel enrollment is self-selection.

HBO did a great service by getting two former UNC football players, Michael McAdoo and Bryon Bishop, to explain on camera that athletic department staff members directed them to take fake classes to maintain their academic eligibility. ...

There was no escaping that the former players share blame for the corruption—no one held a gun to their heads—or that the universities in question bear the lion’s share of the culpability.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-27/ncaa-in-turmoil-why-unc-cant-get-past-its-fake-classes-scandal

The federal complaint cites the Martin report and an interview that aired on HBO in which former UNC football player Michael McAdoo told a reporter that his class schedule was dictated by the athletic department.

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

UNC presumably will issue a press release that this is more "old news."

[MCFinARL]

Students do not get "assigned" to classes. I believe the only class you dont really have a choice in, and "have" to take at UNC is Freshman English (and you can place out of that via AP testing). Every student picks their own major and their own courses. I have never heard of the UNC athletic department (or any other athletic department) forcing athletes into a particular major.

Athletes were self-selecting into a major (or course) that everyone knew was easy. The article uses the words "assigning" and "directing" but students choose. That seems to be a bad argument. It seems that there was just an institutional laziness over there, not racially motivated "assignments". This is an odd story to me.

Well, but--leaving aside the merits of this particular complaint, while I agree it would be most irregular for athletes to be "assigned" to classes, I don't think it is rare for athletes at a lot of schools to be encouraged to take classes that will interfere minimally with their athletic schedules, or discouraged from taking the most challenging courses of study. Obviously, that is a very different thing from being required to choose a particular course or major, which is one reason why I wonder how far this complaint is likely to get. It may well be that most of these athletes would have chosen the easiest possible course of study as their top alternative entirely on their own. But according to Michael McAdoo (whose experience, noted in the story, has been discussed at greater length in earlier stories), he was advised against taking some classes he wanted to choose and steered, if not directed, to the fake classes.

This may not seem like much of a problem in the case of a student who is already looking for the easiest way through school, which could be a party-loving legacy kid as easily as an athlete. But for a student who may genuinely want to study a particular subject (surely there are some out there), the sense that the athletic staff thinks it's not a good idea could be a strong influence on his/her decision.

[MarkD83]

The Student Athlete Human Rights Project (headed by NCCU professor Emmett Gill) has filed a complaint with the US Civil Rights Department, asking for an investigation if the UNC athletic department. The claim is that UNC routinely assigned black athletes in a far higher proportion than white athletes -- to phony classes in the African-American Students Department, thus depriving them of a real education:

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

This news comes a day after Mary Willingham revealed that the top six players on UNC's 2005 national championship team combined to take 69 phony "paper" classes.

Do you have a link for this? (I believe you. I am just interested in the article.)

[Kedsy]

This news comes a day after Mary Willingham revealed that the top six players on UNC's 2005 national championship team combined to take 69 phony "paper" classes.

I may be late to the party on the above revelation, but the top six players on UNC's 2005 team were in school for a combined 18 school years. If they took 69 phony classes, that's an average of 1.9 phony classes for each kid, each semester (not counting summer school). How many classes did they take? Two fake classes per semester would seem to be a very hefty portion of their course load. Wow.

[Atlanta Duke]

The Student Athlete Human Rights Project (headed by NCCU professor Emmett Gill) has filed a complaint with the US Civil Rights Department, asking for an investigation if the UNC athletic department. The claim is that UNC routinely assigned black athletes in a far higher proportion than white athletes -- to phony classes in the African-American Students Department, thus depriving them of a real education:

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athlete-advocate-group-files-civil-complaint-against-unc/13547718/

This news comes a day after Mary Willingham revealed that the top six players on UNC's 2005 national championship team combined to take 69 phony "paper" classes.


Do you have a link for this? (I believe you. I am just interested in the article.)

Ms. Willingham apparently sent out a tweet late yesterday

'05' UNC basketball champs starting 5 +1 took a combined 69 paper classes. truth=transcripts=transparency. A real education

https://twitter.com/paperclassinc/statuses/452973024380465152

Bradley Bethel, a leading critic of Ms. Willingham who started working in 2011 at UNC to counsel athletes, snipes back

Mary Willingham's latest tweet is as brilliant as it is unethical and unlawful. In her tweet, she revealed academic information about the starting basketball players on the 2005 national championship team.... We may never know the truth, but UNC-haters will undoubtedly insist Willingham was telling the truth

http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/

Assuming the records still exist it actually should not be too hard to check on whether she is telling the truth about the 2005 champs

This link to a 2010 Indy Star article showed most of that team was majoring in AFAM

http://archive.indystar.com/data/sports/finalfour_gradrates.shtml?appSession=1063994718264 58

[Olympic Fan]

It was a tweet from 20 hours ago:

Mary Willingham ‏@paperclassinc · 20h
'05' UNC basketball champs starting 5 +1 took a combined 69 paper classes. truth=transcripts=transparency. A real education= #ncaareform

We know from an interview in the Indianapolis paper at the Final Four in '05 that Sean May said he was switching his major to African American students because he was going to0 have a busy spring and summer and his new major didn't require any class time. From the Indy Star:

'May said he started as a double major with communications, but dropped it so he could graduate faster after leaving for the NBA.Afro-American and African studies, May said, offered "more independent electives, independent study. I could take a lot of classes during the season. Communications, I had to be there in the actual classroom. We just made sure all the classes I had to take, I could take during the summer."'

[arnie]

Ms. Willingham apparently sent out a tweet late yesterday

'05' UNC basketball champs starting 5 +1 took a combined 69 paper classes. truth=transcripts=transparency. A real education

https://twitter.com/paperclassinc/statuses/452973024380465152

Bradley Bethel, a leading critic of Ms. Willingham who started working in 2011 at UNC to counsel athletes, snipes back

Mary Willingham's latest tweet is as brilliant as it is unethical and unlawful. In her tweet, she revealed academic information about the starting basketball players on the 2005 national championship team.... We may never know the truth, but UNC-haters will undoubtedly insist Willingham was telling the truth

http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/

Assuming the records still exist it actually should not be too hard to check on whether she is telling the truth about the 2005 champs

This link to a 2010 Indy Star article showed most of that team was majoring in AFAM

http://archive.indystar.com/data/sports/finalfour_gradrates.shtml?appSession=1063994718264 58

This Bradley Bethel guy is a real trooper for the UNC coverup team. Reminds me of the "yes" men at large corps spreading the gospel of the newly promoted icon. He's gonna make a name for himself and likely get a huge raise/ promotion.

[Bob Green]

It just want go away.

Education is important. Strong oral and written communication skills contribute to success.

[BigWayne]

It is very interesting that Emmitt Gill is associated with this. You may remember him from his involvement in the hysteria in Durham in the spring of 2006.

I see this as either a rift in the local AFAM academic community (NCCU vs. Julius Nyang'oro/UNC) or a sign that the AFAM related community has had enough of being blamed for the UNC athletic scandal. Either way, it will likely make for some very interesting coverage related to the Nyang'oro litigation.

[miramar]

Assuming the records still exist it actually should not be too hard to check on whether she is telling the truth about the 2005 champs

This link to a 2010 Indy Star article showed most of that team was majoring in AFAM

http://archive.indystar.com/data/sports/finalfour_gradrates.shtml?appSession=1063994718264 58

I am a professor and at my school I can find my rosters and grades back to 1998 in just a few seconds. Bethel isn't exactly lying when he says that we may never know the truth, but the UNC administration knows exactly what classes each student took and the grades they received. The university also can't claim that anyone is breaking privacy laws when the players themselves are admitting the courses they were taking and the grades they received in exchange for little or no work.

At some point the administrators have to get out in front of the problem and reveal exactly what happened, and somehow keep from revealing the players' names.

[Olympic Fan]

Andrew Perrin, who is the faculty's academic liaison for men's basketball, tweeted Monday at 4:04pm:

@Dpanther12 @AlanJustus Yes, evidence shows fraud benefited athletics. Hence major reforms in ASPSA, athletics, admissions. (https://twitter.com/AndrewJPerrin/status/45326214 0145958912)

Let me get this straight.

UNC's faculty liaison for men's basketball admits that "evidence shows that fraud benefited athletics"

He's trying to toe the party line that UNC has cleaned up the mess and is moving on, but he is admitting that fraud did occur.

How can the NCAA ignore this?

[eddiehaskell]

Is it possible to have the 2005 title vacated? I mean, if more teachers and players come forward to confirm what Willingham is saying, surely the NCAA should thoroughly investigate the matter. They go crazy about players receiving a few bucks from someone like Myron Piggie, but don't want to look into a scandal that is basically cheating on the highest level?

[throatybeard]

Is it possible to have the 2005 title vacated? I mean, if more teachers and players come forward to confirm what Willingham is saying, surely the NCAA should thoroughly investigate the matter. They go crazy about players receiving a few bucks from someone like Myron Piggie, but don't want to look into a scandal that is basically cheating on the highest level?

Well, I don't know, but that was the money quote in the BusinessWeek story in February.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-27/in-fake-classes-scandal-unc-fails-its-athletes-whistle-blower

Jay Smith, a professor of early-modern French history at UNC, studied each university-sponsored report as it appeared. A rare academic in Chapel Hill who openly expresses unease about the influence of revenue sports, he publicly supported Willingham. “The obvious question raised by all the so-called investigations was why [the university was] so determined to exonerate the athletic department when Mary was providing first-person evidence that athletic eligibility was the motive behind the academic fraud,” he says. “The answer, I’m afraid, is that we’re terrified at the prospect of having to go back and look” at whether members of the 2005 and 2009 championship basketball teams were eligible only because they took bogus classes.

[alteran]

Is it possible to have the 2005 title vacated? I mean, if more teachers and players come forward to confirm what Willingham is saying, surely the NCAA should thoroughly investigate the matter. They go crazy about players receiving a few bucks from someone like Myron Piggie, but don't want to look into a scandal that is basically cheating on the highest level?

I wonder about vacating the title myself. My understanding is that the NCAA has four years to notify the school that it thinks a specific impropriety has occurred, after that it is inactionable. However, there are exceptions-- things like LOIC, or a pattern of violations that predates the statute of limitations. The latter definitively seems to apply.

[superdave]

I wonder about vacating the title myself. My understanding is that the NCAA has four years to notify the school that it thinks a specific impropriety has occurred, after that it is inactionable. However, there are exceptions-- things like LOIC, or a pattern of violations that predates the statute of limitations. The latter definitively seems to apply.

After what the NCAA imposed on Penn State, anything is possible. There are no longer limitations on time, authority or anything else.

[arnie]

I wonder about vacating the title myself. My understanding is that the NCAA has four years to notify the school that it thinks a specific impropriety has occurred, after that it is inactionable. However, there are exceptions-- things like LOIC, or a pattern of violations that predates the statute of limitations. The latter definitively seems to apply.

To appease everyone, NCAA could vacate the Helms Trophy year instead, and insist UNC take that banner down. Would be a tough sell for the clowns at Carolina, but that way former players (2005) protected.

[cspan37421]

Well, but--leaving aside the merits of this particular complaint, while I agree it would be most irregular for athletes to be "assigned" to classes, I don't think it is rare for athletes at a lot of schools to be encouraged to take classes that will interfere minimally with their athletic schedules, or discouraged from taking the most challenging courses of study. Obviously, that is a very different thing from being required to choose a particular course or major, which is one reason why I wonder how far this complaint is likely to get. It may well be that most of these athletes would have chosen the easiest possible course of study as their top alternative entirely on their own. But according to Michael McAdoo (whose experience, noted in the story, has been discussed at greater length in earlier stories), he was advised against taking some classes he wanted to choose and steered, if not directed, to the fake classes.

This may not seem like much of a problem in the case of a student who is already looking for the easiest way through school, which could be a party-loving legacy kid as easily as an athlete. But for a student who may genuinely want to study a particular subject (surely there are some out there), the sense that the athletic staff thinks it's not a good idea could be a strong influence on his/her decision.

It is interesting to me that Tom Wolfe anticipated this in his novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. The star basketball player, Jojo, signs up for a philosophy class and the coach goes berzerk on him. There are many effective ways to pressure a scholarship athlete to not go against the staff's academic recommendations. And I'm sure that more than a few athletes are quite willing to go along with an easy path if offered, especially if encouraged.

[UrinalCake]

Is it possible to have the 2005 title vacated? I mean, if more teachers and players come forward to confirm what Willingham is saying, surely the NCAA should thoroughly investigate the matter. They go crazy about players receiving a few bucks from someone like Myron Piggie, but don't want to look into a scandal that is basically cheating on the highest level?

The NCAA will suspend a player for putting cream cheese on a bagel provided by the school. Providing the bagel by itself is okay, but once the school provides cream cheese that qualifies it as a "meal" and it is a violation.

But decades of fake classes, that's totally fine.

[ncexnyc]

If things weren't interesting enough, try this on for size.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/us/unc-academic-fraud-investigation/index.html?iref=storysearch

[Olympic Fan]

Agree that wow is the right word for this.

It may be just a politician posturing, but it's the kind of posturing that has to get the NCAA's attention.

[BD80]

If things weren't interesting enough, try this on for size.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/us/unc-academic-fraud-investigation/index.html?iref=storysearch

Out, damned spot! out, I say!— ... What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? ...

... What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

... Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O! ...

—I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.

... What's done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed!

[gumbomoop]

The link to the CNN article provided by ncexnyc in post #24 is well worth your time.

Note, too, that this story will make an appearance tonight, very soon, 9 pm, on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."

Here's a teaser from the online article:

"Two internal reviews commissioned by the university found there was no evidence that counselors or anyone in the athletics department knew about the abuse.

UNC's athletic reform Chairwoman Joy Renner told CNN that she believes the students found the easy classes by word of mouth and that UNC officials were stunned as to why Nyang'oro would offer paper classes.

McAdoo says that's not true, and Willingham told CNN that paper classes were openly discussed within the athletics department as a way to keep athletes eligible."

The article presents the NCAA as something other than, uh, alert.

[brevity]

Is it possible to have the 2005 title vacated?


I wonder about vacating the title myself.

Wait, you have that power? Then do it, alteran!

I always thought that 2005 Illinois squad was a team of destiny. Surprised it took 9 years, though.

[BlueTeuf]

Wouldn't you think there'd be at least a smattering of UNC student-athletes objecting to the negative characterization of their academic effort/integrity? I can't claim to have read everything on this alleged scandal - but, for me, the silence of legitimate student-athletes speaks volumes.

[moonpie23]

"But the NCAA's investigation is over despite recent revelations from McAdoo and Willingham's public statements."


this is the deal……

[gumbomoop]

No follow-up on tonight's "The Lead." I suppose it was only tentatively scheduled, got dropped in favor of more important stories.

Or maybe Jan Boxill got to CNN, threatening to expose their ethical flaws. Mystery deepens.

[devil84]

Wouldn't you think there'd be at least a smattering of UNC student-athletes objecting to the negative characterization of their academic effort/integrity? I can't claim to have read everything on this alleged scandal - but, for me, the silence of legitimate student-athletes speaks volumes.

Bubba Cunningham introduced six current student-athletes to speak out (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/27/3737124/unc-athletes-speak-up-about-their.html?sp=/99/102/110/112/973/) at a recent trustee meeting (another link (http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athletes-speak-to-unc-trustees-about-academic-challenges/13516573/)). Three football players (freshman Ryan Switzer, WR; freshman Kemmi Pettway, Walkon LB; senior Tim Scott, CB), a gymnast, a softball player, and a basketball player (sophomore Marcus Paige) spoke.

Of the four named, two are undeclared and two are Exercise and Sports Science (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/) major. Before y'all start snickering about the major, Human Anatomy, Human Physiology, and Biology are required for the major. This major can dovetail nicely with pre-med requirements and be a challenging major. (That doesn't mean there aren't special sections for certain students...not there isn't a precedent for paper classes over there.) There was a change in requirements (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/ba-in-exss/general-major/) starting in 2010. (What year was the football scandal again?)

That said, these are current student athletes. Most matriculated since the scandals broke. I'm sure that what's going on now isn't what happened back then. Those athletes aren't speaking up at all.

[BD80]

Bubba Cunningham introduced six current student-athletes to speak out (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/27/3737124/unc-athletes-speak-up-about-their.html?sp=/99/102/110/112/973/) at a recent trustee meeting (another link (http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athletes-speak-to-unc-trustees-about-academic-challenges/13516573/)). Three football players (freshman Ryan Switzer, WR; freshman Kemmi Pettway, Walkon LB; senior Tim Scott, CB), a gymnast, a softball player, and a basketball player (sophomore Marcus Paige) spoke.Of the four named, two are undeclared and two are Exercise and Sports Science (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/) major. Before y'all start snickering about the major, Human Anatomy, Human Physiology, and Biology are required for the major. This major can dovetail nicely with pre-med requirements and be a challenging major. (That doesn't mean there aren't special sections for certain students...not there isn't a precedent for paper classes over there.) There was a change in requirements (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/ba-in-exss/general-major/) starting in 2010. (What year was the football scandal again?)

That said, these are current student athletes. Most matriculated since the scandals broke. I'm sure that what's going on now isn't what happened back then. Those athletes aren't speaking up at all.

Even at the height of the pretense, I am certain unc could find 6 athletes across all of their programs (including women's programs) that were serious students. Big Deal.

The point isn't whether some athletes were also students, its that some athletes WEREN'T STUDENTS! And the administration didn't care (and worse, facilitated the fraud).

[hustleplays]

Out, damned spot! out, I say!— ... What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? ...

... What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

... Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O! ...

—I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.

... What's done cannot be undone.—To bed, to bed, to bed!

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,"…and NCAA's pretense, and the student-athlete sham, and UNC's administration's slumber.

What would knit the raveled sleeve of care is, finally, and too late, full candor. Alas, alack, not to be.

[throatybeard]

Let me not to the marriage of true frauds admit impediments.

[77devil]

Agree that wow is the right word for this.

It may be just a politician posturing, but it's the kind of posturing that has to get the NCAA's attention.

The image of Mark Emmert squirming in front of a congressional sub committee while under oath is delightful. One could argue Congress has more important things to work on, but in this instance I'll make an exception.



Bubba Cunningham introduced six current student-athletes to speak out (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/27/3737124/unc-athletes-speak-up-about-their.html?sp=/99/102/110/112/973/) at a recent trustee meeting (another link (http://www.wralsportsfan.com/athletes-speak-to-unc-trustees-about-academic-challenges/13516573/)). Three football players (freshman Ryan Switzer, WR; freshman Kemmi Pettway, Walkon LB; senior Tim Scott, CB), a gymnast, a softball player, and a basketball player (sophomore Marcus Paige) spoke.

Of the four named, two are undeclared and two are Exercise and Sports Science (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/) major. Before y'all start snickering about the major, Human Anatomy, Human Physiology, and Biology are required for the major. This major can dovetail nicely with pre-med requirements and be a challenging major. (That doesn't mean there aren't special sections for certain students...not there isn't a precedent for paper classes over there.) There was a change in requirements (http://exss.unc.edu/undergraduate-program/ba-in-exss/general-major/) starting in 2010. (What year was the football scandal again?)

That said, these are current student athletes. Most matriculated since the scandals broke. I'm sure that what's going on now isn't what happened back then. Those athletes aren't speaking up at all.


Even at the height of the pretense, I am certain unc could find 6 athletes across all of their programs (including women's programs) that were serious students. Big Deal.

The point isn't whether some athletes were also students, its that some athletes WEREN'T STUDENTS! And the administration didn't care (and worse, facilitated the fraud).

Precisely; marching a few hand picked individuals in front of the board was window dressing. If the board had any inclination to get to the truth it should have admonished the administration for wasting their time with a sham display.

[Atlanta Duke]

Agree that wow is the right word for this.

It may be just a politician posturing, but it's the kind of posturing that has to get the NCAA's attention.

The Congressman sugggesting subpoenas may be issued and hearings held is a first term Democratic Representative. Representative Cardenas also introduced HR 3545 (The Collegiate Student Athlete Protection Act) last fall. The proposed legislation has no co-sponsors from the other side of the aisle and has not gone beyond being introduced.

http://cardenas.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/thursday-c-rdenas-to-meet-with-collegiate-student-athlete-advocates
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3545

This is not taking a shot at Congressman Cardenas, just an observation that the majority party calls the shots in the House. I assume Mark Emmert and the NCAA will be a lot more worried if the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce calls for hearings.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

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. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/silent-dishonesty-distinguished.html)

April 10th post. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/we-have-our-own-party-declining-paper.html?spref=tw)

[BD80]

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. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/silent-dishonesty-distinguished.html)

April 10th post. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/we-have-our-own-party-declining-paper.html?spref=tw)

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)

[MCFinARL]

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)

The linked material is, in fact, interesting--but generates a lot more heat than light. The ongoing exchanges between Smith and Bethel look to me like unfortunate evidence of the tendency of many university faculty (in general, not specifically at UNC) to go straight for the capillary and engage, while the heart of the matter is pushed to the side.

[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. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/silent-dishonesty-distinguished.html)

April 10th post. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/we-have-our-own-party-declining-paper.html?spref=tw)

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.. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/sata-gate-how-one-womans-inflated.html?spref=tw)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/2014-04-14/university-of-north-carolina-presses-attack-on-whistle-blower-in-fake-classes-for-athletes-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.. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/sata-gate-how-one-womans-inflated.html?spref=tw)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.. (http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/sata-gate-how-one-womans-inflated.html?spref=tw)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/2014/01/30/4652834/a-former-unc-dean-recalls-athletes.html#.U0xvx6IR_9s#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/2014/03/02/3668170/unc-learning-specialist-defends.html#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/2014/01/30/4652834/a-former-unc-dean-recalls-athletes.html#.U0xvx6IR_9s#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/2014/03/02/3668170/unc-learning-specialist-defends.html#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.

[Newton_14]

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.

Great post. To deny the corruption brought to light at UNC-CH is to either bury one's head in the sand, or to simply refuse to accept it happened, or lastly, know it happened but deny, deflect, and never ever admit guilt no matter what anyway.

Not that it matters, given the more important consequences of their actions that can never be undone, but the 05 and 09 Banners need to come down and all games in those years should be vacated.

[Duvall]

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 knew and 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.

In that scenario, who would be pressuring the tutors?

[Wheat/"/"/"]

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.

That's very smug of you.

Nobody knows individual players reading issues. Their records are private and we don't know who, nor should we, of who struggles to read, so we don't know what schools recruited who.

Talking basketball here, I simply made a general statement that I find it curious that the kids UNC recruits, and some of these kids with reading issues would have to be among them, are also recruited by other top major programs.

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

In that scenario, who would be pressuring the tutors?

The tutors pressuring themselves wanting to help the players, parents wanting them to help their kids to succeed, the players, and the school expecting them to help or they would not have that role.

[JBDuke]

That's very smug of you.

Nobody knows individual players reading issues. Their records are private and we don't know who, nor should we, of who struggles to read, so we don't know what schools recruited who.

Talking basketball here, I simply made a general statement that I find it curious that the kids UNC recruits, and some of these kids with reading issues would have to be among them, are also recruited by other top major programs.

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.

So, Wheat, what do you think of the statements by former UNC athletes that they were directed into the bogus, no-show classes in order to ensure they stayed eligible, in some cases despite their desires to pursue some other course of study?

[Wheat/"/"/"]

So, Wheat, what do you think of the statements by former UNC athletes that they were directed into the bogus, no-show classes in order to ensure they stayed eligible, in some cases despite their desires to pursue some other course of study?

I haven't seen that...links?

[BigWayne]

I haven't seen that...links?

Really? You been on a long trip somewhere?

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/24/3729368/hbos-real-sports-looks-at-academic.html

[Duvall]

I haven't seen that...links?

Wait a second. You've followed the story closely enough to see and pass along the latest blog post from angry Rant Guy, but you missed the allegations from former players that were reported by the New York Times, ESPN and HBO? How does that work?

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Wait a second. You've followed the story closely enough to see and pass along the latest blog post from angry Rant Guy, but you missed the allegations from former players that were reported by the New York Times, ESPN and HBO? How does that work?

Yes, I've been busy. Sorry, but every snowbird in the country has been here lately.

Look back at my post. I've been telling you guys I've not been following this stuff...only recently when I saw that blog site from the Bethel guy, which I found interesting, I hardly ever commented on the academic situation because I'm really not up to speed.

[gumbomoop]

I am myself rather less interested in the controversy over Willingham's research than in her matter-of-fact assertion that the scam was an open secret within the athletic department. In this regard, let's focus for a moment on Duvall's question about a key issue, still an unsolved mystery:


.... who would be pressuring the tutors?


The tutors pressuring themselves wanting to help the players, parents wanting them to help their kids to succeed, the players, and the school expecting them to help or they would not have that role.

Wheat has given an answer, with one part of which I sort of agree, but other parts of which I find either unpersuasive or imprecise. I might guess that some tutors/counselors did "pressure themselves," but in the sense that they didn't so much feel pressure but simply picked up on the open secret and funneled athletes into ghost courses as SOP, to help them stay eligible. I'm more skeptical that parents had much of a role in "pressuring tutors." Parents, to the extent that they had any idea whatsoever about their children's academic program, were unlikely to have had much knowledge about academic counseling. Their own children were unlikely to have spilled any beans about inappropriate advice from counselors. Nor, indeed, is it clear which and how many athletes were unsettled by the open secret, and which and how many simply took it for granted.

Did the players pressure the counselors? Into doing what, exactly? Well, yes, conceivably, something like, "Can you get me into X course?" But that assumes that there was some sort of limit on the number of ghost spaces available in ghost courses. Could be, but the known evidence so far doesn't suggest any such limit.

Most mysterious of all, who exactly constituted "the school" that wanted the counselors "to help"? ["keep them eligible," I add here, as a friendly amendment to Wheat's answer, and I'm not joking]. The imprecise phrase, "the school," leads toward dangerous ground for an untold number of folks connected to the athletic department, in particular if Willingham is right that the scam was an open secret, and if that assertion is supported by anyone else.

For precision's sake, I pause here to note that at times I have critiqued Wheat's viewpoint, only to be informed that I have misinterpreted his meaning. In the present example, I can imagine that Wheat means by "the school" something more general than specific people, maybe something more like a "general expectation" that counselors understood their primary task was helping maintain eligibility.

Still, it's hardly controversial to think that such a general expectation was personified by those who set the tone in the athlete-counseling bailiwick of the athletic program. I have long assumed that among, and possibly primary among, the tone-and-expectation setters was the person who for a decade or more was the superintendent/coordinator of counselors, Jan Boxill. Her role in the scam is yet to be discovered, but it's nearly impossible to imagine that she was utterly oblivious to what "the school" expected. What did Boxill know and do?

The role of Coach Roy Williams is also a mystery. I can imagine a couple of scenarios, which are by no means opposite, but do differ. [Others will come up with alternate possibilities.] (1) Roy knew a lot. At some point he became aware of the number of AFAM courses being taken by his players, and actually became interested enough to know that his players were part of a scam. (2) Roy knew only a little. At some point he became aware of the number of AFAM courses being taken by his players, but never became interested enough to realize that his players were part of a scam.

I "favor" the second of these hypothetical explanations of Roy's role. Why? Because there's no evidence that I know of that Roy -- nor many, many coaches -- has the first clue as to what would constitute real education. I'm skeptical that Roy, with his aw-shucks personality, even knows how to take education seriously. Does this seem unnecessarily cruel? I don't think I mean it to be cruel. To quote Coach Krzyzewski, out of context, admittedly, but apropos: "It's not personal; it's the truth."

For all I know, Roy is a more admirable person than K, a gentler soul, a sweeter person. [Bloody obvious confession: he's almost certainly gentler and sweeter than I.] But there's no evidence whatsoever that he possesses anything other than a shallow understanding of academic excellence and success. No evidence that he's a thoughtful person about the myriad functions, not to mention the ennobling intellectual crevices, of a great university.

What did Roy know? IMO, he was't -- isn't -- mentally or psychologically inclined to know much about book learning. He knows coaching. He knows his world, and knows his players take courses, and at some point probably knew something "funny" was going on with all these guys majoring in the same thing. Probably heard some joking around about Swahili, but didn't think -- because he didn't know maybe he was supposed to think -- about what that stuff might portend.

Should the buck stop with Roy? Yes, though that might be holding him to a higher standard than his actual awareness of the meaning of a university can stand.

ETA, in case there's a reader or two out there yet insufficiently offended or appalled by my comments about Coach Williams: I have no doubt whatsoever that Coach Williams loves UNC more than I love either UNC or Duke. But I have some doubt that he respects UNC as much as I do, or did, and might do again.

[sagegrouse]

I am myself rather less interested in the controversy over Willingham's research than in her matter-of-fact assertion that the scam was an open secret within the athletic department. The role of Coach Roy Williams is also a mystery. I can imagine a couple of scenarios, which are by no means opposite, but do differ. [Others will come up with alternate possibilities.] (1) Roy knew a lot. At some point he became aware of the number of AFAM courses being taken by his players, and actually became interested enough to know that his players were part of a scam. (2) Roy knew only a little. At some point he became aware of the number of AFAM courses being taken by his players, but never became interested enough to realize that his players were part of a scam.

I "favor" the second of these hypothetical explanations of Roy's role. Why? Because there's no evidence that I know of that Roy -- nor many, many coaches -- has the first clue as to what would constitute real education. I'm skeptical that Roy, with his aw-shucks personality, even knows how to take education seriously. Does this seem unnecessarily cruel? I don't think I mean it to be cruel. To quote Coach Krzyzewski, out of context, admittedly, but apropos: "It's not personal; it's the truth."

For all I know, Roy is a more admirable person than K, a gentler soul, a sweeter person. [Bloody obvious confession: he's almost certainly gentler and sweeter than I.] But there's no evidence whatsoever that he possesses anything other than a shallow understanding of academic excellence and success. No evidence that he's a thoughtful person about the myriad functions, not to mention the ennobling intellectual crevices, of a great university.

.

In about 2009 UNC hired Jennifer Townsend from Minnesota as academic counselor for basketball. She replaced Wayne Weldon, who came with Roy from Kansas. While Townsend has not commented publicly, no UNC basketball player has taken a no-show course since she arrived. Mary Willingham says that Townsend was appalled by those classes and put her foot down.

Roy must have had a say in the hiring of his own team's academic counselor. He gets points for hiring, or acceding to the hiring, of Jennifer Townsend.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Wait a second. You've followed the story closely enough to see and pass along the latest blog post from angry Rant Guy, but you missed the allegations from former players that were reported by the New York Times, ESPN and HBO? How does that work?
Because now it's more convenient. I respect a lot of what Wheat has to say. But this is at least the second time he's done this. I can't find the post but he claimed ignorance of the PJ stuff early on because he hadn't been following it and then finally showed up just when it seemed there was some support for the UNC-centric view of things. Let's call it selective participation in the dialogue(s).

[77devil]

That's very smug of you.

Nobody knows individual players reading issues. Their records are private and we don't know who, nor should we, of who struggles to read, so we don't know what schools recruited who.

Talking basketball here, I simply made a general statement that I find it curious that the kids UNC recruits, and some of these kids with reading issues would have to be among them, are also recruited by other top major programs.

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.

The only thing smug are the baby blues like you who have always maintain that the Carolina Way is superior to other top programs. UNC is being singled out because the hypocrisy of its self righteousness and its well documented and long standing cheating make it an easy target. In its race to the bottom, the Heels have demonstrated they are no different.

You can generalize all you want, but don't invoke Duke in your narrative unless you can back it up.

[77devil]

I haven't seen that...links?


Really? You been on a long trip?

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/24/3729368/hbos-real-sports-looks-at-academic.html

More like head in the sand or selective participation as noted above. Here is more.

"What if the internal investigation stretched back further? And focused on the basketball team? The school would find that seven members of UNC’s title-winning team coached by Roy Williams in 2005 majored in African/Afro-American Studies. The Indy Star documented it in 2010:"

"That includes Sean May of the Sacramento Kings, the Bloomington prep star and son of former IU star Scott May. Sean May entered the NBA after three years in college, capped by an NCAA title in 2005. He graduated last summer. May said he started as a double major with communications, but dropped it so he could graduate faster after leaving for the NBA. Afro-American and African studies, May said, offered “more independent electives, independent study. I could take a lot of classes during the season. Communications, I had to be there in the actual classroom. We just made sure all the classes I had to take, I could take during the summer.”

[JTH]

That's very smug of you.

Nobody knows individual players reading issues. Their records are private and we don't know who, nor should we, of who struggles to read, so we don't know what schools recruited who.

Talking basketball here, I simply made a general statement that I find it curious that the kids UNC recruits, and some of these kids with reading issues would have to be among them, are also recruited by other top major programs.

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.


You seem to have softened your comment in post # 51 a bit:

"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?"(emphasis mine)

It appears that you have backed off of this assertion by now acknowledging that you don't actually know who these may be because the records are private. If you do still claim that Duke has offered many of these "same" special admits a scholarship, would you please provide some names and links?

Also, there is quite a bit of difference between recruiting and offering a scholarship. You don't propose to every girl you date. You don't offer a scholarship to every athlete you recruit. It is during the recruiting process that each side evaluates whether the other is a good fit for them and that would include academically.

I do not deny that unc is not alone in offering special admissions to athletes that would not otherwise meet the university's academic standards, and that includes Duke. However, what is at question here is the extent and frequency to which unc lowered the bar and the extraordinary measures they employed to keep these athletes eligible.

[gumbomoop]

In about 2009 UNC hired Jennifer Townsend from Minnesota as academic counselor for basketball. She replaced Wayne Weldon, who came with Roy from Kansas. While Townsend has not commented publicly, no UNC basketball player has taken a no-show course since she arrived. Mary Willingham says that Townsend was appalled by those classes and put her foot down.

Roy must have had a say in the hiring of his own team's academic counselor. He gets points for hiring, or acceding to the hiring, of Jennifer Townsend.

I'm willing both to give Roy points for Townsend's hiring, and detract points for bringing Weldon with him from KU. In truth, I've no idea exactly how deeply Roy is enmeshed in this mess, but in my judgment the extant evidence does not suggest he's pushing for full investigation.

My general point in discussing Roy's yet-uncertain role was to raise the most obvious "elephant in the room" issue re the elementary question, "How many people, and who exactly, knew what was going on?" Willingham's public declaration is along the lines of, "Everybody knew, it was common knowledge." And it's that matter-of-fact comment that interests me far more than what has recently become a deflection -- the understandable controversy about Willingham's research into academic abilities of UNC's major-sports athletes -- from the central question, "How in heaven's name could the scam have happened?"

In my post above I opined that Roy probably didn't know everything, not exactly because he was conscious of needing plausible deniability, but because UNC's academic respectability, much less excellence, is not part of his mental-intellectual world, save in the most cursory, shallow sense.

I could be wrong. Maybe he knew exactly what was going on. In which case, it's an interesting question whether Townsend's hiring was his idea, an implicit admission that things had gotten out of control; or an idea presented to him as a fait accompli, an implicit commentary on how little he understood of what he knew.

[oldnavy]

That's very smug of you.

Nobody knows individual players reading issues. Their records are private and we don't know who, nor should we, of who struggles to read, so we don't know what schools recruited who.

Talking basketball here, I simply made a general statement that I find it curious that the kids UNC recruits, and some of these kids with reading issues would have to be among them, are also recruited by other top major programs.

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.

I think the real issues is not in that UNC "took" them, it is what they did or did not "do" for them after they got them....

The implications that UNC staff directed or encouraged or even coerced players to take "ghost" classes that would keep them eligible is the issue...

But once again, look at how far the "Carolina Way" has "slipped" (assuming there ever was such a thing) ... almost every counter argument from the UNC faithful (that basked in the glow from the "Carolina Way") points to other schools doing the same thing.

"but Mom, all the kids are doing it".... falls a little flat after years of claiming the high ground.

[devildeac]

In about 2009 UNC hired Jennifer Townsend from Minnesota as academic counselor for basketball. She replaced Wayne Weldon, who came with Roy from Kansas. While Townsend has not commented publicly, no UNC basketball player has taken a no-show course since she arrived. Mary Willingham says that Townsend was appalled by those classes and put her foot down.

Roy must have had a say in the hiring of his own team's academic counselor. He gets points for hiring, or acceding to the hiring, of Jennifer Townsend.

Plus, he earns extra credit for giving out reading awards at an elementary school in Rolesville, NC recently, too. No link. I just read this short paragraph in yesterday morning's Raleigh N&O. Oh, the irony...

[jv001]

[/B]

I think the real issues is not in that UNC "took" them, it is what they did or did not "do" for them after they got them....

The implications that UNC staff directed or encouraged or even coerced players to take "ghost" classes that would keep them eligible is the issue...

But once again, look at how far the "Carolina Way" has "slipped" (assuming there ever was such a thing) ... almost every counter argument from the UNC faithful (that basked in the glow from the "Carolina Way") points to other schools doing the same thing.

"but Mom, all the kids are doing it".... falls a little flat after years of claiming the high ground.

I'm getting this from most of the usually level headed unc fan and of course from all the idiot unc fans. GoDuke!

[alteran]

Point being, I don't see how UNC should be singled out for taking these players into the program when other top programs would have as well.

Maybe because they had an athletic pipeline to a department using bogus classes to keep players eligible? Just a thought.

[BD80]

Plus, [ol' roy] earns extra credit for giving out reading awards at an elementary school in Rolesville, NC recently, too. No link. I just read this short paragraph in yesterday morning's Raleigh N&O. Oh, the irony...

He was planning to give him to his own players ...

but none qualified.

[ArnieMc]

I gave Ol' Roy a lot of credit for rescinding JamesOn Curry's scholarship for drug dealing early in Roy's career at unc. Unfortunately, the Carolina Way (Win at all costs) seems to have corrupted his ethics to be more aligned with the three monkeys' philosophy.

[BD80]

Interesting article:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/15/3787302/deborah-crowders-role-in-unc-scandal.html

What she says could have ramifications for hundreds of wins and numerous championships by UNC’s athletic teams. If she says she helped create the classes so athletes struggling academically could stay eligible to play sports, her actions could trigger serious NCAA violations. If she can show she paid no attention to who sought to get into the classes, and simply helped anyone who showed up at her door, the NCAA might stay away.

[BD80]

In what is a clear reaction to the unc academic fraud, the NCAA considering a change in its role in investigating academic fraud involving athletes. No longer would the characterization "its an academic issue" keep the NCAA from investigating:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24528941/report-ncaa-could-change-guidelines-on-punishment-for-academic-cheating

That can't be good for the tarheels

[BigWayne]

This one is pretty interesting also.....

http://www.craveonline.com/sports/interviews/676377-schooled-mary-willingham-on-the-educational-side-of-athletic-scholarships

[gumbomoop]

In what is a clear reaction to the unc academic fraud, the NCAA considering a change in its role in investigating academic fraud involving athletes. No longer would the characterization "its an academic issue" keep the NCAA from investigating:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24528941/report-ncaa-could-change-guidelines-on-punishment-for-academic-cheating

That can't be good for the tarheels

I don't have access to the Chronicle of Higher Education article which is excerpted in this link, but even the excerpts portend ominous developments that seem likely to suck UNC even deeper into its suicidal mud. For if the NCAA BOD adopts the recommendations of its Leadership Council, NCAA sanctions would likely be triggered by events such as the athletic-eligibility scam at UNC.

But we know that the NCAA has heretofore worked diligently to avoid the bloody obvious in UNC's case; so we might parse very carefully the words -- mine -- "sanctions ... likely ... triggered." Take these 2 quotations, which are CBS Sports CBB writer Matt Norlander's paraphrase of points from the Chronicle, what academics would call the primary source. No reason to think Norlander is mistranslating.

"The NCAA has acted in the past as a participatory consultant in UNC's own internal investigations, but it never took the lead on the matter because the reported fraud never happened solely through athletic channels."

"How frequent is the cheating and how often is it happening primarily through athletic departments/personnel -- and explicitly for athletes?"

Parsing "sanctions ... likely ... triggered" depends, in turn, on parsing the italicized words in the 2 quotations above. What, exactly, would constitute smoking-gun-proof of fraud conducted "solely" through athletic channels? Clearly, all jokes aside, Prof. Nyang'Oro wasn't employed "solely" by the athletic department. Similarly, and with a similar caution about cheap jokes, we don't, yet, have any evidence that athletic personnel were the "primary" conductors of the cheating. There is an interesting question about the athlete-counselors, who, although some seem to have acted on behalf of the athletic department, probably can't -- parsing precisely -- be termed "athletic personnel."

And while it's obvious that the cheating was "for [= on behalf of] athletes," was it "explicitly" so; and what constitutes evidence of such an "explicit" intent?

Still, this internal rethinking by the NCAA Leadership Council does threaten the 2005 and 2009 titles. It's a necessary, though not sufficient, [way] belated first step by the NCAA toward serious analysis, commentary, exposure, and judgment. It may well be that any further inquiry by the NCAA will stop short of vacating those titles. But a sustained, serious investigation would be different from the previous NCAA inquiry. Even to engage in the process of subjecting the details of the scam to the proposed revised standards would be to air a whole lot of dirty laundry.

What if the end-result of a this-time-serious-investigation is tantamount to a sort of modified "Scottish verdict"? Rather than "not proven," damning enough, what if the NCAA says something closer to "not quite proven"? So close -- in effect admitting that only by parsing its own standards in such a way as to fail the laugh test -- as to say, "We can't quite prove you did it 'solely, primarily, and explicitly' - and don't do it again."

Or what if the NCAA were to conduct a new investigation under proposed revised guidelines and decide to levy sanctions short of vacating the titles?

In either the modified Scottish verdict scenario or the limited sanctions scenario -- the conclusion to a serious, detailed, sustained investigation, dirty laundry, public humiliation -- the banners stay up. Is their removal the only thing that would satisfy?

I don't "prefer" that those banners come down -- though I could probably be convinced that they should -- in the sense that the banners haven't been my focus since the scam was first revealed. But I am dismayed, disgusted, to the point of angry obsession about what has happened to a great university. I'd be satisfied if the operative details of the scam were fully and publicly revealed, so that the UNC faculty would finally, thus far apparently against their own will, be forced to decide whether they are willing to reclaim their University.

[sagegrouse]

I don't have access to the Chronicle of Higher Education article which is excerpted in this link, but even the excerpts portend ominous developments that seem likely to suck UNC even deeper into its suicidal mud. For if the NCAA BOD adopts the recommendations of its Leadership Council, NCAA sanctions would likely be triggered by events such as the athletic-eligibility scam at UNC.

.

Or, more likely, the NCAA will invoke a policy change "from this time forward." Therefore, past transgressions, while neither condoned nor forgiven, will not be investigated. The answer as to why will be both "lack of resources" and a reluctance to pursue matters "retroactively."

[gumbomoop]

Or, more likely, the NCAA will invoke a policy change "from this time forward." Therefore, past transgressions, while neither condoned nor forgiven, will not be investigated. The answer as to why will be both "lack of resources" and a reluctance to pursue matters "retroactively."

Yes, this solution to the NCAA's discomfiting problem would thenceforth be known as the "Carolina Codicil" to the Scottish verdict. The Wiki entry for the Carolina Codicil will provoke and amuse, actively and retroactively.

[bob blue devil]

Willingham (http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/us/unc-whistle-blower-resigns/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) resigning

[Atlanta Duke]

It appears even UNC cheerleader/PR flack Bradley Bethel has decided he cannot defend the indefensible

This was on his blog on Sunday

I wasn't hired by PR, but fraud did occur, and it was bad. I'm glad UNC is adopting reforms to prevent future fraud.

http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/2014/04/my-job-is-to-educate-not-to-cheer.html#gpluscomments

Bethel does continue to parrot the contention in the report by former Governor Martin that this was primarily an academics rather than athletics scandal, which allows UNC to argue to the NCAA to let it go

[Olympic Fan]

In what is a clear reaction to the unc academic fraud, the NCAA considering a change in its role in investigating academic fraud involving athletes. No longer would the characterization "its an academic issue" keep the NCAA from investigating:

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24528941/report-ncaa-could-change-guidelines-on-punishment-for-academic-cheating

That can't be good for the tarheels

Sarah Ganim has a new article up tonight on CNN.com about the NCAA using a revision of its academic rules to cover up its failure to act in the UNC scandal:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/24/us/ncaa-academic-fraud/index.html

Money quote:

Juggling too much?

But Gerald Gurney, a former compliance director who worked in collegiate athletics for 30 years, is skeptical there will be academic fraud changes.

"They are trying to divert attention from what I consider to be a most obvious case of outrageous academic fraud, to needing a redefinition of academic fraud," Gurney said.

Gurney and another professor, David Ridpath at Ohio University, just started research that will compare what is known about UNC's academic scandal to other institution's academic scandals and how they were handled by the NCAA.

Gurney said he suspects this may be the NCAA's way of getting around taking a second look at what happened at UNC.

"From what I see at the moment, I feel strongly it is the worst academic fraud violation in the history of the NCAA," Gurney said. "... They choose to ignore it. They are juggling so many balls right now, with respect to lawsuits, unionization issues, they really can't afford right at this moment to open up a major investigation on North Carolina. It would further jeopardize public confidence in the NCAA's ability to control athletics."

[BD80]

Sarah Ganim has a new article up tonight on CNN.com about the NCAA using a revision of its academic rules to cover up its failure to act in the UNC scandal:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/24/us/ncaa-academic-fraud/index.html

... Gerald Gurney, a former compliance director who worked in collegiate athletics for 30 years, is skeptical there will be academic fraud changes.

"They are trying to divert attention from what I consider to be a most obvious case of outrageous academic fraud, to needing a redefinition of academic fraud," Gurney said.

... "From what I see at the moment, I feel strongly it is the worst academic fraud violation in the history of the NCAA," Gurney said. "... ."

To borrow from other threads, it appears that Odin's son visited chapel hill the other day, his reaction?

"There clearly be villainy afoot"

[gumbomoop]

We don't know yet whether the NCAA will investigate UNC again. Let's assume that they will not, which presumably means no sanctions, and thus the banners remain. If one sees that specific thing -- removal of the 2005 and 2009 banners -- as either the only, or by far the most, important outcome, then one might conclude something along the lines of, "nothing new here, move along."

But it seems to me that is a view more and more difficult to maintain, for the bad publicity continues to drip, drips from multiple sources, and drips ever larger and more damning drops. It's going to take more than a couple of new washers to fix this commode. In coming months, years even, we are likely to see regular articles from Dan Kane, in which Kane will report his own independent findings, along with providing further publicity for the investigations of others. For example, in his most recent piece [http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/23/3806335/ncaa-considers-changes-on-unc.html?sp=/99/103/119/271/], Kane notes that Gurney and Ridpath "say under current regulations, UNC committed NCAA violations because counselors... steered athletes" into ghost courses. The role of the counselors remains simultaneously obvious and murky: obvious because, as Mary Willingham is on record asserting, pretty much off-handedly, "everyone" in the athletic bailiwick knew what was going on; murky because long-serving supervisor/coordinator Jan Boxill's role is yet to be explained. Kane, however, has once before quietly noted her silence, so I doubt he's forgotten about her. Unless -- unlikely but not impossible -- Boxill discovered nefarious goings-on going on under her watch and demanded, as ethics require, that the scam stop, then at some point we are likely to learn that "everyone" included a Professor of Ethics and future UNC Faculty Chair. If, more likely when, that drip drops, it will make a sizable splash, with some embarrassing ripple effects.

Willingham and Prof. Jay Smith are writing a book. [Let's hope, for penance's sake, it's published by the academically prestigious UNC Press.....] CNN, WSJ, and other prominent media outlets will chime in intermittently, and from UNC's perspective, interminably. Nyang'Oro's trial is forthcoming. This story has long legs.

It's an open question whether those banners will have to be modified, metaphorically, by large asterisks. If the banners remain, forever, will they themselves become, forever, a symbol not of athletic excellence, but of the athletic corruption of academic excellence? What if those banners become the widely understood symbol of "the worst academic fraud violation in the history of the NCAA"?

It's hard for me, at least, to imagine that in the midst of an insider book, several forthcoming detailed reports, and a trial, those banners won't temporarily, maybe permanently, become the butt of lots of jokes. Those banners are soon enough to become so much dirty laundry publicly and prominently displayed as to constitute an unwitting suicide note.

[Atlanta Duke]

If it were inclined to do so the NCAA could go after UNC without revising its standards, as it did when all Florida State football victories for the 2006 and 2007 were vacated

This excerpt from a story on the FSU sanctions

“Academic fraud is among the most egregious of N.C.A.A. violations,” the report said. “The committee was concerned with the large number of student-athletes involved in the fraud and especially by the fact that individuals within the institution’s A.A.S.S. unit were involved. The committee was further troubled by the fact that there were warning signs indicating that academic improprieties were taking place, but these warning signs were, for the most part, ignored.”

A.A.S.S. refers to the Athletics Academic Support Services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/sports/ncaafootball/07ncaa.html?_r=1&scp=12&sq=bowden%20victories%20cheat&st=cse

But with Mary Willingham on the plaintiffs' witness list for the upcoming O'Bannon trial, the NCAA and its member institutions are circling the wagons. As Ben Franklin said during the American Revolution - "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

[Olympic Fan]

But with Mary Willingham on the plaintiffs' witness list for the upcoming O'Bannon trial, the NCAA and its member institutions are circling the wagons. As Ben Franklin said during the American Revolution - "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

I think you are right that Willingham's involvement with the O'Bannon case is a big reason the NCAA won't act on UNC.

But I think it's the wrong response -- and here's why. O'Bannon's lawyers are trying to make the case that the education that the NCAA offers in return for their clients athletic services is a sham. However, remember they are suing the NCAA, not North Carolina. Which is more damaging? To prove that a rogue member -- UNC -- offered a sham education, but was caught and punished by an NCAA that is determined to protect the academic integrity of its institutions ... or (the current strategy) for the NCAA to assure everybody that UNC did nothing wrong.

The first defense strategy means admitting that a rogue NCAA member got away with fraud for years (we still don't know exactly when this started, but probably in the early 1990s) and that punishment was late, but it was powerful when finally delivered.

The second strategy validates the O'Bannon claim that the NCAA doesn't really care if its athletes get an education.

If the O'Bannon case is driving this, I think the NCAA is taking the wrong approach.

[gumbomoop]

If it were inclined to do so the NCAA could go after UNC without revising its standards, as it did when all Florida State football victories for the 2006 and 2007 were vacated

This excerpt from a story on the FSU sanctions

“Academic fraud is among the most egregious of N.C.A.A. violations,” the report said. “The committee was concerned with the large number of student-athletes involved in the fraud and especially by the fact that individuals within the institution’s A.A.S.S. unit were involved. The committee was further troubled by the fact that there were warning signs indicating that academic improprieties were taking place, but these warning signs were, for the most part, ignored.”

A.A.S.S. refers to the Athletics Academic Support Services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/sports/ncaafootball/07ncaa.html?_r=1&scp=12&sq=bowden%20victories%20cheat&st=cse

It's useful to think about this very important prior case, as it seems so precisely to identify a central element in the UNC fraud: athlete counselors steering athletes into ghost courses. Call it the "FSU Standard."

But take care, for the Carolina Codicil to the "FSU Standard" reads: "This standard shall be deemed non-standard for UNC."

Now, here's Dana O'Neil on the McGary case: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/23/3806335/ncaa-considers-changes-on-unc.html?sp=/99/103/119/271/

O'Neil's description of the NCAA's handling of this case is "airball." Money passage: "On April 15, the NCAA agreed its punishment for street drugs -- a full year's suspension -- was too severe and decided to reduce the penalty for first-time offenders to half a season. But McGary failed under the old rule, and even upon appeal was denied." Call this the "Upside-Down Ex Post Facto Standard."

The Carolina Codicil to the "Upside-Down Ex Post Facto Standard" reads: "This standard shall be deemed non-standard for UNC, and shall therfore apply Rightside-Up for UNC."

We are following Alice into the NCAA rabbit hole. Mark Emmert: "(1) The FSU Standard is inapplicable to a case that precisely meets the standard, so UNC cannot be punished for having cheated. (2) In view of the controlling Carolina Codicil to the FSU Standard, any further investigation into the UNC fraud constitutes ex post facto retribution. Since UNC did not understand that enrolling athletes in fraudulent courses to maintain their eligibility was fraudulent, we cannot, in good conscience, contemplate retroactive punishment. Especially must we the NCAA diligently avoid any action that smacks of sanctioning member institutions for cheating when they were unaware that cheating is cheating."

"We shall, of course, clarify what constitutes cheating, so that member institutions will henceforth be on notice. We shall, naturally, consider each case on its merits, taking special care to apply, where applicable, the Carolina Codicil."

Postscript: The UNC faculty approved Emmert's statement by overwhelming voice vote, though no voice could actually be heard.

[Atlanta Duke]

NYT has an article on the coverage by Dan Kane and the N&O of the unpleasantness in Chapel Hill (with a shout out to the contribution of Pack fan WufWuf1 in advancing the story:)). The quote from UNC PR flack Joel Curran is reminiscent of Richard Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler responding to Watergate stories


Reporter Digging Into Scandal Hits a University’s Raw Nerve

“We admire the News & Observer’s long tradition of fair-minded journalism; we just wish they would practice it more often,” the university’s newly appointed vice chancellor for communications, Joel Curran, said in a statement. “In our case, the paper seems more content to rehash old news rather than report new solutions.”

Not surprisingly, Kane sees it differently.

“They have done all kinds of things to prevent this from ever happening again, and they emphasize that many, many times,” he said. “But what’s left unanswered is how this all happened, and what actually happened. That’s where the battle forms. It’s like that old saying about history — if you don’t understand it, you’re doomed to repeat it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/sports/reporter-digging-into-scandal-hits-a-universitys-raw-nerve.html?ref=sports

[BigWayne]

Meanwhile, the NCAA is so upset with UNC,....... they put Idaho on probation.

http://collegefootball.ap.org/article/ncaa-penalizes-idaho-academic-standards

[moonpie23]

someTHING is keeping the ncaa at bay…..what could that be?

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

someTHING is keeping the ncaa at bay…..what could that be?
It would be interesting (and probably dismaying as an NC resident) to know just how much they have spent on PR consultants. The whole thing is just so rotten. I am surprised that more alums with clout have not stepped forward to condemn the charade. I guess they, too, care more about the integrity of the wires holding up those banners than the integrity of their beloved, uh, school.

[arnie]

someTHING is keeping the ncaa at bay…..what could that be?

The answer seems obvious to me. Our esteemed ACC commish was AD at UnCheat until 1997. Swofford is a big shot within the NCAA hierarchy and would be embarrassed big time if detailed findings were uncovered by investigation. He was likely aware of most of the methods the Heels used to keep unprepared athletes eligible. Remember he went to bat for the Heels during the earlier investigations. Didn't exactly do that when other ACC schools had less significant cheating issues.

[blueduke59]

Perhaps UNC has dirt on Emmert?

[BigWayne]

While I find this article not of earthshaking merit, and I am used to UNC followers doing the denial dance, the comments following this one are so extreme I just had to share it.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/04/faculty-athletics-committee-holds-open-forum-for-input

[gumbomoop]

While I find this article not of earthshaking merit, and I am used to UNC followers doing the denial dance, the comments following this one are so extreme I just had to share it.

http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/04/faculty-athletics-committee-holds-open-forum-for-input

Thanks for link. As I have posted repeatedly wondering about the near-silence of UNC faculty, that a few of them are speaking bluntly about cover-up and a still-unaccountable athletic program is a positive sign. Money quote comes from History prof Harry Watson: "Are you prepared to advise the chancellor that we have an authentic athletic problem, not merely an academic problem?” he asked the committee. Like to hear a straight yes/no and why answer to that one.

The cover-up was set in motion from the beginning, in the acceptance of the line peddled by Roy Williams, that this was an academic, not athletic, scandal. I'll guess Dan Kane will pick up on Prof Watson's question.

BTW, although the comments section begins with standard cover-up/deflection toward Willingham, the comments by Pragmatist1984 and restonpack1 are useful counterweight, noting the stonewalling and denying.

[arnie]

Thanks for link. As I have posted repeatedly wondering about the near-silence of UNC faculty, that a few of them are speaking bluntly about cover-up and a still-unaccountable athletic program is a positive sign. Money quote comes from History prof Harry Watson: "Are you prepared to advise the chancellor that we have an authentic athletic problem, not merely an academic problem?” he asked the committee. Like to hear a straight yes/no and why answer to that one.

The cover-up was set in motion from the beginning, in the acceptance of the line peddled by Roy Williams, that this was an academic, not athletic, scandal. I'll guess Dan Kane will pick up on Prof Watson's question.

BTW, although the comments section begins with standard cover-up/deflection toward Willingham, the comments by Pragmatist1984 and restonpack1 are useful counterweight, noting the stonewalling and denying.
What's the Vegas over/under on Harry Watson's remaining time at UNC? Would expect Folt to find some dirt on Mr. Watson by June.

[gumbomoop]

What's the Vegas over/under on Harry Watson's remaining time at UNC? Would expect Folt to find some dirt on Mr. Watson by June.

He's gold, a major scholar of the US South, currently Director of highly regarded Center for the Study of the American South at the previously highly-regarded UNC-CH.

And that's the point. Finally, some of the UNC faculty are showing some interest in saving the University from itself. I just discovered this Dan Kane article .....

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/24/3808913/history-profs-send-letter-calling.html

....... which tells me that my intermittent complaint about the dismaying silence on part of UNC faculty has either been wrongheaded all along, or that, as MLK, Jr., [paraphrasing abolitionist Theodore Parker] noted, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." [Personally, I fear Parker/King may have been wrong about that, but sometimes, at least, justice will out, or tries to.]

From Kane's article we learn that several weeks ago 32 retired UNC profs sent a letter to Chancellor Folt calling for "answers and accountability," and that a few days ago nearly half the History Dept sent a similar letter.

True, Folt's response is, um, noncommittal; hence my skepticism about Parker/King's inspiring aphorism. But, as Dan Kane is still on the trail, perhaps we should conclude today's sermon with two more of King's stirring quotations from his speech at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. Quoting William Cullen Bryant: "Truth crushed to earth will arise again." And quoting Thomas Carlyle: "No lie can live forever."

[Henderson]

From Kane's article we learn that several weeks ago 32 retired UNC profs sent a letter to Chancellor Folt calling for "answers and accountability," and that a few days ago nearly half the History Dept sent a similar letter.


So now we know that over ½ of the History Department is untenured.

[BigWayne]

Couple links to stellar pieces of work by UNC faculty, one moving and one quite entertaining.

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Letter-from-John-Shelton-Reed-to-Joel-Curran.pdf

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Jay-Smith-RMH-speech.pdf

[gumbomoop]

Couple links to stellar pieces of work by UNC faculty, one moving and one quite entertaining.

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Letter-from-John-Shelton-Reed-to-Joel-Curran.pdf

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Jay-Smith-RMH-speech.pdf

John Shelton Reed is among the funniest scholars one is ever likely to run across. Significantly, his humor is almost always in service of penetrating analysis, as is the case here in his skeptical letter to the Vice Chancellor for Comminication and Public Affairs.

I'd list a money quote, but there are too many from which to choose, so I'll simply once again thank BigWayne for the links, and urge EK readers to read these, for sure.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Couple links to stellar pieces of work by UNC faculty, one moving and one quite entertaining.

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Letter-from-John-Shelton-Reed-to-Joel-Curran.pdf

http://paperclassinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Jay-Smith-RMH-speech.pdf
When all else fails, form a committee and announce an initiative... good to see unc taking real action. :rolleyes:

As I think someone else said above, you only do these things in this way when there is something significant to hide.

[gumbomoop]

When all else fails, form a committee and announce an initiative... good to see unc taking real action. :rolleyes:

As I think someone else said above, you only do these things in this way when there is something significant to hide.

The sarcasm is appropriate. But it does seem significant that a real internal debate has begun, pitting some prominent UNC scholars against top administrators. The scholars are now on record suggesting the top administrators are continuing the cover-up.

The goal of the scholars is presumably not to get the banners removed; it's to save the University from itself, from continuing its path toward academic/intellectual suicide. The central theme of John Shelton Reed's devasting critique of the latest UNC administrators' attempt to deflect is that it doesn't meet the laugh test. [Reed is particularly effective in this regard, as virtually all of his scholarly works are serious, but hilarious, and often seriously hilarious. He once wrote a list of country song titles that shoulda been, including my personal favorite, "My Tears Spoiled My Aim."]

Note, too, that Reed explicitly tells the administrator that UNC is the butt of academic jokes, including, presumably, quite a few of the athletic-tail-wagging-the-academic-dog variety. I have wondered why some substantial portion of the UNC faculty have not been embarrassed, mortified, by the athletic program's scam. Turns out some portion have been mortified, and are now lashing out, if mostly (though, thankfully, not entirely) intramurally. Some of the scholars do not appreciate the witlessness of the flacks, and see that some of the witless flacks are people they had previously thought witty, or at least trustworthy.

The dog's tail is flea-infested. Scholars like to talk and write. The story has legs.

[sagegrouse]

John Shelton Reed is among the funniest scholars one is ever likely to run across. Significantly, his humor is almost always in service of penetrating analysis, as is the case here in his skeptical letter to the Vice Chancellor for Comminication and Public Affairs.

I'd list a money quote, but there are too many from which to choose, so I'll simply once again thank BigWayne for the links, and urge EK readers to read these, for sure.

Sample paragraph:


The language is so lame that making fun of it is irresistible. Consider this description
of what the Faculty Athletics Committee is doing: “Under current chair Joy Renner,
the committee has created and is following an established plan to ensure consistent,
sustainable outcomes and practices as part of a fact-based approach to evaluating
the alignment of the University’s academic mission with athletics.” I always
wondered what that committee does. I still do. I’m glad that whatever it does is now
based on fact, but surely we should try to “align” athletics with our academic
mission, not the other way around.

[BigWayne]

Two interesting links from the N&O:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/02/3829592/judge-to-review-unc-enrollment.html

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/02/3829142/drescher-why-were-still-covering.html

2nd one has UNC Prof and denier Andy Perrin debating in the comments section.

[moonpie23]

dodge, deflect, deny...........unc is winning...

[Newton_14]

dodge, deflect, deny...........unc is winning...

i don't think so. They are not winning. but your overall premise is still correct, because they aren't losing either. It will forever remain nothing more than just loud noise unless they "lose" and real penalties are handed down.

[gumbomoop]

dodge, deflect, deny...........unc is winning...

It depends on what the issue is.

If the issue is the banners, while that's still an open issue, it's probable they don't come down.

If the issue is the reputation of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, they've already lost in ways and to an extent unimaginable three years ago. Prominent professors, who see themselves as the across-generations guarantors of their University's excellence, now speak out. They allow the public posting -- on an internet site, Paper Class Inc., run by Mary Willingham, no less -- of their letters to UNC PR flacks, in which letter John Shelton Reed shows that the fundamental questions raised by Dan Kane have yet to be answered. Kane, from the NYTimes article linked in an earlier post: "What's left unanswered is how all this happened, and what actually happened."

Now one could say, ok, the big -- bloody obvious -- questions are still unanswered, so UNC is still winning, so far. But the fact that the questions are asked, publicly, repeatedly, incessantly, suggests UNC is losing (1) the PR battle, (2) its reputation in the academic community for respectability. Repeat, respectability; not excellence, just some semblance of respectability. That is, it is now assumed, out there in academia, that UNC is no longer a great university. It is understood across the land that the flea-infested basketball/football tail has been wagging the academic dog. Jokes get told at academic conferences and in the workplace that UNC is an academic dog. Snickers about "The Carolina Way." About ..... losers. Some of the jokes are nervously told -- whistling past the graveyard style -- by the UNC faithful themselves. Friends, UNC grads all, argue with each other in restaurant parking lots. An embarrassing, if interesting, spectacle.

The protesting profs are saying to administrative flacks who complain about "unfair media," "Shut up." Protesting profs lose confidence, as we speak, in their new academic leaders, who were brought aboard the listing ship to get to the very bottom of what happened. Who were not brought aboard to "dodge, deflect, deny." The profs do not trust them. They say so, publicly. They want to know who did what, knew what, and exactly when. They believe, and say so in no uncertain terms, that their University cannot "move forward" in the absence of a thorough and accurate accounting of the what, how, and who. The number of protesting profs grows, and no jokes about bravery and honesty among the tenured v. untenured have any relevance. They talk to Dan Kane. The story has legs, long, strong legs.

Banners? No clue, and I do not care. That's not the most important, the fundamental, issue. The banners do, yes, symbolize the fundamental issue, but they do not constitute its deeper substance.

[chrishoke]

It depends on what the issue is.

If the issue is the banners, while that's still an open issue, it's probable they don't come down.

If the issue is the reputation of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, they've already lost in ways and to an extent unimaginable three years ago. Prominent professors, who see themselves as the across-generations guarantors of their University's excellence, now speak out. They allow the public posting -- on an internet site, Paper Class Inc., run by Mary Willingham, no less -- of their letters to UNC PR flacks, in which letter John Shelton Reed shows that the fundamental questions raised by Dan Kane have yet to be answered. Kane, from the NYTimes article linked in an earlier post: "What's left unanswered is how all this happened, and what actually happened."

Now one could say, ok, the big -- bloody obvious -- questions are still unanswered, so UNC is still winning, so far. But the fact that the questions are asked, publicly, repeatedly, incessantly, suggests UNC is losing (1) the PR battle, (2) its reputation in the academic community for respectability. Repeat, respectability; not excellence, just some semblance of respectability. That is, it is now assumed, out there in academia, that UNC is no longer a great university. It is understood across the land that the flea-infested basketball/football tail has been wagging the academic dog. Jokes get told at academic conferences and in the workplace that UNC is an academic dog. Snickers about "The Carolina Way." About ..... losers. Some of the jokes are nervously told -- whistling past the graveyard style -- by the UNC faithful themselves. Friends, UNC grads all, argue with each other in restaurant parking lots. An embarrassing, if interesting, spectacle.

The protesting profs are saying to administrative flacks who complain about "unfair media," "Shut up." Protesting profs lose confidence, as we speak, in their new academic leaders, who were brought aboard the listing ship to get to the very bottom of what happened. Who were not brought aboard to "dodge, deflect, deny." The profs do not trust them. They say so, publicly. They want to know who did what, knew what, and exactly when. They believe, and say so in no uncertain terms, that their University cannot "move forward" in the absence of a thorough and accurate accounting of the what, how, and who. The number of protesting profs grows, and no jokes about bravery and honesty among the tenured v. untenured have any relevance. They talk to Dan Kane. The story has legs, long, strong legs.

Banners? No clue, and I do not care. That's not the most important, the fundamental, issue. The banners do, yes, symbolize the fundamental issue, but they do not constitute its deeper substance.

Other than Jay Smith, I believe all the "protesting profs" are retired. Am I wrong about this? The faculty council is in lock step with the cover up.

[Olympic Fan]

Other than Jay Smith, I believe all the "protesting profs" are retired. Am I wrong about this? The faculty council is in lock step with the cover up.

Actually, over half the active professors in the history department (the tenured half?) combined for a letter of protest ... several other active professors (including the tenured Jay Smith) have spoken or written in protest.

[gumbomoop]

Other than Jay Smith, I believe all the "protesting profs" are retired. Am I wrong about this? The faculty council is in lock step with the cover up.

I believe you are wrong here. Nearly one-half of the History Department is on public record as opposing the cover-up. At least one particular prof in Poli Sci has referred publicly, during a special faculty meeting, to the attack on Willingham's research as an attempt to deflect from the real issues.

I think you are correct that some recent iteration of a Faculty Athletics Committee is engaged in obfuscation, as pointed out, pointedly, by Reed.

I don't know details of the intramural debate now revving up among UNC faculty, and until recently I have posted, repeatedly, my dismay at the silence of most on the faculty. That appears to be changing, but maybe not. At any rate, the faculty will be treated to more stories from Dan Kane, so we'll see where they take their stand in coming months.

[Henderson]

I believe you are wrong here. Nearly one-half of the History Department is on public record as opposing the cover-up. At least one particular prof in Poli Sci has referred publicly, during a special faculty meeting, to the attack on Willingham's research as an attempt to deflect from the real issues.

I think you are correct that some recent iteration of a Faculty Athletics Committee is engaged in obfuscation, as pointed out, pointedly, by Reed.

I don't know details of the intramural debate now revving up among UNC faculty, and until recently I have posted, repeatedly, my dismay at the silence of most on the faculty. That appears to be changing, but maybe not. At any rate, the faculty will be treated to more stories from Dan Kane, so we'll see where they take their stand in coming months.

I share your dismay, but I'd cut a break to the untenured and non-tenure track faculty. They're vulnerable. Being (for the most part) younger and newer to UNC, I suspect many of them haven't swallowed enough Kool-aid yet to buy the administration's line. So there may be a silent majority of sorts out there.

[gumbomoop]

I share your dismay, but I'd cut a break to the untenured and non-tenure track faculty. They're vulnerable. Being (for the most part) younger and newer to UNC, I suspect many of them haven't swallowed enough Kool-aid yet to buy the administration's line. So there may be a silent majority of sorts out there.

You're right. When complaining about faculty, I should always refer to tenured folks.

Still puzzled as to why tenured faculty didn't from the beginning express outrage at changed grades and forged signatures, and insist on a full accounting.

[COYS]

You're right. When complaining about faculty, I should always refer to tenured folks.

Still puzzled as to why tenured faculty didn't from the beginning express outrage at changed grades and forged signatures, and insist on a full accounting.

As a child of college professors, I think part of the reason for the silence is apathy. I don't mean apathy to connote something bad, either. For the vast majority of professors, what the athletic department is doing to prop up the grades of their athletes has nothing to do with the professor's latest research or publication. Even where it over laps, it is probably only one student here or there in the occasional class.

My father taught at Auburn at one point back in the 70's. One time he had a few football players in his big lecture class. They never showed up for class so he was failing them and they would soon be ineligible. Magically, tickets for the Iron Bowl appeared on his desk one day. They were for seats on the 50 yard line a few rows back. They also came with a note that said something like (paraphrasing) "Hope you enjoy rooting on [insert name of the no show football players] Saturday!"
My dad and mom scalped the tickets for more than face value and he failed the students, anyway. He HATED the emphasis Auburn put on football and didn't care at all what happened or didn't happen to the football program. He mostly just ignored it. He definitely did not care enough to bother reporting any wrong doing, although he definitely did not mind getting a bit of a haul from selling those tickets. Auburn ended up getting some sort of punishment during that decade, too, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, the point isn't to say that professors don't care, because they do. It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, the athletic scandal has very little to do with them unless they are teaching the fake courses themselves or changing grades themselves. They have very little motivation to actively attack or police the athletic department, nor is it their job to do so. While the overall damage to the reputation of the university could be severe when it comes to their athletic programs, it is unlikely to affect how those in the academic world view the research coming out of Chapel Hill. Whether or not championship banners remain in the Dean Dome will have little to no bearing on whether or not a professor in physics will have his or her work published in a scientific journal.

Basically, those professors who would be most likely to speak out against the athletic program are also likely to be the ones who are the most apathetic toward athletics. Even those that enjoy following the basketball team often have their own alma maters that they are more passionate about. The fact that so many professors HAVE bothered to speak out shows just how bad the violations were (are?). It is also laughable that the NCAA considered it an "academic matter" when the whole thing has clearly been pushed by the athletic department. If it had been academic in origin, you can bet there would be tons of faculty up in arms about a tenured professor getting paid for no-show classes.

[moonpie23]

I don't care if the banners come down, my point is, that unc is winning because there is no punishment for all of this. the NCAA won't touch it. unless there is a criminal trial and some does some time over the money involved , unc is going to skate.

I agree that their reputation will take a hit, but it will recover.

[brevity]

My dad and mom scalped the tickets for more than face value and he failed the students, anyway.

I'm giving you vicarious sporks that are intended for your parents. This was awesome.

I never have much to say about sham academics for athletes -- you all pretty much have the topic covered -- but it's kind of analogous to a factory owner hiring a bunch of unqualified workers so they can be ringers on the company softball team. If this is going to be the business of big university sports, I can't stop them, but I really don't want a bunch of truants operating the heavy machinery.

[Bob Green]

...unless there is a criminal trial and some does some time over the money involved...

This post is over-the-top! While I certainly do not condone the behavior over in Chapel Hill, I believe the majority of the athletes affected were complicate in the decision to partake of no show classes. They didn't receive an education and they are partially to blame. To suggest someone should go to jail is unrealistic.

Am I misreading your post?

[moonpie23]

actually, I believe that's what the federal indictment is all about. did anyone receive money under false pretenses ?

In a statement, UNC president Tom Ross said, "In the spring of 2012, then Chancellor Holden Thorp and I directed that the State Bureau of Investigation be notified of possible criminal activity stemming from the academic fraud issues that had taken place at the Chapel Hill campus.

[COYS]

I'm giving you vicarious sporks that are intended for your parents. This was awesome.
.

Yeah, I've always thought that was a pretty bad to the bone thing for my parents to do.

[sagegrouse]

Joe Nocera's column today (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/opinion/nocera-she-had-to-tell-what-she-knew.html?ref=opinion) lauds Mary Willingham, whose ending her career at UNC this week under great pressure from the University. A good summary of the UNC athletic-academic scandal.

[gumbomoop]

Here's the best argument I've seen for the position that enough facts are known that UNC can leave behind the mystery of what actually happened, and proceed with reforms already initiated.

http://scatter.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-unc-athletics-scandal-in-context/

It doesn't convince me personally, nor do I think it will persuade many on EK, but Perrin's position as stated here is not merely "deny, delay, deflect." Indeed, although he explicitly says "we have enough information now to make the necessary reforms," he also admits that "Athletics and Academic Support staff almost certainly knew about" the ghost courses "and likely encouraged student-athletes [sic] to use these as opportunities to pad their grades...."

His distinction between how historians [i.e., including the several dozen in UNC's History Dept.] approach research and how social scientists think about research is interesting, but I doubt will resonate with most historians anywhere, who don't see their research methodology as involving either confession, repentance, or punishment. His distinction between the UNC historian-critics and social scientists suffers, too, from the unfortunate fact that John Shelton Reed is a sociologist/social scientist, and clearly thinks some of those whom Perrin praises are, um, dolts, producing "progress reports" heavily dependent on witting and unwitting doublespeak blather. Dolts who are very much in "deny, delay, deflect" mode.

In an attempt, however, to be as fair as possible to those at UNC who have, yes, begun a serious process of reform, I recommend Perrin's essay. I do believe him when he protests "that no one person or group in this debate has a monopoly on concern for academic integrity or athletic reform." [As it's Perrin, not me, who originally put these words in bold, it's hard to resist the great temptation to wonder whether our gentleman scholar "doth protest too much." Methinks I have been unable to resist.]

Ultimately, Perrin's characterization of the "historian's impulse to discover every detail of past misdeeds" as "misguided" cleverly attempts to provide a patina of intellectual sophistication to the denigration of Dan Kane's pretty basic assertion: "What's left unanswered is how all this happened, and what actually happened." Very basic stuff: who, what, where, when, how, why. Hard to say how carefully Perrin will follow Nyang'Oro's trial, as one assumes that one lawyer or another might want to query a witness about some basic details.

If, however, I were some NCAA enforcement official still charged either with further thinking about the scandal or pressed to justify the quashing of further thinking, I'd rely on selective quotations from Perrin's faux-sophisticated essay. Rarely will you find a "better" defense of ignorance as a superior basis for fundamental reform. Should be right up the NCAA's alley.

BTW, Prof. Perrin is a candidate for UNC Faculty Chair.......

[oldnavy]

Here's the best argument I've seen for the position that enough facts are known that UNC can leave behind the mystery of what actually happened, and proceed with reforms already initiated.

http://scatter.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-unc-athletics-scandal-in-context/

It doesn't convince me personally, nor do I think it will persuade many on EK, but Perrin's position as stated here is not merely "deny, delay, deflect." Indeed, although he explicitly says "we have enough information now to make the necessary reforms," he also admits that "Athletics and Academic Support staff almost certainly knew about" the ghost courses "and likely encouraged student-athletes [sic] to use these as opportunities to pad their grades...."

His distinction between how historians [i.e., including the several dozen in UNC's History Dept.] approach research and how social scientists think about research is interesting, but I doubt will resonate with most historians anywhere, who don't see their research methodology as involving either confession, repentance, or punishment. His distinction between the UNC historian-critics and social scientists suffers, too, from the unfortunate fact that John Shelton Reed is a sociologist/social scientist, and clearly thinks some of those whom Perrin praises are, um, dolts, producing "progress reports" heavily dependent on witting and unwitting doublespeak blather. Dolts who are very much in "deny, delay, deflect" mode.

In an attempt, however, to be as fair as possible to those at UNC who have, yes, begun a serious process of reform, I recommend Perrin's essay. I do believe him when he protests "that no one person or group in this debate has a monopoly on concern for academic integrity or athletic reform." [As it's Perrin, not me, who originally put these words in bold, it's hard to resist the great temptation to wonder whether our gentleman scholar "doth protest too much." Methinks I have been unable to resist.]

Ultimately, Perrin's characterization of the "historian's impulse to discover every detail of past misdeeds" as "misguided" cleverly attempts to provide a patina of intellectual sophistication to the denigration of Dan Kane's pretty basic assertion: "What's left unanswered is how all this happened, and what actually happened." Very basic stuff: who, what, where, when, how, why. Hard to say how carefully Perrin will follow Nyang'Oro's trial, as one assumes that one lawyer or another might want to query a witness about some basic details.

If, however, I were some NCAA enforcement official still charged either with further thinking about the scandal or pressed to justify the quashing of further thinking, I'd rely on selective quotations from Perrin's faux-sophisticated essay. Rarely will you find a "better" defense of ignorance as a superior basis for fundamental reform. Should be right up the NCAA's alley.

BTW, Prof. Perrin is a candidate for UNC Faculty Chair.......

The only issue I have with the argument that reforms are in place, lets move on... is that you could argue that UNC derived a distinct advantage before the reforms were put into place and that the advantage they gained has not been addressed. It would be like Bonnie and Clyde confessing to robbing banks after getting jobs and going straight... and getting off for the robberies plus getting to keep the money.

OK, got it... UNC has made changes now that they have been caught cheating... GREAT congratulations on becoming virtuous now that someone else caught you. It would be one thing if they had self reported, even then they should not be allowed to walk without punishment. But they didn't self report, they were exposed, and even after that they denied and turned the argument against the person who exposed them.

When is anyone (NCAA???) going to address the cheating part of this??

[OldPhiKap]

When is anyone (NCAA???) going to address the cheating part of this??

4114

[77devil]

Professor Perrin's motivation, ostensibly wrapped in an serious intellectual argument, is obvious and self serving; let's protect the banners and further damage to UNC' s reputation. To truly answer all of Jay Smith's questions puts those objectives at serious risk.

If there wasn't more to find, it's doubtful the leadership of the university would still be fighting full transparency in every way possible.

[Olympic Fan]

Well, here comes Congress -- Senate hearings set next week with Mary Willingham and the NCAA president Mark Emmert invited to testify:

http://chronicle.com/article/Senate-Committee-Plans-Hearing/146417/

Not specifically focused on the UNC mess, but more on the NCAA's disregard for the academic part of student-athletes. Ed O'Bannon also on the witness list.

And just to add on about Dr. Perrin, in his blog, he writes:

A few years ago I was part of a group of UNC faculty who began meeting in the aftermath of the revelations about fake classes. Horrified at the misconduct perpetrated by a colleague and upset about the apparent disregard for academic quality that disproportionately helped student-athletes stay eligible to play

http://scatter.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-unc-athletics-scandal-in-context/

excuse me ... but isn't that an admission of the kind of misconduct that UNC has tried to deny (their argument was that it was an academic issue, insisting that a majority of the impacted students were non-athletes ... plus they have refused to investigate whether any athletes retained their eligibility because of phony-baloney classes)?

Here we have one of their most vocal defenders admitting that the cheating was done to help athletes (I won't use the term student-athletes) stay eligible.

PS Can't one of the moderators change the title of this thread to reflect the more general nature of this scandal?

[gumbomoop]

PS Can't one of the moderators change the title of this thread to reflect the more general nature of this scandal?

Second this, and suggest something straightforward and accurate, such as "UNC athletic scandal." Not academic scandal, which would adopt Roy's line.

Of course it is also an academic scandal, a travesty, but Roy's misnomer served to deny and deflect by misdirection.

[dpslaw]

Well, here comes Congress -- Senate hearings set next week with Mary Willingham and the NCAA president Mark Emmert invited to testify:

http://chronicle.com/article/Senate-Committee-Plans-Hearing/146417/

Not specifically focused on the UNC mess, but more on the NCAA's disregard for the academic part of student-athletes. Ed O'Bannon also on the witness list.

And just to add on about Dr. Perrin, in his blog, he writes:

A few years ago I was part of a group of UNC faculty who began meeting in the aftermath of the revelations about fake classes. Horrified at the misconduct perpetrated by a colleague and upset about the apparent disregard for academic quality that disproportionately helped student-athletes stay eligible to play

http://scatter.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/the-unc-athletics-scandal-in-context/

excuse me ... but isn't that an admission of the kind of misconduct that UNC has tried to deny (their argument was that it was an academic issue, insisting that a majority of the impacted students were non-athletes ... plus they have refused to investigate whether any athletes retained their eligibility because of phony-baloney classes)?

Here we have one of their most vocal defenders admitting that the cheating was done to help athletes (I won't use the term student-athletes) stay eligible.

PS Can't one of the moderators change the title of this thread to reflect the more general nature of this scandal?

Having engaged in a lengthy twitter exchange with Bradley Bethel over the weekend, I can say with certainty that while Perrin and Bethel concede that the paper classes disproportionately helped student athletes stay eligible, they do not concede that that was the original purpose for them. For Bethel and Perrin, unless there is a smoking gun, the origin and purpose of the fraudulent courses will forever be shrouded in mystery.

[alteran]

I gave Ol' Roy a lot of credit for rescinding JamesOn Curry's scholarship for drug dealing early in Roy's career at unc. Unfortunately, the Carolina Way (Win at all costs) seems to have corrupted his ethics to be more aligned with the three monkeys' philosophy.

I don't. The basketball glow on JamesOn was JamesOff at the time Roy rescinded the scholly. I'd have been a lot more impressed if he'd have dropped a guy on the rise or someone he needed.

Remember, they had to pry Hairston from Roy's cold, dead hands. And the name Will Graves rings a few bongs.

I'm not trying to say Duke or anyone else would necessarily have done anything differently with JamesOn, but I'm not giving Roy extra credit for dropping a guy for drug reasons that he wanted to drop for basketball reasons. Particularly when his track record says he's willing to look the other way when it suits him.

[alteran]

[redacted -- somebody beat me to it]

[Duvall]

Having engaged in a lengthy twitter exchange with Bradley Bethel over the weekend, I can say with certainty that while Perrin and Bethel concede that the paper classes disproportionately helped student athletes stay eligible, they do not concede that that was the original purpose for them. For Bethel and Perrin, unless there is a smoking gun, the origin and purpose of the fraudulent courses will forever be shrouded in mystery.

Not coincidentally, both have argued that there is no need for UNC to conduct the kind of investigation that would have a chance of uncovering such a smoking gun.

[alteran]

I share your dismay, but I'd cut a break to the untenured and non-tenure track faculty. They're vulnerable. Being (for the most part) younger and newer to UNC, I suspect many of them haven't swallowed enough Kool-aid yet to buy the administration's line. So there may be a silent majority of sorts out there.

Exactly. That group simply doesn't have the leverage to make waves. They are functionally contractors. UNC doesn't even have to fire most of them, they can merely not renew them, and fill their slots with an infinite pool of desperate folks.

[alteran]

I don't care if the banners come down,

I care. I care deeply. For all the wrong reasons.

One of the right reasons, however, is this is the only language the wrong-doers will understand.

[gumbomoop]

Having engaged in a lengthy twitter exchange with Bradley Bethel over the weekend, I can say with certainty that while Perrin and Bethel concede that the paper classes disproportionately helped student athletes stay eligible, they do not concede that that was the original purpose for them. For Bethel and Perrin, unless there is a smoking gun, the origin and purpose of the fraudulent courses will forever be shrouded in mystery.

We had a lively debate here re whether the founding purpose of the whole AFAM department was to keep athletes eligible, but there seems no question that: (1) Nyang'Oro at some point started offering ghost courses to "help" athletes; that then (2) word spread about ghost courses; including (3) among athletics counselors, who (as Perrin himself, surprisingly to me, acknowledges) started regularly funneling athletes into said courses; and (4) at some point legitimate courses taught by other instructors were undermined by changed grades and forged signatures.

I do wonder whether Perrin will end up twisting himself into illogical knots and undermine his own intellectual credibility even further. Especially in view of Duvall's point:


Not coincidentally, both have argued that there is no need for UNC to conduct the kind of investigation that would have a chance of uncovering such a smoking gun.

I await further commentary from John Shelton Reed, which I would bet is forthcoming. And I think the critics in the UNC History Department will respond to Perrin's hilarious analysis of their discipline's methodology and purpose.

I realize such an internal debate may be of little interest here, but the more that's revealed about the intramural turmoil, the more the difficulty of keeping "deflect" stuck close to "deny." Dan Kane is still writing stories.

I suppose the key to finding out who, what, when, how, why is Nyang'Oro's trial?

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

All that cheating and conniving still couldn't help UNC land a single men's team on the list of academically honored teams. What a surprise.

And what a wonderful reinforcement of "the Duke way" to continue to place at the top of the list nationally.

[oldnavy]

Oh the things we do for family!! I was at the DD this morning to watch my nephew receive his Master's in Accounting! I needed to purify myself afterwards by rushing back to my room and putting on a duke shirt!

The powder blue is just too much in that place!

However, in the midst of this thread about cheating in the athletic department, I want to give a shout out to all the real students over there who are busting it and EARNING real degrees!

I was/am very proud of my nephew. It was a Hard Earned degree and I wish him and the rest of his class mates the best the bean counting world can offer!

Well done nephew!
Oh btw he is a still a die hard Dukie despite the indoctrination attempts. I like to think I set a good example for him. ;)

[alteran]

Oh btw he is a still a die hard Dukie despite the indoctrination attempts. I like to think I set a good example for him. ;)

That was my story as well. Worked hard but had a lot of fun there. Couldn't root for them, though.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Oh the things we do for family!! I was at the DD this morning to watch my nephew receive his Master's in Accounting! I needed to purify myself afterwards by rushing back to my room and putting on a duke shirt!

The powder blue is just too much in that place!

However, in the midst of this thread about cheating in the athletic department, I want to give a shout out to all the real students over there who are busting it and EARNING real degrees!

I was/am very proud of my nephew. It was a Hard Earned degree and I wish him and the rest of his class mates the best the bean counting world can offer!

Well done nephew!
Oh btw he is a still a die hard Dukie despite the indoctrination attempts. I like to think I set a good example for him. ;)
Congrats to your nephew!

The sad part is that anyone would ever have to go out of their way to point out the hard work done to achieve a real degree from a historically fantastic institution of higher education. It must make many of the hard working students crazy.

[BigWayne]

Bethel the mouthpiece continues the attack of the whistleblowers.

Direct link doesn't work, use this search link and click the first one on the list.

http://chapelboro.com/?s=levine

[Duvall]

Bethel the mouthpiece continues the attack of the whistleblowers.

This story? (http://chapelboro.com/news/unc/former-deans-blame-academic-scandal/)

It certainly comes well-endorsed:


Art Chansky · Top Commenter · Author, columnist, commentator, marketing and sales at Business Class Inc.
Incredible Interview; anyone truly interested in the truth and the faculty's irresponsible part in this should listen to every second.

[devildeac]

This story? (http://chapelboro.com/news/unc/former-deans-blame-academic-scandal/)

It certainly comes well-endorsed:

I'm not going to even consider reading it but I still need to take a dose of Zofran.

[Olympic Fan]

Bethel the mouthpiece continues the attack of the whistleblowers.

Direct link doesn't work, use this search link and click the first one on the list.

http://chapelboro.com/?s=levine

Let me get this straight ... Bethel is now trying to blame the academic deans -- and an interim dean at that -- for UNC's athletic scandal:

Bethel says he found that Nyang’oro’s last performance review and reappointment was in the 2006-07 school year, during Levine’s term as interim dean.

“Madeline Levine approved his performance review and his reappointment,” Bethel says. “Madeline Levine had the power, had the position to know—she should have known—what was going on when she decided to give her stamp of approval to Julius Nyang’oro for reappointment.”

He says Levine was purposefully trying to shift the blame away from academic oversight and shift the blame to athletics.

“What she’s doing is trying to hide the fact that it’s specifically her failure of academic oversight, as well as the other deans who had no idea what was going on in his classes, for over a decade,” Bethel says.

I can't see how this tactic won't turn out well for the UNC scandal defenders.

[ncexnyc]

This is a sad, sad situation over at UNC. I have no doubt that there is some truth to what Bethel is saying. This scandal was just too big for only Dr. J and Crowder to be responsible for it.

Now the question is what is Bethel’s end game in dropping these names? Is it a heavy handed warning to the rest of the academic community, who have been slowly speaking out about this issue. Is this more of the same, “this was just an academic issue” ploy?

It will be interesting to see the responses Bethel’s latest rant yields. UNC seems to be very slow to realize that poking the bear can have some serious side effects. I wonder if this latest ploy will end up biting them.

[gumbomoop]

I can't see how this tactic won't turn out well for the UNC scandal defenders.

I think I agree with you, but I want to make sure I understand your comment. If we substitute the word "will" for the word "won't," does that still express your point?

Not trying to be snarky, just noticing this odd occasion when 2 opposites -- "will not" and "will" -- in this construction seem to mean the same thing.

Grammar/usage issue: maybe this oddity occurs regularly in double negatives???

[cspan37421]

However, in the midst of this thread about cheating in the athletic department, I want to give a shout out to all the real students over there who are busting it and EARNING real degrees!



I concur - hats off to BOTH of them for setting a good example for the rest. :D

[BigWayne]

Now the question is what is Bethel’s end game in dropping these names? Is it a heavy handed warning to the rest of the academic community, who have been slowly speaking out about this issue.

Yes.
Madeline Levine is off the plantation, so she must be attacked like Jay Smith and Mary Willingham.
Just like dirty politicians that attack anyone from their own party that doesn't follow the establishment line.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/30/3578294/a-former-unc-dean-recalls-athletes.html

[BigWayne]

The hits just keep on coming...

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/sports/2014/05/08/lead-dnt-ganim-undrafted-college-education.cnn.html

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

The hits just keep on coming...

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/sports/2014/05/08/lead-dnt-ganim-undrafted-college-education.cnn.html
And UNC's PR consultants keep getting richer.

Here's an interesting question... If those banners weren't hanging in the DD, would this all have been dealt with long ago?

[Newton_14]

And UNC's PR consultants keep getting richer.

Here's an interesting question... If those banners weren't hanging in the DD, would this all have been dealt with long ago?
That's a valid point actually. It could be the heart of the reason the NCAA refuses to act. They have never taken a title away and I suspect they would not want to take one from one of the blue blood programs.

Had 05 an 09 been Sweet Sixteen/Elite 8/Final Four type seasons rather than titles, the NCAA would possibly have acted already. Hard to tell, but I find it very plausible the titles are a factor.

[UrinalCake]

The hits just keep on coming...
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/sports/2014/05/08/lead-dnt-ganim-undrafted-college-education.cnn.html

"Players were literally thrown under the bus."

Really? Sounds like Roy has finally gone too far.

[BD80]

"Players were literally thrown under the bus."

Really? Sounds like Roy has finally gone too far.

And this was said by McAdoo's ATTORNEY!!!!!

Sounds like defamation to me ...

[El_Diablo]

"Players were literally thrown under the bus."

Literally? Wow. That is a pretty serious charge from the lawyer. Depending on the severity of the injuries, that would be at least a Class A1 or Class A2 misdemeanor for each offense. If the bus was in motion, it could easily be seen as attempted murder.

[cspan37421]

I've heard of burying the evidence but this is getting ridiculous.

[lotusland]

Literally? Wow. That is a pretty serious charge from the lawyer. Depending on the severity of the injuries, that would be at least a Class A1 or Class A2 misdemeanor for each offense. If the bus was in motion, it could easily be seen as attempted murder.

I thought Francis Underwood was evil for throwing a reporter under a subway train but surely a "student" athlete is more worthy of protection than a coniving reporter!

[Atlanta Duke]

That's a valid point actually. It could be the heart of the reason the NCAA refuses to act. They have never taken a title away and I suspect they would not want to take one from one of the blue blood programs.

Had 05 an 09 been Sweet Sixteen/Elite 8/Final Four type seasons rather than titles, the NCAA would possibly have acted already. Hard to tell, but I find it very plausible the titles are a factor.

I agree the NCAA is reluctant to drop the hammer at this time, but I think it is to avoid further bad publicity at a time the NCAA business model is on the ropes more than any concern about taking down some banners.

The NCAA dropped the hammer on blue blood football program USC for the Reggie Bush transgressions. Sanctions there included vacating the BCS championship game win over Oklahoma, which resulted in the Grantland Rice championship trophy being yanked back.

http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2010/06/reggie_bush_investigation_resu.html

[Tripping William]

I agree the NCAA is reluctant to drop the hammer at this time . . .

Evidently not, at least not against Cleveland, errrrr, Appalachian State.

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ncaa-sanctions-appalachian-state-basketball-program/article_4535ffec-db7d-11e3-abc1-001a4bcf6878.html

[lotusland]

Evidently not, at least not against Cleveland, errrrr, Appalachian State.

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/ncaa-sanctions-appalachian-state-basketball-program/article_4535ffec-db7d-11e3-abc1-001a4bcf6878.html

Sounds like App State slipped up and enrolled basketball players in actual classes. The AD should be fired!

[BigWayne]

News of the day on the scandal front is a facebook posting (https://www.facebook.com/bryan.collins.338) Rams Club member who happens to be a local judge ruled that UNC can keep records of fradulent class enrollments secret from a N&O FOIA request. (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/19/3872882/judge-rules-unc-spreadsheet-of.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1) The folks over at PP are having a field day saving the judge's FB posts off before he can delete them and sending same off to the national media.

[ncexnyc]

News of the day on the scandal front is a facebook posting (https://www.facebook.com/bryan.collins.338) Rams Club member who happens to be a local judge ruled that UNC can keep records of fradulent class enrollments secret from a N&O FOIA request. (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/19/3872882/judge-rules-unc-spreadsheet-of.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1) The folks over at PP are having a field day saving the judge's FB posts off before he can delete them and sending same off to the national media.
Didn't he also update his profile removing the part about being a member of the Rams Club?

[Duvall]

News of the day on the scandal front is a facebook posting (https://www.facebook.com/bryan.collins.338) Rams Club member who happens to be a local judge ruled that UNC can keep records of fradulent class enrollments secret from a N&O FOIA request. (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/19/3872882/judge-rules-unc-spreadsheet-of.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1) The folks over at PP are having a field day saving the judge's FB posts off before he can delete them and sending same off to the national media.

Ha, is this real? Judge Collins, your life is about to change.

[BigWayne]

Didn't he also update his profile removing the part about being a member of the Rams Club?

That's what PP reports.



Ha, is this real? Judge Collins, your life is about to change.

It seems real. FB page with no security apparently. Odd for an elected official.

[killerleft]

From that N&O article:

In a statement, UNC said, “The University is pleased with Judge Collins’ ruling to uphold the privacy rights of our students. Protecting these rights is one of the most important responsibilities colleges and universities have, and we are grateful for the court’s decision.”

Shouldn't that be Brother Collins? Perhaps the only more prized right that Carolina has is the one that keeps athletes in cleats and tennis shoes while also denying them the right to learn. Those Tar Heels are all about the rights, and the only honest part of that statement is the word 'grateful'.

[Henderson]

You can't expect a judge to recuse himself just because his alma mater is the defendant in a suit. There's no standard of judicial ethics in this country that requires that.

But if he was a member of the Rams Club, whose purpose is to be THE booster for the athletic department, AND the lawsuit involved the athletic department, that's different.

If a judge was a member of the local Elks Club, and the local Elks Club got sued, shouldn't that judge recuse himself?

If a judge was a member of the local Catholic Church, and the local Catholic Church was sued, shouldn't that judge recuse himself?

There are other judges who can handle such a case. They can swap cases to keep the case load even.

That said, in this case the Judge got the ruling right under FERPA, so I don't see an issue here. You can't release student info if the identity of the student can be inferred, for example, by the small class size. The US Dept. of Educ. (overseeing FERPA) has come down hard on schools that have violated that rule. Title IV funds are at stake.

[BigWayne]

You can't expect a judge to recuse himself just because his alma mater is the defendant in a suit. There's no standard of judicial ethics in this country that requires that.

But if he was a member of the Rams Club, whose purpose is to be THE booster for the athletic department, AND the lawsuit involved the athletic department, that's different.

If a judge was a member of the local Elks Club, and the local Elks Club got sued, shouldn't that judge recuse himself?

If a judge was a member of the local Catholic Church, and the local Catholic Church was sued, shouldn't that judge recuse himself?

There are other judges who can handle such a case. They can swap cases to keep the case load even.

That said, in this case the Judge got the ruling right under FERPA, so I don't see an issue here. You can't release student info if the identity of the student can be inferred, for example, by the small class size. The US Dept. of Educ. (overseeing FERPA) has come down hard on schools that have violated that rule. Title IV funds are at stake.
Yes, but the rest of the data that does not identify a student could be released, right? Why is it an all or nothing case?

[MarkD83]

If identifying someone by any release of information is not allowed by FERPA then associating a major with a student could be construed as a FERPA violation.ypu

I will also add that UNC may have already violated FERPA since they informed students that took the fraudulent classes that they had to take other classes or risk losing their degrees. This means that you could infer who took the fraudulent classes by who returned to UNC to take classes after they "graduated".

[blueduke59]

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/21/3878488/ferpa-law-too-often-hides-what.html

[rasputin]

If identifying someone by any release of information is not allowed by FERPA then associating a major with a student could be construed as a FERPA violation.ypu

I will also add that UNC may have already violated FERPA since they informed students that took the fraudulent classes that they had to take other classes or risk losing their degrees. This means that you could infer who took the fraudulent classes by who returned to UNC to take classes after they "graduated".

That's not correct. The regulations include "major field of study" as a piece of "directory information" that can be disclosed to the public, unless the student/parent has stated that he/she does not want that information released.

[PackMan97]

Yes, but the rest of the data that does not identify a student could be released, right? Why is it an all or nothing case?

I think that should be clear. I would think a non-biased judge would rule the identifying information be redacted and the rest of the information released.

FWIW - an Insider Carolina poster reported calling up Judge Collin's office about the public facebook information and the reply they got back was that he was on PTO attending a baseball game (State and Carolina happened to be playing in the ACCT that day).

[Newton_14]

I think that should be clear. I would think a non-biased judge would rule the identifying information be redacted and the rest of the information released.

FWIW - an Insider Carolina poster reported calling up Judge Collin's office about the public facebook information and the reply they got back was that he was on PTO attending a baseball game (State and Carolina happened to be playing in the ACCT that day).

Even if he wasn't at the game (though I am inclined to believe he was) if he is an active member of the Rams Club, then I am with Henderson, he should have recused himself from the case. With all of the DA's, judges, lawyers in our state holding UNC Degree's, it means the fox is controlling the Hen House at every legal turn in this saga, and thus, we will never see fairness and justice untll non-biased individuals are making the decisions.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/21/3878488/ferpa-law-too-often-hides-what.html
This article comment wins the Internet...

"UNC makes me think of a pile of vomit in a school hallway. They keep trying to throw more and more of that peppermint neutralizer on it and act like it's candy, but the puke smell won't go away."

[BigWayne]

Back from the holiday break.....the PR effort continues....

http://chapelboro.com/news/unc/academic-scandal-indefensible-unacceptable/

[PackMan97]

The first book on the scandal has been released and Pack Pride posters report expected deliveries starting on May 30.

http://www.amazon.com/Tarnished-Heels-Unethical-Deliberate-University/dp/193952122X/ref=cm_rdp_product

It should be an interesting weekend read. Sadly, mine is a Father's day gift so I still have two weeks before I get to read it.

[Henderson]

The first book on the scandal has been released and Pack Pride posters report expected deliveries starting on May 30.

http://www.amazon.com/Tarnished-Heels-Unethical-Deliberate-University/dp/193952122X/ref=cm_rdp_product

It should be an interesting weekend read. Sadly, mine is a Father's day gift so I still have two weeks before I get to read it.

Here is what Burley Mitchell, UNC Law Class President of 1969 and former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court, had to say about this book:

“Tarnished Heels” documents the efforts to uncover the facts of the worst combined academic and athletic scandal in the history of the University of North Carolina, America’s first public university. It is a sad tale of expensive and ineffective efforts at “spin” control preventing the UNC administration from admitting and correcting clear wrongdoing at an early stage in its now four year effort. The book shows that despite specific, repeated urging of both the Chairman of the UNC-Chapel Hill Trustees and the Chairman of the Consolidated University System’s Board of Governors to be quickly forthcoming and transparent, the administration repeatedly withheld facts until ordered by a court to disclose them or they were exposed by the investigative reporting of several news agencies.
“Tarnished Heels” reviews clear, and to date uncontroverted, evidence of many fraudulent no-show “classes” by faculty with the direct involvement of staff, athletic academic advisors to players, tutors and others. It is a sad story for we who received degrees from and truly love this great university. It is a reminder of the danger of “big time” athletics corrupting a university’s academic mission and demonstrates the vital role of investigative reporting and a free press in America.

[fuse]

I've been reluctant to both read and post in this thread.
The Boudelaire / Verbal Kint quote keeps coming to mind- the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

As big and ruinous as this scandal ought to be for UNC, it's turning out to be the greatest Jedi mind trick in academic history.

As a a Duke grad I can't claim to be objective, but the evidence continues to mount that would suggest sports no longer have a place at UNC. I'm starting to think that UNC could teach the NSA about cover ups.

[cspan37421]

I don't think the UNC scandal illustrates how great they are at covering things up - Pack Pride seemed to uncover unsavory things rather swiftly using internet search. Instead, I think it speaks to the limits of self-governance and cultural loyalties that are taken more seriously than public duty.

[77devil]

I've been reluctant to both read and post in this thread.
The Boudelaire / Verbal Kint quote keeps coming to mind- the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

As big and ruinous as this scandal ought to be for UNC, it's turning out to be the greatest Jedi mind trick in academic history.

As a a Duke grad I can't claim to be objective, but the evidence continues to mount that would suggest sports no longer have a place at UNC. I'm starting to think that UNC could teach the NSA about cover ups.

UNC hasn't tricked anybody; well maybe there are some alumni who want to believe. It simply has a willing participant in the NCAA in covering up another example of big money corruption in D-1 college football and basketball. UNC is just one of many.

[dukebluesincebirth]

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11036924/former-north-carolina-basketball-star-rashad-mccants-says-took-sham-classes
WOW.

[sagegrouse]

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11036924/former-north-carolina-basketball-star-rashad-mccants-says-took-sham-classes
WOW.

Money quote:


Rashad McCants, the second-leading scorer on the North Carolina basketball team that won the 2004-05 national title, told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that tutors wrote his term papers, he rarely went to class for about half his time at UNC, and he remained able to play largely because he took bogus classes designed to keep athletes academically eligible.

McCants told "Outside the Lines" that he could have been academically ineligible to play during the championship season had he not been provided the assistance. Further, he said head basketball coach Roy Williams knew about the "paper-class" system at UNC. The so-called paper classes didn't require students to go to class; rather, students were required to submit only one term paper to receive a grade.

[Chicago 1995]

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11036924/former-north-carolina-basketball-star-rashad-mccants-says-took-sham-classes
WOW.

Sentences I never thought I'd write: Rashad McCants is my new favorite TarHeel.

[gurufrisbee]

McCants say he is going to write a book about his experiences at NC. Do you really think he is writing it or is he having a tutor write it for him?

I know I'm biased, but I really do feel any school with this track record should be facing some major punishments

[JBDuke]

To me, this segment has the chance to be explosive. It goes directly at the heart of what some of the deniers have been saying - that the coaches knew about it, that it was directly related to the eligibility of championship-winning basketball players, and that it's been going on for a long time. Plus, ESPN would seem to be a bit higher profile among North Carolinians than the NY Times. And they can't point the finger at a bunch of pot-stirring State fans.

Could be a fun weekend!

[OldPhiKap]

More money quotes:


McCants said he was headed toward ineligibility during the championship season because he had failed algebra and psychology, which accounted for half of his credits, in the fall of 2004. He had two A's in AFAM classes in addition to the F's. He said coach Roy Williams informed him of his academic troubles during a meeting ahead of the spring semester.

"There was a slight panic on my part ... [he] said, you know, we're going to be able to figure out how to make it happen, but you need to buckle down on your academics."

He said Williams told him "we're going to be able to change a class from, you know, your summer session class and swap it out with the class that you failed, just so the GPA could reflect that you are in good standing."

McCants ended up in four AFAM classes in the following semester, earning straight A's. He said he didn't know what Williams was getting at with the summer school class replacement reference, and he never talked with Williams about it again. The transcripts show he had received one A in an AFAM class in the summer of 2004.

"I remained eligible to finish out and win the championship, his first championship, and everything was peaches and cream," McCants said.

He said he is sure Williams and the athletic department as a whole knew "100 percent" about the paper-class system.

"I mean, you have to know about the education of your players and ... who's eligible, who's not and ... who goes to this class and missing that class. We had to run sprints for missing classes if we got caught, so you know, they were very aware of what was going on."

[Atlanta Duke]

Any background on why McCants has gone rogue?

[Ichabod Drain]

To me, this segment has the chance to be explosive. It goes directly at the heart of what some of the deniers have been saying - that the coaches knew about it, that it was directly related to the eligibility of championship-winning basketball players, and that it's been going on for a long time. Plus, ESPN would seem to be a bit higher profile among North Carolinians than the NY Times. And they can't point the finger at a bunch of pot-stirring State fans.

Could be a fun weekend!

They're already dismissing it as McCants doing it for money or to stay in the limelight. Just throwing whoever opposes them under the bus one at a time.

[Troublemaker]

Wow, it's like Christmas morning.

[CameronBornAndBred]

I wonder how he got a D in a class he didn't have to do any work for.

[OldPhiKap]

I wonder how he got a D in a class he didn't have to do any work for.

Maybe he showed up when he was not supposed to do so?

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

More money quotes:

The most money quote:


"I thought it was a part of the college experience, just like watching it on a movie from 'He Got Game' or 'Blue Chips,'" McCants said.

Anyone who references Blue Chips can't be all that bad.

[Troublemaker]

I want both their 2005 and 2009 banners to come down. 2005 should be dead now, but 2009 was clearly fruit of the poisonous tree.

[Henderson]

This was bound to happen. You can't do an effective coverup when so many people you no longer control are in the know. I doubt McCants will be the last to speak out. We just need Glenda the Good Witch to call the little munchkins out from their hiding places.

Come out come out, wherever you are.... We know you've got stories to tell.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

This new revelation inspires me to write a haiku:

Wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow.


Just...

wow.

This might have finally slipped past "explainable through good PR" territory.

[roywhite]

To me, this segment has the chance to be explosive. It goes directly at the heart of what some of the deniers have been saying - that the coaches knew about it, that it was directly related to the eligibility of championship-winning basketball players, and that it's been going on for a long time. Plus, ESPN would seem to be a bit higher profile among North Carolinians than the NY Times. And they can't point the finger at a bunch of pot-stirring State fans.

Could be a fun weekend!


This new revelation inspires me to write a haiku:

Wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow.


Just...

wow.

This might have finally slipped past "explainable through good PR" territory.

Just how does UNC dodge this?

Wow, indeed.

[Faison1]

Wow! Just, Wow! (edited, I see previous posts had the exact same reaction as me)

How long does this continue to go? I mean, it's been years since this investigation began. Didn't it all start with a D-Lineman posting a picture of himself hiding a gun behind his back? That seems like such a long time ago, with little consequences in between.

How much more does this need to evolve until we see some sort of meaningful punishment?

[wilko]

I expect Roy and Bubba to make this type of public statement in response...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6lHm-stXdM

[Atlanta Duke]

Over on IC they are not pleased about this development

We need a D-Day. Turn the tides in our favor, cause we have won some battles, but we are badly losing the war.

But they know who to blame for McCants being a Tar Heel:)

Another thanks to Matt Doherty.

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=78&f=1410&t=12923095

They also are linking to a 2004 article where McCants complained about being "in jail" at UNC and going to class, which obviously shows he is making up his recollections on OTL

"It's to get up and go to school, get here and lift weights and play basketball," McCants said in the interview. "That's my 9-to-5."

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=1905457

[DukeUsul]

4 > 5*

[DukieInKansas]

I want both their 2005 and 2009 banners to come down. 2005 should be dead now, but 2009 was clearly fruit of the poisonous tree.

The fake banners all started with Helms. It should come down, too! :D

I feel bad that athletes that should have been learning something to fall back on when their sport no longer supports them apparently didn't learn much. They especially don't appear to have learned the life lesson that things aren't always handed to you.

[weezie]

Sentences I never thought I'd write: Rashad McCants is my new favorite TarHeel.

Oh man you stole my witty observation!

[weezie]

McCants say he is going to write a book about his experiences at NC. Do you really think he is writing it or is he having a tutor write it for him?

Let's help him out with our own little Kickstarter project.

[alteran]

This new revelation inspires me to write a haiku:

Wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Wow wow wow wow.


Just...

wow.

This might have finally slipped past "explainable through good PR" territory.

McCants spills the beans,
so far Ol' Roy is speechless,
Green Acres it ain't.

[rocketeli]

Too bad it's McCants who can be painted as a somewhat unreliable individual. I'm more impressed that the story is actually on the ESPN website as ESPn with it's UNC grad CEO has been staying away from this story as much as possible in the past.

[TruBlu]

Boom!

Ol' Roy is in the dadgum D-Day spirit - - from the German point of view.

Maybe now the NCAA will get off their rear end and act. Up until now, I have been skeptical that they would do anything.

[Troublemaker]

4 > 5*

4 > 3

[OldPhiKap]

Boom!

Ol' Roy is in the dadgum D-Day spirit - - from the German point of view.

Maybe now the NCAA will get off their rear end and act. Up until now, I have been skeptical that they would do anything.

The NCAA IS acting. This morning, they suspended Cleveland State's basketball team for the next three years.

[flyingdutchdevil]

Boom!

Ol' Roy is in the dadgum D-Day spirit - - from the German point of view.

Maybe now the NCAA will get off their rear end and act. Up until now, I have been skeptical that they would do anything.

I agree. This is big. It's a premier UNC player who helped UNC win a natty.

However, McCants has been anti-UNC for some time now. I'm sure he's telling the truth, but I wouldn't put all my faith into what comes out of McCants's mouth, especially about UNC.

[davekay1971]

Boom!

Ol' Roy is in the dadgum D-Day spirit - - from the German point of view.

Maybe now the NCAA will get off their rear end and act. Up until now, I have been skeptical that they would do anything.

I'm still skeptical. The NCAA has been very clear that they want no part of this. An allegation by a single player with known hard feelings toward UNC and Roy won't move the meter for the NCAA at all. The obvious response is "we've investigated, this is an isolated allegation from a person with possible motive to lie, and we're not going to reopen our investigation based on that."

As for UNC, they've been doing the modern Washington political response to this all along: deny, distract, delay, drag feet handing over documents, redact, produce a bogus "internal investigation", and wait for the news cycle to move on. The simple truth, in sports as well as in politics, is that if you wait long enough, a new scandal will cover up the old one. We talk about the drip, drip, drip of this, and, for UNC fans who care about integrity, if they still exist, this has to be torture. But, as far as the program is concerned, so far so good in their management: 4 years into this, and all they've lost is one bowl game and a few football scholarships. The banners are still up, the basketball program is still a national name, and the football program is on the upswing again.

[gurufrisbee]

Let's help him out with our own little Kickstarter project.

He needs a kickstart on the book? Like a helpful tip - 'begin the sentence with a capital letter'?

[Henderson]

Any background on why McCants has gone rogue?

You read the part about the book, right? For a UNC-CH athlete with no more reason to keep quiet and an inclination to write a book, this situation is like raw meat to a hungry lion.

Interesting breakdown between his AFAM classes and non-AFAM classes. If he'd relied exclusively on AFAM classes, he would have lost his "in good standing" academically and been fast-tracking toward ineligibility. In other words, not only was he taking bogus classes, but the bogus classes were critical to his eligibility. And Roy knew.

Natty gotta go. NCAA?

Over to IC now for a little schadenfreude.

[Eternal Outlaw]

I agree. This is big. It's a premier UNC player who helped UNC win a natty.

However, McCants has been anti-UNC for some time now. I'm sure he's telling the truth, but I wouldn't put all my faith into what comes out of McCants's mouth, especially about UNC.

McCants is to this story that Canseco was to the steroid story. Not the best person you want as the source to come out and spill the beans as plenty for people to attack as they already have. But in the end, doesn't make what he is saying any less true.

But if you look at the record book, all the homers are still there so I don't think this changes anything, UNC won't lose any banners.

[mpj96]

Glad to see UNC take some national heat for this but a few details seem a bit off that make me less than certain this dog hunts:

* as someone mentioned upthread -- how do you get a D in a class you don't have to attend.
* he said he didn't have to show up for classes but then said that he spent a lot of time in classes where he didn't have to do anything.
* he said that UNC coaches knew he had no show classes but would make him run sprints if he missed class.

Particularly troublesome for UNC is that they refuse to release his transcript because of some kind of a property not returned claim from 2005 and the conversations between McCants and Williams.

[OldPhiKap]

I'm still skeptical. The NCAA has been very clear that they want no part of this. An allegation by a single player with known hard feelings toward UNC and Roy won't move the meter for the NCAA at all. The obvious response is "we've investigated, this is an isolated allegation from a person with possible motive to lie, and we're not going to reopen our investigation based on that."

As for UNC, they've been doing the modern Washington political response to this all along: deny, distract, delay, drag feet handing over documents, redact, produce a bogus "internal investigation", and wait for the news cycle to move on. The simple truth, in sports as well as in politics, is that if you wait long enough, a new scandal will cover up the old one. We talk about the drip, drip, drip of this, and, for UNC fans who care about integrity, if they still exist, this has to be torture. But, as far as the program is concerned, so far so good in their management: 4 years into this, and all they've lost is one bowl game and a few football scholarships. The banners are still up, the basketball program is still a national name, and the football program is on the upswing again.

Agreed in general, but -- McCants makes a very spcific allegation that the timing of classes was swapped to keep GPA. This should be a verifiable fact or falsehood.

[Kedsy]

OK, I realize we're talking about UNC on a Duke board, so there's little chance of either rationality or objectivity, but here's my issue with any potential punishment: what purpose would it serve?

Back when I attended law school, they taught us that legal consequences had one of several purposes, as follows:

(1) Preventative: the idea here would be that if UNC was punished, then they wouldn't do it again, or on a broader scale colleges would be less likely to cheat because they'd be afraid of getting punished.

But based on UNC's reaction to this so far, it's hard to imagine any punishment that would act as a deterrent to people who seem to think they haven't done anything wrong, or at least aren't willing to admit to it. And even if they do get punished now, with as far as they've already gone without being punished, it's hard to see anything that would be a deterrent for anybody else either, at this point. So preventative is more or less out.

(2) Compensatory: rarely applies in criminal cases, but to the extent that it does, the idea would be that the perpetrator would compensate his victims for the wrongs he visited upon them.

In this case, the only actual victims are the so-called student-athletes themselves who got cheated out of an education. But most of these people aren't looking for compensation, and any enforced consequences along these lines would probably be trivial and unsatisfying for everybody anyway. I think this one is basically inapplicable.

(3) Rehabilitative: the idea here would be to teach the wrongdoer that what he did was wrong and give him the knowledge and skills to rejoin society as an upright and productive member.

This rarely works in real life, much less in this case. To even mention this one is pretty much a joke.

(4) Punitive: the idea here is to punish someone just because he did a bad thing and it seems like something ought to be done.

This last one seems to be the only possibly applicable reason for punishing UNC. Unfortunately, it's the weakest of the four reasons, and punishment for punishment's sake doesn't really accomplish anything except make the perpetrator feel bad and possibly make others feel a little bit better. Even worse, it's not quite clear who should be punished in this case, and depending on who is the proper person to punish, what would the appropriate punishment be?

The players? Putting aside that they're probably the victims, they're long gone and the NCAA has neither jurisdiction over them nor any way to hurt them.

The coaches? I suppose they could be forced out, but as of right now there isn't enough evidence to support such a harsh judgment and my guess is there never will be.

The teachers and administrators? Are already being sacrificed as scapegoats left and right. Does anybody (except the sacrifices themselves) really care?

The fans? Around here, we don't like UNC fans, but they didn't enroll the kids in fake classes. As much fun as it might be to see them squirm, punishing them makes no sense.

The university itself? OK, but what punishment would be suitable?

Losing future scholarships and/or becoming ineligible for future NCAA tournaments? Those might bring the university some pain (although it might not, depending on how the ACC distributes bowl money and NCAAT revenues), but it would also punish players who had nothing to do with the scandal. And based on NCAA history, it would probably only be for a year anyway. Big deal.

Vacating past championships, Final Fours, and/or other accomplishments? It might embarrass UNC a bit, but it doesn't actually harm the university. In fact, it doesn't actually harm anybody, except maybe some fans, and (a) we've already established that the fans aren't the parties that should be punished here; and (b) does anybody really believe that vacating something makes it as if it didn't happen? Even if UNC has to take the 2005 banner down, no reasonable person would argue that they didn't win the championship that year. You could argue that they had to cheat to win it, but lots of people make that sort of argument about lots of teams in lots of years -- and those arguments often have merit, too -- and the only difference is whether or not the team got caught. In fact, if you want to, at this point you could make a credible argument along these lines about UNC whether or not the 2005 title is vacated.

The "death penalty"? That would certainly bring the university pain (along with a lot of other relatively innocent people), but if the NCAA's reaction to everything so far has been to do absolutely nothing, the idea that they'll ever get to the death penalty is ludicrous. Even if you think it's the proper penalty, this one is not even worth hoping for.

No, the only way to bring pain to the university that's both possible and plausible is to take money from them. I assume, without knowing for sure, that the NCAA has the power to levy a monetary fine against UNC, but if they do would anybody here be satisfied?


Ultimately, the problem is the current state of revenue college athletics. Since there is no legitimate way to deal with widespread cheating along the lines of this UNC scandal, or the assumed evildoing of Calipari and others, the only way I can see to stop the problem would be to dismantle college football and basketball as we know it. Either make college sports a truly amateur, non-money-making affair, or make it a lower-level professional league.

And personally, I wouldn't want to see either of those options. We can have as much fun as we want in threads like this, but ultimately we're just going to have to live with things the way they are.

[toughbuff1]

The NCAA IS acting. This morning, they suspended Cleveland State's basketball team for the next three years.

And Daniel Ewing got another t.

[Bluegrassdevil1]

And Daniel Ewing got another t.

And Williams just got another foul against UConn.

More importantly: Doherty and Williams bleed Smith's UNC blue through and through, and to have both men involved in a situation such as this...

Disclaimer: I do not intend the following statement to be cruel or mean-spirited; the thought is legitimate.

It does make me happy that UNC's great basketball coach is not cognizant of what is occurring. Putting rivalry aside, the great leader of the evil empire did do many great things for amateur athletics and society as a whole, and he is better served finishing his days absent of this information.

[gumbomoop]

* as someone mentioned upthread -- how do you get a D in a class you don't have to attend.

I'm guessing that McCants was actually enrolled in a few, but probably only a few, legit AFAM courses.

However -- laying my cards on the table -- as one who has defended the UNC AFAM dept generally, I'm struggling to explain the totality of his grades. Seems he took [well, "took"] a total of 18 AFAM courses, with these grades: 10 A's, 6 B's, 1 C, 1 D.

Pretty easy to explain most/all of the A's - ghost courses/papers. The B's are puzzling, maybe an interesting mystery. Is it possible that he made some D's and F's in some legit AFAM courses, but those grades were changed to B's? We know that grades were changed and signatures forged, so maybe...... Have to see some humor in this admittedly speculative scenario: I'm imagining some co-conspirator periodically needing to, uh, amend some athlete's grade, and so thinks to him/herself, "Jeez, another D and another F. I just can't in good conscience [.......] change these to A's. It'll have to be B's. There. Done. Next. Oh, jeez......"

And I'll speculate that McCants got a more or less legit C and a legit D in legit courses. I realize it's hard to imagine him having done enough work of enough quality even to merit a C or a D, but there are actually wide variations in grading standards among college profs/instructors, and some profs rarely give F's. In such courses, one could say, well, that C/D really isn't legit, either. But outside of Nyang'Oro-level fraud, there's a wide gap in grading standards, so if Prof X is a fair-but-tough grader, while Prof Y is pretty easy, none of Prof Y's grades are quite as legit as Prof X's.

[roywhite]

Meanwhile, from an underground command bunker somewhere in Orange County, Bubba Cunningham released the following statement (http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/rashad-mccants-recounts-academic-fraud-at-north-carolina-142758359.html):


North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham released a statement to Outside the Lines that called McCants' accusations "disappointing" and encouraged him to speak with the federal prosecutor the school has hired to conduct an independent investigation into the academic "irregularities."

"I have gotten to know some of Mr. McCants' teammates, and I know that claims about their academic experience have affected them deeply," Cunningham said. "They are adamant that they had a different experience at UNC-Chapel Hill than has been portrayed by Mr. McCants and others."


I've also heard a report that Cunningham has invited McCants to return to campus and continue work toward his degree. Careful there, Rashad, there may be a few enemies lurking.

[OldSchool]

McCants said his first year he did go to class and took several legitimate, core-curriculum courses.


McCants said he was headed toward ineligibility during the championship season because he had failed algebra and psychology, which accounted for half of his credits, in the fall of 2004.

McCants is portraying himself as a victim, and that is also the general tenor of the reporting on this scandal.

But the players are also culpable participants in the wrongdoing.

They all know exactly what they are doing when they take no-show classes and receive grades for work they didn't do.

This is not to suggest the university is not culpable; indeed, the university bears greater culpability than the players.


McCants: "You're not there to get an education, though they tell you that. You're there to make revenue for the college. You're there to put fans in the seats. You're there to bring prestige to the university by winning games."

But McCants chose to participate in the academic fraud. It appears he would have flunked out otherwise. And if he had flunked out, the road to NBA millions becomes a lot more uncertain for a McCants that does not suit up in powder blue and appear on television twice a week.

McCants' participation in the academic fraud is as much about making future revenue for McCants as it is about making present revenue for the university.

[arnie]

And Williams just got another foul against UConn.

More importantly: Doherty and Williams bleed Smith's UNC blue through and through, and to have both men involved in a situation such as this...

Disclaimer: I do not intend the following statement to be cruel or mean-spirited; the thought is legitimate.

It does make me happy that UNC's great basketball coach is not cognizant of what is occurring. Putting rivalry aside, the great leader of the evil empire did do many great things for amateur athletics and society as a whole, and he is better served finishing his days absent of this information.

Despite the deity label given to Dean, he regularly recruited players that couldn't possibly make it through UNC course loads. Lots of fraud in the program from the late 90s - he likely knew and was involved.

[Dukehky]

McCants is portraying himself as a victim, and that is also the general tenor of the reporting on this scandal.

But the players are also culpable participants in the wrongdoing.

They all know exactly what they are doing when they take no-show classes and receive grades for work they didn't do.

This is not to suggest the university is not culpable; indeed, the university bears greater culpability than the players.



But McCants chose to participate in the academic fraud. It appears he would have flunked out otherwise. And if he had flunked out, the road to NBA millions becomes a lot more uncertain for a McCants that does not suit up in powder blue and appear on television twice a week.

McCants' participation in the academic fraud is as much about making future revenue for McCants as it is about making present revenue for the university.


And this is exactly the point. McCants isn't the only athlete whose only goal in going to college is to play professional sports. That was his primary goal in life, and his course work load was a hindrance to that, he found a loop hole that was enabled by UNC. I disagree, this is all on the schools. McCants cheating in college does nothing but hurt himself and possibly the school if found out. The school wants to make money off these kids by keeping them in eligible so they can continue to exploit them (football and basketball).

I am not going to deter from my point of view as a defender of the individual when they are in some kind of combat with an institution.

Either way, "Born to be hated, Dying to be loved." I'm not at loved yet Rashad, but I am certainly more pleased than I ever have been with you.

[CameronBornAndBred]

My favorite article so far. Here is the opening line.



Explosive allegations from a member of North Carolina's 2004-05 national championship team destroyed any remaining insulation the Tar Heels' tradition-rich basketball program had from accusations of academic fraud that have rocked the school.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/rashad-mccants-recounts-academic-fraud-at-north-carolina-142758359.html

[Olympic Fan]

Disclaimer: I do not intend the following statement to be cruel or mean-spirited; the thought is legitimate.

It does make me happy that UNC's great basketball coach is not cognizant of what is occurring. Putting rivalry aside, the great leader of the evil empire did do many great things for amateur athletics and society as a whole, and he is better served finishing his days absent of this information.

I'd be more sympathetic for Dean if I wasn't haunted by the thought that the AFAM scam started during his tenure.

You can trace the threads back to his 1993 national championship team (when AFAM exploded as a popular major -- just as Julius N'yangoro took over the department). And it certainly was going on under Guthridge, when Julius Peppers helped him to the Final Four in 2000.

That's what makes me most angry about UNC's response to the scandal. By hiding and denying and fighting to prevent this story from coming out, they've thrown Smith and his sterling reputation under the bus. Maybe it didn't start until after he retired. Maybe it really began with Wayne Walden, the academic guru that Roy brought with him from Kansas (interesting that after Walden retired after the 2009 season, the new academic advisor IMMEDIATELY got the UNC players out of the AFAM department). But the fact that Carolina continues to fight the release of any information and to try and count on in-house investigations (including the current one) -- plus the fact that there main response to the scandal is to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a PR firm) makes me read the worst into it.

And the worst interpretation is that it started under Dean.

[Duvall]

OK, I realize we're talking about UNC on a Duke board, so there's little chance of either rationality or objectivity, but here's my issue with any potential punishment: what purpose would it serve?
.

I'm not sure looking at this in terms in punishment is the best approach. At this point all I want is for UNC to admit, or be forced to admit, that people within the athletic department used fake grades and fake classes to keep players eligible, for them to stop pretending that this was some unfortunate happenstance that just happened to benefit the school's sports programs. I don't really care what they do with their banners.

[77devil]

OK, I realize we're talking about UNC on a Duke board, so there's little chance of either rationality or objectivity, but here's my issue with any potential punishment: what purpose would it serve?

Back when I attended law school, they taught us that legal consequences had one of several purposes, as follows:

(1) Preventative: the idea here would be that if UNC was punished, then they wouldn't do it again, or on a broader scale colleges would be less likely to cheat because they'd be afraid of getting punished.

But based on UNC's reaction to this so far, it's hard to imagine any punishment that would act as a deterrent to people who seem to think they haven't done anything wrong, or at least aren't willing to admit to it. And even if they do get punished now, with as far as they've already gone without being punished, it's hard to see anything that would be a deterrent for anybody else either, at this point. So preventative is more or less out.

(2) Compensatory: rarely applies in criminal cases, but to the extent that it does, the idea would be that the perpetrator would compensate his victims for the wrongs he visited upon them.

In this case, the only actual victims are the so-called student-athletes themselves who got cheated out of an education. But most of these people aren't looking for compensation, and any enforced consequences along these lines would probably be trivial and unsatisfying for everybody anyway. I think this one is basically inapplicable.

(3) Rehabilitative: the idea here would be to teach the wrongdoer that what he did was wrong and give him the knowledge and skills to rejoin society as an upright and productive member.

This rarely works in real life, much less in this case. To even mention this one is pretty much a joke.

(4) Punitive: the idea here is to punish someone just because he did a bad thing and it seems like something ought to be done.

This last one seems to be the only possibly applicable reason for punishing UNC. Unfortunately, it's the weakest of the four reasons, and punishment for punishment's sake doesn't really accomplish anything except make the perpetrator feel bad and possibly make others feel a little bit better. Even worse, it's not quite clear who should be punished in this case, and depending on who is the proper person to punish, what would the appropriate punishment be?

The players? Putting aside that they're probably the victims, they're long gone and the NCAA has neither jurisdiction over them nor any way to hurt them.

The coaches? I suppose they could be forced out, but as of right now there isn't enough evidence to support such a harsh judgment and my guess is there never will be.

The teachers and administrators? Are already being sacrificed as scapegoats left and right. Does anybody (except the sacrifices themselves) really care?

The fans? Around here, we don't like UNC fans, but they didn't enroll the kids in fake classes. As much fun as it might be to see them squirm, punishing them makes no sense.

The university itself? OK, but what punishment would be suitable?

Losing future scholarships and/or becoming ineligible for future NCAA tournaments? Those might bring the university some pain (although it might not, depending on how the ACC distributes bowl money and NCAAT revenues), but it would also punish players who had nothing to do with the scandal. And based on NCAA history, it would probably only be for a year anyway. Big deal.

Vacating past championships, Final Fours, and/or other accomplishments? It might embarrass UNC a bit, but it doesn't actually harm the university. In fact, it doesn't actually harm anybody, except maybe some fans, and (a) we've already established that the fans aren't the parties that should be punished here; and (b) does anybody really believe that vacating something makes it as if it didn't happen? Even if UNC has to take the 2005 banner down, no reasonable person would argue that they didn't win the championship that year. You could argue that they had to cheat to win it, but lots of people make that sort of argument about lots of teams in lots of years -- and those arguments often have merit, too -- and the only difference is whether or not the team got caught. In fact, if you want to, at this point you could make a credible argument along these lines about UNC whether or not the 2005 title is vacated.

The "death penalty"? That would certainly bring the university pain (along with a lot of other relatively innocent people), but if the NCAA's reaction to everything so far has been to do absolutely nothing, the idea that they'll ever get to the death penalty is ludicrous. Even if you think it's the proper penalty, this one is not even worth hoping for.

No, the only way to bring pain to the university that's both possible and plausible is to take money from them. I assume, without knowing for sure, that the NCAA has the power to levy a monetary fine against UNC, but if they do would anybody here be satisfied?


Ultimately, the problem is the current state of revenue college athletics. Since there is no legitimate way to deal with widespread cheating along the lines of this UNC scandal, or the assumed evildoing of Calipari and others, the only way I can see to stop the problem would be to dismantle college football and basketball as we know it. Either make college sports a truly amateur, non-money-making affair, or make it a lower-level professional league.

And personally, I wouldn't want to see either of those options. We can have as much fun as we want in threads like this, but ultimately we're just going to have to live with things the way they are.

It is clear to me what you are against but not what you are for regarding any UNC sanction. Let's assume McCants' story is accurate. Sean May, for example, was quoted in 2012 that he was steered away from his desired major in Communications to AAS because the former required class attendance during the season. Presume another player from 2005 either comes forward and admits to UNC conduct similar to what McCants describes, or other corroboration is revealed that demonstrate that academic cheating occurred with other 2005 basketball players that would have rendered them ineligible.

What do you believe is the appropriate punishment short of the death penalty which I agree is out of the question?

[CDu]

It is clear to me what you are against but not what you are for regarding any UNC sanction. Let's assume McCants' story is accurate. Sean May, for example, was quoted in 2012 that he was steered away from his desired major in Communications to AAS because the former required class attendance during the season. Presume another player from 2005 either comes forward and admits to UNC conduct similar to what McCants describes, or other corroboration is revealed that demonstrate that academic cheating occurred with other 2005 basketball players that would have rendered them ineligible.

What do you believe is the appropriate punishment short of the death penalty which I agree is out of the question?

Exactly. There has to be some punishment. It stinks that any punishment would mostly penalize folks that were not involved. But if there is any desire to discourage this behavior in the future, some sort of punishment must be applied. Otherwise, the NCAA is basically saying "cheat away; even if you get caught, we won't do anything about it!"

[cspan37421]

Meanwhile, from an underground command bunker somewhere in Orange County, Bubba Cunningham released the following statement (http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/rashad-mccants-recounts-academic-fraud-at-north-carolina-142758359.html):


North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham released a statement to Outside the Lines that called McCants' accusations "disappointing" and encouraged him to speak with the federal prosecutor the school has hired to conduct an independent investigation into the academic "irregularities."

I've also heard a report that Cunningham has invited McCants to return to campus and continue work toward his degree. Careful there, Rashad, there may be a few enemies lurking.

I am about 100 pages in to Until Proven Innocent. The Cunningham statement above sounds chillingly familiar. "Just come on in and talk to the people who work for us. They'll take care of things." Next think you know, he'll tell Rashad that he doesn't need a lawyer.

[OldSchool]

We often see in these stories about academic scandals concerning athletes themes about athletes not being "given" a good education.

But a college education is not a passive activity. What the university provides is an opportunity for a student to become educated. "Giving" a college student an education is not akin to giving someone a car or a mortgage loan.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a fine academic institution. There are many terrific scholars researching and teaching in numerous fields and the university offers many quality and challenging courses. If someone wishes to receive a college education in a given degree and manages to get admitted to UNC-Chapel Hill, the opportunity is there to receive a fine education.

The problem is not just a lack of integrity among those responsible for UNC athletics. The problem is not just that universities field sports teams in the two big revenue sports of football and basketball.

The root of the problem is that, unlike baseball, there isn't a viable non-college development track for those athletes who have legitimate aspirations to play professional football or basketball but have no interest in or no capability for a real college education.

[OldSchool]

I am not going to deter from my point of view as a defender of the individual when they are in some kind of combat with an institution.

McCants was not doing "combat" with UNC.

To the contrary, both sides knowingly colluded in academic fraud so that UNC on the one hand could have a more successful basketball team and all of the financial and non-financial benefits flowing from that, and that McCants on the other hand would have his best shot at NBA millions.

[sagegrouse]

What do you believe is the appropriate punishment short of the death penalty which I agree is out of the question?


The NCAA has a tough problem:

2005 is a long time ago, making investigations difficult.

UNC is a star in the NCAA: a top-ten school in terms of sports (Director's Cup) and one of the highest-rated state schools in academics. UNC ranks #30 by USNWR, behind only Berkeley (20), UCLA and UVa (23) and Michigan (28). For UNC to be charged by the NCAA with what in essence is academic fraud would be a monumental action.

This is a different beast. The NCAA is a gumshoe and petty criminal organization: its hallmark investigations involve money exchanging hands, paid trips, gambling, and free goods or services, like tattoos and rental cars. This one is corruption on the academic side of the university for the benefit of the athletic department (which is a heckuva lot different from "for the benefit of athletes," who were truly victims by being denied an education). The athletic department's defense is, "We thought these were legit academic endeavors blessed by the academic department and its hierarchy. It is not our position to second-guess an academic department."

Deep down, the NCAA leadership will be thinking, "UNC got caught because it hired people into the academic counseling program who had integrity and professional pride, like Mary Willingham and Jennifer Townsend." Lesser academic schools would never do that. Academic counseling for athletes is a "keep 'em eligible at all costs operation." Jennifer Townsend isn't a whistle-blower; she is the person who came from Minnesota to lead counseling for the hoops program who looked at the no-show classes and said, "No. We aren't doing that any more. The athletes are getting nothing out of these courses." Her action, of course, gives lie to any assertion that these courses were legit academic endeavors.

The NCAA will be looking hard for a way out that doesn't vacate a long-ago championship.

[Dukehky]

McCants was not doing "combat" with UNC.

To the contrary, both sides knowingly colluded in academic fraud so that UNC on the one hand could have a more successful basketball team and all of the financial and non-financial benefits flowing from that, and that McCants on the other hand would have his best shot at NBA millions.

You're right of course, I was simply stating that in according blame, UNC, to me, is more culpable and responsible for the lack of academic integrity that both were party to than McCants.

[Kimist]

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/mccants-to-espn-tutors-wrote-my-papers/13707311/

EXCERPT:
"Our players have been deeply hurt over the last couple of years, and again today, by the comments and innuendo concerning their academic achievements," said Williams. "Obviously, we pride ourselves on being one of the top basketball programs in the country, but equally important, in helping our players grow academically and socially, as we promised their parents we would."

The reader comments are growing rapidly and are most entertaining!:)

[OldSchool]

You're right of course, I was simply stating that in according blame, UNC, to me, is more culpable and responsible for the lack of academic integrity that both were party to than McCants.

And I happen to agree with you on this.

[hurleyfor3]

The NCAA will be looking hard for a way out that doesn't vacate a long-ago championship.

Why not force unc to return its NCAA Tournament revenues for the years in question? You could adjust these for inflation, or hold back upcoming revenue instead; it's all details. They could be distributed equally among the rest of ACC (using membership at the time, meaning UMd would get some) or just go back to the NCAA.

This would hurt the taxpayers of North Carolina, but is it worse these same taxpayers funding a university that hands out sham degrees?

[Mudge]

The one thing I found the most ironic (in watching bits of the ESPN interview with McCants) is how well-spoken he was in the interview-- somehow, despite apparently not getting much of anything in the way of a higher education at UNC, McCants is (or has become since, in his "self-education") much more literate and well-spoken than a large percentage of his peers who (allegedly) actually did complete 4 years of (relatively) substantive classes and attain their degrees.

This is not, in any way, to say that I agree with the underlying logic of many of his statements in the interview-- which are nothing but a transparent attempt to blame others for his own complete disinterest in gaining the benefits available from a college education (and all of which, of course, are fully calculated to boost the sales of the forthcoming book he says he is about to "write" about his experiences).

[Tripping William]

http://www.wralsportsfan.com/mccants-to-espn-tutors-wrote-my-papers/13707311/

EXCERPT:
"Our players have been deeply hurt over the last couple of years, and again today, by the comments and innuendo concerning their academic achievements," said Williams. "Obviously, we pride ourselves on being one of the top basketball programs in the country, but equally important, in helping our players grow academically and socially, as we promised their parents we would."

The reader comments are growing rapidly and are most entertaining!:)


A McCants quote:

"I mean, you have to know about the education of your players and ... who's eligible, who's not and ... who goes to this class and missing that class. We had to run sprints for missing classes if we got caught, so you know, they were very aware of what was going on."

An Ol' Roy quote:

"In no way did I know about or do anything close to what he says, and I think the players whom I have coached over the years will agree with me."

Seems pretty damning to me.

[CameronBornAndBred]

McCants is (or has become since, in his "self-education") much more literate and well-spoken than a large percentage of his peers who (allegedly) actually did complete 4 years of (relatively) substantive classes and attain their degrees.
But only while speaking English; they run circles around him in Swahili.

[Henderson]

Despite the deity label given to Dean, he regularly recruited players that couldn't possibly make it through UNC course loads. Lots of fraud in the program from the late 90s - he likely knew and was involved.

As much as I love the sentiment, I don't think you can make such a statement without some citations, examples, or references in support. We'd expect that if someone made such claims about one of our coaches.

[Henderson]

Meanwhile, over at IC....

The consensus seems to be:

a. McCants is a traitor;
b. McCants is unstable, like crazy unstable; and
c. McCants' jersey should be taken down from the rafters. [No mention of the Helms banner].

There was one post that asked if the priority shouldn't be on knowing whether McCants is right or wrong. That post was ignored, followed by more of a., b., and c.

[lotusland]

OK, I realize we're talking about UNC on a Duke board, so there's little chance of either rationality or objectivity, but here's my issue with any potential punishment: what purpose would it serve?


I don't follow you. Would the same be true for all instances when cheating is uncovered or just UNC?

Aren't banners the whole reason for the cheating in the first place? What better reward for cheaters than to take them down. I can't imagine a better way to punish and reform the cheaters or create a deterrent for other potential cheaters. Furthermore what is learned if everyone knows they cheated but they still get to proudly display the banners they cheated in order to win?

[Kedsy]

It is clear to me what you are against but not what you are for regarding any UNC sanction. Let's assume McCants' story is accurate. Sean May, for example, was quoted in 2012 that he was steered away from his desired major in Communications to AAS because the former required class attendance during the season. Presume another player from 2005 either comes forward and admits to UNC conduct similar to what McCants describes, or other corroboration is revealed that demonstrate that academic cheating occurred with other 2005 basketball players that would have rendered them ineligible.

What do you believe is the appropriate punishment short of the death penalty which I agree is out of the question?

Well, like I said in my earlier post and as HurleyFor3 suggested, the most reasonable penalty would be to take money from UNC. My point about that was, other than possibly the gratification of knowing UNC has "paid for its crimes," who here at DBR would be satisfied if that's how it ends up?


Exactly. There has to be some punishment. It stinks that any punishment would mostly penalize folks that were not involved. But if there is any desire to discourage this behavior in the future, some sort of punishment must be applied. Otherwise, the NCAA is basically saying "cheat away; even if you get caught, we won't do anything about it!"

The root of the problem, as I see it, is there is no penalty that an organization of academic institutions could levy that would be enough, short of the death penalty (that will never happen). So you're left with petty little punishments that not only don't come close to the level of the bad acts, but (as you point out) hurt innocent bystanders more than they hurt the perpetrators. What's the point of that?

When an active player does something against the rules, the NCAA can deny him eligibility, but they don't have that option here. So it comes down to taking money from UNC or to make UNC ineligible for future events (bowl games, NCAAT). The monetary solution will never satisfy -- would they really impose a fine big enough to cause actual pain to UNC? I doubt it. And the team-ineligible solutions are both too little and too much. Too little in that a one year, or even two year (and there's no way it would be more than that), penalty is trivial compared to massive academic fraud over the course of possibly decades. Too much in that the primary people hurt by it are players who weren't involved in the scandal. And making UNC take down the 2005 championship banner would be the most trivial response of all -- it doesn't hurt anybody and in the past that sort of NCAA response has not at all dampened enthusiasm for cheating among repeat offenders. Other than giving Duke and State fans a zinger to throw at UNC fans, it's essentially nothing.

Put another way, I would argue that the NCAA has been saying, "cheat away; even if you get caught we won't do anything meaninful about it" for as long as I've been following college sports.

No matter what happens, the solution will feel cheap and won't satisfy anybody.

[Kedsy]

I don't follow you. Would the same be true for all instances when cheating is uncovered or just UNC?

Yes, it would be true for all cheating, not just UNC. Or at least cheating of this sort. As I said in an earlier post, if you catch an active player doing something against the rules, then you can make that player ineligible and the penalty makes sense. It just doesn't seem that way due to the NCAA's huge collection of silly rules and the arbitrary nature in which it enforces them.


Aren't banners the whole reason for the cheating in the first place? What better reward for cheaters than to take them down.

No, I don't think the banners were the reason for the cheating. Money was the reason for the cheating.


I can't imagine a better way to punish and reform the cheaters...

The "cheaters" are the university and the coaching staff, right? What tangible pain will it cause them? Everyone knows UNC won the natty in 2005. Nobody will suddenly think it didn't happen. Calipari's had two Final Fours vacated, but when people are counting how many Final Fours he's been to, the only people who don't count the UMass and Memphis Final Fours are people arguing in bars or on internet message boards.

Taking down the banner might sting a few people's pride for a time but, trust me, they'll get over it fairly quickly. The university will still have its money. The coaches will still have their jobs. Ask any fan of a school that's had a Final Four or bowl win vacated whether they think their team really got there or not.


...or create a deterrent for other potential cheaters.

This is simply not supported by history. Lots of sporting achievements have been vacated by the NCAA. But the cheating keeps happening, and lots of the penalized institutions have gone on to be repeat offenders.


Furthermore what is learned if everyone knows they cheated but they still get to proudly display the banners they cheated in order to win?

If there's no real pain and there's little to no deterrence, then what is learned no matter what?

[Tom B.]

Meanwhile, over at IC....

The consensus seems to be:

a. McCants is a traitor;
b. McCants is unstable, like crazy unstable; and
c. McCants' jersey should be taken down from the rafters. [No mention of the Helms banner].

There was one post that asked if the priority shouldn't be on knowing whether McCants is right or wrong. That post was ignored, followed by more of a., b., and c.


Seems like a good time to revisit this Twitter feed:

Carolina Meltdown (https://twitter.com/ICMeltdown)

[Jarhead]

The death penalty for UNC was mentioned a few times in the last two or three pages of posts this morning. So, what about SMU? If the NCAA actually does nothing to UNC for their sins then they must, in good conscious, reverse the death penalty for... uhh, wait a minute. How do they reverse the death penalty?

SMU was charged with, as I recall, lack of institutional control. I'm not sure what they did specifically, but the NCAA's remedy was very effective. The evidence that we have learned regarding UNC has gone well beyond lack of control. Institutional involvement would be more correct. However, I would submit that something of the equivalent SMU punishment is just and perfect for UNC. What's fair is right. SMU is okay now, isn't it?

[Kfanarmy]

This was bound to happen. You can't do an effective coverup when so many people you no longer control are in the know. I doubt McCants will be the last to speak out. We just need Glenda the Good Witch to call the little munchkins out from their hiding places.

Come out come out, wherever you are.... We know you've got stories to tell.

Methinks Glenda would have used "wherever you dwell..."