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View Full Version : DBR Podcast #88 - Carolina Shame Edition



JasonEvans
10-14-2017, 09:33 AM
I really want to hear from folks about this one. Did we capture the anger you all feel?

https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast/dbr-podcast-88-unc-scandal-shocker

0:00 Once again, thanks to Byrd Campbell
0:30 Sam says hi and Donald explains why this is college basketball Festivus
2:30 Jason warns the listeners… there will be cussing during this podcast! Podcast rated PG 13
3:15 The NCAA chooses not to punish UNC… we are flummoxed. Donald begins by questioning the legitimacy of the NCAA.
7:15 Jason explains academic fraud vs. improper benefits and he is clearly frustrated.
11:15 Jason looks at the NCAA’s Core Values and says they simply do not exist any more. He also links this whole thing to UConn’s academic troubles a few years ago.
13:50 Donald talks to Carolina fans. How do they feel about the stain on their school?
16:05 Jason talks about UNC’s key strategic move; denying there was any academic fraud.
17:20 Sam talks about SACS, UNC’s academic reputation, and then utters these words, “UNC committed the perfect crime.”
22:50 Donald says the NCAA has created the road map for cheating and now every school will follow it. “The term student-athlete died today.”
24:30 We look at how the media is reacting to all this, including a discussion of Jay Bilas.
29:30 Donald has something to say to the folks who say they are done with college athletics.
32:05 Sam wonders if the NCAA can survive when one of it’s finest schools is allowed to get away with this.
34:25 Jason wraps up with a great post by Rocketeli on the boards that he thinks speaks to our frustration on this day. “Our institutes of higher learning have no business being in the professional sports business.”
37:55 A statement from ByrdCampbell about the UNC scandal.
38:40 Sam intros the next topic, the NCAA’s new commission to fix college basketball.
41:35 Jason says the committee is flawed because it does not include several key constituents… including the players. He also gives us a great analogy, comparing basketball to a BLT sandwich.
43:50 Donald says the committee will fail if it only looks at NCAA issues and does not address the NBA.
48:30 Sam points out what the committee will not do, which also dooms it to failure.
51:15 Jason says players know what they are worse. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
56:10 Sam knows there is no incentive for the big sports universities to change. They are making too much money to change.
1:00:40 Donald tries to leave us on a hopeful note as we again look at the relationship between the NCAA and the NBA
1:03:45 Parting Shots – Jason on a good guy, former Oregon St. football coach Gary Andersen
1:06:20 Parting Shots – Donald explains how to treat USA Soccer fans in the wake of the World Cup qualifying debacle.
1:08:30 Parting Shots – Sam on the frustration of the Nats fan, which gets us into all of our collective sports sadness.

JStuart
10-14-2017, 12:19 PM
Can't spork, as I've reached some sort of limit, but this was excellent mental therapy on a very down day. Knowing that an emergency podcast was on its way yesterday after the stunning news was a bit reassuring. I was expecting more 'wanker-ized' language, but I believe the appropriate anger levels were appropriate. What I'm having a hard time is processing the absolute despair over the implications that the institution in Orange County will get off scott-free, after exposure of all that we know as fact.
Thanks, so very much for making this a much less depressing day, knowing that I'm not alone.
JStuart

JasonEvans
10-14-2017, 02:07 PM
I need to know... which of my tortured analogies sucked the most:


The NCAA is an FBI agent watching UNC speeding on the highway at 100 MPH. The FBI knows UNC is breaking the law, but they are not able to give UNC a ticket.
UNC is a child holding a crayon. The NCAA sees crayon writing all over the wall. The NCAA asks baby UNC if they did it. UNC says no and the NCAA says, "oh well, then I guess you did nothing wrong."
The sport of basketball is a BLT. The NCAA is the lettuce trying to tell the bacon (the NBA) how to fix the sandwich.

Seeing them written makes them even worse. Ha!!

JStuart
10-14-2017, 02:51 PM
I need to know... which of my tortured analogies sucked the most:


The NCAA is an FBI agent watching UNC speeding on the highway at 100 MPH. The FBI knows UNC is breaking the law, but they are not able to give UNC a ticket.
UNC is a child holding a crayon. The NCAA sees crayon writing all over the wall. The NCAA asks baby UNC if they did it. UNC says no and the NCAA says, "oh well, then I guess you did nothing wrong."
The sport of basketball is a BLT. The NCAA is the lettuce trying to tell the bacon (the NBA) how to fix the sandwich.

Seeing them written makes them even worse. Ha!!

Obviously the lettuce; we all know that bacon rules!!

Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
10-14-2017, 04:24 PM
I need to know... which of my tortured analogies sucked the most:


The NCAA is an FBI agent watching UNC speeding on the highway at 100 MPH. The FBI knows UNC is breaking the law, but they are not able to give UNC a ticket.
UNC is a child holding a crayon. The NCAA sees crayon writing all over the wall. The NCAA asks baby UNC if they did it. UNC says no and the NCAA says, "oh well, then I guess you did nothing wrong."
The sport of basketball is a BLT. The NCAA is the lettuce trying to tell the bacon (the NBA) how to fix the sandwich.

Seeing them written makes them even worse. Ha!!

#2 makes me think of the "imaginary friend" defense I stopped trying when I was six years old.

Of course, #2 also makes me think of how all this smells.

jdc75
10-14-2017, 05:27 PM
I think I like the baby with crayon one the best.
Here's a pretty good apples to apples comparison by the way:
https://www.dawgnation.com/football/opinion/unc-skates-issue-ncaa-torched-georgia

duke4ever19
10-14-2017, 05:36 PM
I think I like the baby with crayon one the best.
Here's a pretty good apples to apples comparison by the way:
https://www.dawgnation.com/football/opinion/unc-skates-issue-ncaa-torched-georgia

I'd forgotten all about this. Thank you for the reminder.

I'd love to hear how the NCAA would differentiate between what Georgia did and UNC did and why Georgia got smacked and UNC didn't.

JasonEvans
10-14-2017, 08:02 PM
I'd love to hear how the NCAA would differentiate between what Georgia did and UNC did and why Georgia got smacked and UNC didn't.

The difference is simple... UGA admitted that academic fraud happened. UNC did not. It is as simple (and stupid) as that.

The NCAA is unable and unwilling to judge whether academic fraud has occurred. It relies on the schools to define that part. Now, once a school admits fraud has happened, the NCAA can hammer them mercilessly but if they simply pull a Sgt. Schultz the NCAA is powerless.

So, all the schools who admit to wrongdoing get nailed while Carolina refuses to admit to it so they get off Scott free. This isn't prisoner's dilemma where admission leads to a lesser sentence; this is letting the accused be the jury.

Any pretense that the NCAA cares even a tiny bit about education died on Friday.

--Jason "Mark Emmert should be ashamed. His legacy will be as the greatest failure in his organization's history" Evans

duke4ever19
10-14-2017, 10:03 PM
The difference is simple... UGA admitted that academic fraud happened. UNC did not. It is as simple (and stupid) as that.

The NCAA is unable and unwilling to judge whether academic fraud has occurred. It relies on the schools to define that part. Now, once a school admits fraud has happened, the NCAA can hammer them mercilessly but if they simply pull a Sgt. Schultz the NCAA is powerless.

So, all the schools who admit to wrongdoing get nailed while Carolina refuses to admit to it so they get off Scott free. This isn't prisoner's dilemma where admission leads to a lesser sentence; this is letting the accused be the jury.

Any pretense that the NCAA cares even a tiny bit about education died on Friday.

--Jason "Mark Emmert should be ashamed. His legacy will be as the greatest failure in his organization's history" Evans

You'd think that the moment these schools began raking in huge sums of money as a direct result of their sports program's on-court success (which had to be many years ago), that the NCAA would say, "Hmmm, you know, with millions up millions of revenue at stake, it's a bit naive to assume that ALL these universities are simply going to self-report violations or admit to wrongdoing when we press them on the matter."



I don't pretend to know how it works, but you'd think the NCAA would have long ago come to some sort of partnership with the major accreditation agencies to corroborate their findings whenever they say academic fraud has been committed. That way if a school like UNC was to say "You can't penalize us." the NCAA could say, "Our findings are corroborated by the accrediting agency's findings on this matter. You may certainly continue to teach these kinds of classes, but must understand that in doing so, you will be immediately kicked out of the NCAA and lose your accreditation. You are welcome to continue to teach those classes as is, but in so doing, you signal to the accrediting agency your determination to not keep your standards consistent with that of a school with accreditation."

I have no idea if these is even doable, but there's no way it's already in place, because the threat of losing accreditation would be yet another stop-gap. Now, I know the accreditation agencies were involved in this matter, but I don't think there was this kind of partnership. And again, I have zero clue if that would even be in the realm of possibility.

JasonEvans
10-15-2017, 11:37 AM
Here's the thing that is so difficult about the Carolina scandal and which may have made it so tough for any agency to handle...

This was not just a case of an easy class or two. Look, I fully believe every school has some of those and that athletes are steered into them. This was different. It was entirely possible to get an entire degree from the university without doing any meaningful work in your major. As has been widely noted, the 2005 national championship team had 8 (I think that is the number, might be 9) guys majoring if AfAm studies. They all got their degree and it is a fairly safe bet that none of them did any kind of scholarly work in the field. Guys on that team had a minor in Swahili who could not speak a word of the language. Think about that!

The scope of this academic fraud was so wide, I think SACS just did not know what to do about it. The truth is, they probably should have invalidated every degree the university gave out in AfAm during a certain time period, though that was not within their power and there are certainly some folks who got that degree outside the realm of the fake classes who would be unfairly caught up in a blanket move like that. It was an impossible situation for SACS as the only thing they can do is take away a school's accreditation, a punishment so severe that it just cannot be done to a legitimate school.

Carolina found a loophole -- a place they could cheat where the NCAA could not catch them and where the only folks who could punish them (SACS) were unwilling to use the punishment because it was too severe to even contemplate.

-Jason "I sorta wish SACS had been able to keep Carolina on probation even longer as accreditation is a pain in the rear for administrators... and doing it year after year would drive the UNC administration insane" Evans

JStuart
10-15-2017, 09:44 PM
Here's the thing that is so difficult about the Carolina scandal and which may have made it so tough for any agency to handle...

This was not just a case of an easy class or two. Look, I fully believe every school has some of those and that athletes are steered into them. This was different. It was entirely possible to get an entire degree from the university without doing any meaningful work in your major. As has been widely noted, the 2005 national championship team had 8 (I think that is the number, might be 9) guys majoring if AfAm studies. They all got their degree and it is a fairly safe bet that none of them did any kind of scholarly work in the field. Guys on that team had a minor in Swahili who could not speak a word of the language. Think about that!

The scope of this academic fraud was so wide, I think SACS just did not know what to do about it. The truth is, they probably should have invalidated every degree the university gave out in AfAm during a certain time period, though that was not within their power and there are certainly some folks who got that degree outside the realm of the fake classes who would be unfairly caught up in a blanket move like that. It was an impossible situation for SACS as the only thing they can do is take away a school's accreditation, a punishment so severe that it just cannot be done to a legitimate school.

Carolina found a loophole -- a place they could cheat where the NCAA could not catch them and where the only folks who could punish them (SACS) were unwilling to use the punishment because it was too severe to even contemplate.

-Jason "I sorta wish SACS had been able to keep Carolina on probation even longer as accreditation is a pain in the rear for administrators... and doing it year after year would drive the UNC administration insane" Evans


I remember reading that SACS could have -after the 1st year probation's review- kept them on another year's probation if they deemed unc's responses to their questions about the ADMITTED Academic Fraud (oops; I made the same typo..) insufficiently good, but SACS accepted the responses , and restored unc's status. It was stated that -had unc not showed progress after the potential second year of probation, loss of accreditation was then automatic. If my memory is hazy, I'll defer to other board experts.

PS, when is Al Featherston's take on this due? You know he has lots to say. I could use some additional therapy! (listening to the podcast over and over only helps so much..)
JStuart

dudog84
10-15-2017, 10:56 PM
Here's the thing that is so difficult about the Carolina scandal and which may have made it so tough for any agency to handle...

This was not just a case of an easy class or two. Look, I fully believe every school has some of those and that athletes are steered into them. This was different. It was entirely possible to get an entire degree from the university without doing any meaningful work in your major. As has been widely noted, the 2005 national championship team had 8 (I think that is the number, might be 9) guys majoring if AfAm studies. They all got their degree and it is a fairly safe bet that none of them did any kind of scholarly work in the field. Guys on that team had a minor in Swahili who could not speak a word of the language. Think about that!

The scope of this academic fraud was so wide, I think SACS just did not know what to do about it. The truth is, they probably should have invalidated every degree the university gave out in AfAm during a certain time period, though that was not within their power and there are certainly some folks who got that degree outside the realm of the fake classes who would be unfairly caught up in a blanket move like that. It was an impossible situation for SACS as the only thing they can do is take away a school's accreditation, a punishment so severe that it just cannot be done to a legitimate school.

Carolina found a loophole -- a place they could cheat where the NCAA could not catch them and where the only folks who could punish them (SACS) were unwilling to use the punishment because it was too severe to even contemplate.

-Jason "I sorta wish SACS had been able to keep Carolina on probation even longer as accreditation is a pain in the rear for administrators... and doing it year after year would drive the UNC administration insane" Evans

And right there is the fallacy in your argument. uNC is not a legitimate school.

My anger at uNC and the NCAA has begun to turn to anger at myself. Why has all this upset me so? It really doesn't affect my life in any meaningful way. I think it's because this country no longer resembles the country I grew up in. Sure the USA has had its issues throughout its history, but now it seems the only thing that matters to anyone is money. When I was young my sports heroes made about 10X what my dad made, and he worked construction. I graduated with debt but it was reasonable and I doubt I could go to Duke at today's rates. The savings and loan crisis of the 80s. Enron. The debacle of the Great Recession. Outrageous corporate executive compensation. An inconceivable national debt that will weigh heavily on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. Politicians at every level that you would not want seated at your dinner table.

Now get off my lawn.

cspan37421
10-16-2017, 08:16 AM
... It was an impossible situation for SACS as the only thing they can do is take away a school's accreditation, a punishment so severe that it just cannot be done to a legitimate school.

... (SACS) were unwilling to use the punishment because it was too severe to even contemplate.



If SACS can't contemplate fulfilling their responsibilities in the most obvious case of academic fraud ever, they have no raison d'ętre - they should just close up shop and go home. I don't care how much of a hassle doing accreditation paperwork is ... if everyone is going to pass in the end, they're not evaluating anything but the willingness to jump through hoops and pay dues. The "bar" or standard set seems to be an amount of administrative hassle, not quality of content and rigor of course of study.

flyingdutchdevil
10-16-2017, 09:04 AM
I need to know... which of my tortured analogies sucked the most:

The NCAA is an FBI agent watching UNC speeding on the highway at 100 MPH. The FBI knows UNC is breaking the law, but they are not able to give UNC a ticket.
UNC is a child holding a crayon. The NCAA sees crayon writing all over the wall. The NCAA asks baby UNC if they did it. UNC says no and the NCAA says, "oh well, then I guess you did nothing wrong."
The sport of basketball is a BLT. The NCAA is the lettuce trying to tell the bacon (the NBA) how to fix the sandwich.

Seeing them written makes them even worse. Ha!!

This one. Cus at least the FBI would have done something. They actually have the cajones to do what is right.

UrinalCake
10-16-2017, 10:07 AM
Thanks for the podcast and being willing to discuss this difficult topic while emotions are still running high. There's a lot to unpack, I've followed this scandal closely since the summer of PJ in 2012. I am closer in age to Jason than to Donald or Sam, so I understand the history of the rivalry and growing up with such respect for Carolina's program only have have it revealed as a fraud. A few points in response to the discussion:

- Regarding the whole line of reasoning that regular students were in the classes and therefore it was not an impermissible benefit: this was addressed in the most recent amended notice of allegations that came out this past summer. It stated that even though regular students were in the classes, the percentage of athletes was disproportionate to the overall student population and therefore it still constituted an impermissible benefit. It also referred to the testimony of Crowder (who finally spoke to the NCAA this past spring) who explained that enrollment was not equally available to all students. She was given lists of athletes from the athletic advisors, and these students were allowed to jump the wait list and be immediately placed in the fake classes. Finally, the Wainstein Report broke down the system bifurcated classes - a course would be split into two sections, the athletes would be in one section and not be required to attend or turn in any work, while the regular students would be enrolled in the other section and have the normal amount of work like a regular class. Yet this was listed as a single class, allowing them to claim that 50% of the students were non-athletes. Again, the second amended NOA specifically addressed this issue and made it clear that having regular students in the classes did not exempt the classes from being an impermissible benefit. When this final ruling came out, it's like the COI just completely ignored everything in the ANOA.

- One of the respected posters on the State message boards talked about the differences in the final notice given to UNC prior to meeting with the COI (I guess this was the response to UNC's response to the second amended NOA) as compared to the final report that was just issued. The two documents are full of contradictions, and the overall tone is completely different. The final notice sounds like a pissed off parent admonishing her child, while the report sounds like a party waving a white flag and surrendering. Even though these two documents were created by the same committee, they read as if they were written by two entirely different parties. So this message board poster speculates that something happened over the past two months, either an individual member of the COI was able to flip the committee, or something more nefarious happened (which is pure speculation) such as Sankey getting paid off.

- Regarding the academic reputation of UNC: first off, most UNC basketball fans did not actually attend the school, so they don't give a flip about the effect on their academic reputation. For the actual graduates of the school, they don't feel affected because THEY KNOW THAT THIS SYSTEM WAS ONLY SET UP FOR THE ATHLETES. I've actually asked a few UNC grads how they feel about their diploma being devalued, and they have basically said "this doesn't affect me, I took real classes, it was only the football and basketball players that were in fake classes." UNC's $18 million legal team played this to perfection. They told SACS it was an athletic issue and that the fraud is no longer going on, so they were taken off probation. They told the NCAA it was an academic issue therefore they have no jurisdiction. And they told their fans that nothing happened except for a few athletes taking easy classes which goes on everywhere. And everybody believed them.

- I agree with Jason that disavowing the Wainstein Report was an excellent strategic move. But here's what I don't get: the NCAA has never actually investigated this case. When they decided to being investigating the fake classes in 2014, they decided to wait until the WR was completed and then would rely on that report in a similar way that they relied on the Freeh report that was conducted by Penn State. The first notice of allegations given to UNC was basically just quoting the Wainstein Report verbatim. It determined academic fraud, among other things, along with a system created to maintain eligibility for athletes. It was like Wainstein deliberately phrased his conclusions in such a way to put it on a tee for the NCAA to penalize them. Then three years later, UNC gets to just say "nope, we change our minds, the Wainstein Report is incorrect. When we admitted academic fraud it was a typo" (they actually said this). And the NCAA just throws it all out the window.

JasonEvans
10-16-2017, 11:03 AM
I'm not going to quote the whole post., but UrinalCake makes some great points above. The decision by the COI is just so hard for all of us to understand. It is not like there was no way to look at the evidence and punish the Heels severely. Sure, what the COI said about their inability to judge academic fraud is true, but there were so many ways around that if you wanted to make Carolina pay for decades of the worst cheating scandal in NCAA history (not my words, the NY Times calls it that).

I've ruminated on this for a while now and I have come to the conclusion that some members of the COI, for some reason, just did not want to punish UNC. They were looking for any way to let the Tarheels off. Perhaps there are some personal relationships with Carolina officials in play; perhaps they simply felt a school like UNC -- with what had been a sterling reputation in academics and athletics -- deserved a free pass; or maybe there was some kind of pressure or bribe that happened. I dunno. But it is clear that the COI looked at the evidence and tried to find a narrow path to completely dropping the case. It is maddening and unfair.

-Jason "our sense of justice is something that sets us apart from the animals. There has been no justice here... none at all" Evans

Devilwin
10-16-2017, 12:03 PM
I don't believe they wanted to punish one of their sacred "cash cows". They admitted wrongdoing and skated. Certainly not the college sports landscape I grew up with in the 60's. If Duke were to do something of this nature, I 'd be embarrassed and refuse to support them from that day hence. But UNC fans are a different breed. Just win, no matter what it takes...God knows, I hate them.

dudog84
10-16-2017, 01:05 PM
I'm not going to quote the whole post., but UrinalCake makes some great points above. The decision by the COI is just so hard for all of us to understand. It is not like there was no way to look at the evidence and punish the Heels severely. Sure, what the COI said about their inability to judge academic fraud is true, but there were so many ways around that if you wanted to make Carolina pay for decades of the worst cheating scandal in NCAA history (not my words, the NY Times calls it that).

I've ruminated on this for a while now and I have come to the conclusion that some members of the COI, for some reason, just did not want to punish UNC. They were looking for any way to let the Tarheels off. Perhaps there are some personal relationships with Carolina officials in play; perhaps they simply felt a school like UNC -- with what had been a sterling reputation in academics and athletics -- deserved a free pass; or maybe there was some kind of pressure or bribe that happened. I dunno. But it is clear that the COI looked at the evidence and tried to find a narrow path to completely dropping the case. It is maddening and unfair.

-Jason "our sense of justice is something that sets us apart from the animals. There has been no justice here... none at all" Evans

We are not set apart from the animals, at least not in a good way. One of the things that has stuck with me (of many) from the Vietnam documentary was the North Vietnamese soldier talking about how savage the human race is. He made the specific point that the tiger does not kill except to eat. To think that we are above all the other beings is perhaps the true original sin.

I apologize if I've missed someone pointing this out on the main thread, but I think maybe we're all missing the obvious. For all his harrumpfing, Sankey didn't want to preclude his own university from using the uNC ploy. Nor did the other members of the COI. Maybe the only way for the NCAA to police its members is for it not to do so. It must be taken out of their hands and given to an independent entity. I know, pipe dream. But they are clearly incapable of the task.

Tom B.
10-16-2017, 01:47 PM
We are not set apart from the animals, at least not in a good way.


Not true. If The Simpsons taught me anything, it's that weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals. (Except the weasel.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCMXmAX18XA


OK, now a semi-serious comment...


I need to know... which of my tortured analogies sucked the most:


The NCAA is an FBI agent watching UNC speeding on the highway at 100 MPH. The FBI knows UNC is breaking the law, but they are not able to give UNC a ticket.
UNC is a child holding a crayon. The NCAA sees crayon writing all over the wall. The NCAA asks baby UNC if they did it. UNC says no and the NCAA says, "oh well, then I guess you did nothing wrong."
The sport of basketball is a BLT. The NCAA is the lettuce trying to tell the bacon (the NBA) how to fix the sandwich.


I think your first analogy was on the right track, but backwards. The NCAA isn't the FBI -- it's a traffic cop, and UNC is a Colombian drug cartel. The NCAA can ding everyone (up to and including the drug lords) for ticky-tack stuff like speeding or rolling through a stop sign, but is powerless to do anything about the massively corrupt criminal enterprise right in front of its face.