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SoCalDukeFan
05-01-2018, 11:56 AM
Interesting reading.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sports-ate-academic-freedom-1525125467?shareToken=st0b5c29e828094346a0e7e287df 55a920&reflink=article_email_share
(https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sports-ate-academic-freedom-1525125467?shareToken=st0b5c29e828094346a0e7e287df 55a920&reflink=article_email_share)

SoCal

johnb
05-01-2018, 12:10 PM
Interesting reading.

SoCal

And especially interesting if you want to read specifics about how Carolina continues to undercut its own academic mission.

cato
05-01-2018, 12:34 PM
And especially interesting if you want to read specifics about how Carolina continues to undercut its own academic mission.

Undercutting their academic mission? Hardly. The brave souls at UNC are doing everything they can to bolster their academic mission, which is to field the best possible sports teams, without educating the players.

BD80
05-01-2018, 01:05 PM
And especially interesting if you want to read specifics about how Carolina continues to undercut its own academic mission.

Academic mission? With carolina it is "academic missing."

sagegrouse
05-01-2018, 01:50 PM
Here's a "fair use" snippet or two:


The experience of one basketball-crazed school, the University of North Carolina, shows how prioritizing sports can negatively affect athletes’ academic lives.... Between 1993 and 2011, athletes made up about half the students enrolled in hundreds of nonexistent classes, earning high grades for minimal work submitted to a departmental secretary. A 2014 landmark report detailed the scheme. Yet the university has resisted owning up to its failure.

While under investigation by the NCAA in 2017, UNC leaders simply denied that the university had engaged in conduct that met the NCAA’s definition of fraud, twisting the organization’s bylaws. The chancellor had apologized in 2015 for the university’s fraudulent behavior while seeking to retain UNC’s academic accreditation, but she explained to the NCAA two years later that the written confession had been a “typo.” By denying reality and daring the NCAA to call its bluff, the university escaped punishment for offering sham classes.

Clocktower
05-01-2018, 01:54 PM
In reading this article today I thought of an intersting counterfactual exercise: given Carolina's intense focus (obsession?) on competing with Duke in many things, especially hoops, how would the fake classes episode have played out if Duke didn't have one of the great coaches of all time, a perenially top ten ranking, and recent dominance of UNC in basketball, but rather was a .500 program moseying along 10 miles down the road and not presenting much of a threat? Not to be too Duke-centric, but I think Duke's strength in basketball (and other areas) was a forceful motivator in the institutional decision to fight the NCAA with every legal maneuver they could muster, in order to avoid penalties that would cause sports programs and particularly hoops to endure a period out of conference and national championship contention. I'm convinced that a weak Duke program would have softened the blow of that for fans, alumni and boosters. The irony is that coming clean and accepting penalties would eventually have allowed them to come back to prominence without this stain on their reputation that, as many here have opined, may influence public perception of the university for many years to come.

I know discussion of the cheating scandal is supposed to be isolated to a single thread but Jay Smith's WSJ article prompted the thought and hey, it's off-season. I'm sure some have arguments otherwise, i.e. that it's in their DNA to protect the program at any cost no matter what, but what are your thoughts on the possibility of Duke's success influencing their decisions?

PackMan97
05-01-2018, 02:02 PM
In reading this article today I thought of an intersting counterfactual exercise: given Carolina's intense focus (obsession?) on competing with Duke in many things, especially hoops, how would the fake classes episode have played out if Duke didn't have one of the great coaches of all time, a perenially top ten ranking, and recent dominance of UNC in basketball, but rather was a .500 program moseying along 10 miles down the road and not presenting much of a threat? Not to be too Duke-centric, but I think Duke's strength in basketball (and other areas) was a forceful motivator in the institutional decision to fight the NCAA with every legal maneuver they could muster, in order to avoid penalties that would cause sports programs and particularly hoops to endure a period out of conference and national championship contention. I'm convinced that a weak Duke program would have softened the blow of that for fans, alumni and boosters. The irony is that coming clean and accepting penalties would eventually have allowed them to come back to prominence without this stain on their reputation that, as many here have opined, may influence public perception of the university for many years to come.

I know discussion of the cheating scandal is supposed to be isolated to a single thread but Jay Smith's WSJ article prompted the thought and hey, it's off-season. I'm sure some have arguments otherwise, i.e. that it's in their DNA to protect the program at any cost no matter what, but what are your thoughts on the possibility of Duke's success influencing their decisions?

It's far more likely that Carolina started cheating because of State's success in the 70's and early to mid 80's and not Duke's success starting in the late 80s :) Just saying.

To be honest, I think the Carolina Way is cheating and dishonesty and it likely goes back far beyond the current scandal.

UrinalCake
05-01-2018, 02:07 PM
With all due respect to our Pack friend, the Wainstein report details how the phony AFAM program was started in 1993. Guess what happened just before that in 1991 and 1992?

HereBeforeCoachK
05-01-2018, 02:16 PM
It's far more likely that Carolina started cheating because of State's success in the 70's and early to mid 80's and not Duke's success starting in the late 80s :) Just saying.

To be honest, I think the Carolina Way is cheating and dishonesty and it likely goes back far beyond the current scandal.

What Urinal Cake said.....this started right after Duke's 5 Final Fours in a row, and back to backs. Throw on top of that the hatred UNC had for Coach K almost from day one - a hatred never aimed at any State player or coach - and I believe you have totally missed on that one, with all due respect.

Duke79UNLV77
05-01-2018, 02:25 PM
What Urinal Cake said....this started right after Duke's 5 Final Fours in a row, and back to backs. Throw on top of that the hatred UNC had for Coach K almost from day one - a hatred never aimed at any State player or coach - and I believe you have totally missed on that one, with all due respect.

Maybe, we can at least give State credit for UNCheat's history of point shaving. Maryland can lay claim to the free rental cars, vacation rentals, and drug dealing. Virginia can be thanked for the current ADHD testing fraud. Notre Dame deserves recognition for Mrs. Hansbrough airlines and dental school scams.

UrinalCake
05-01-2018, 02:36 PM
To be honest, I think the Carolina Way is cheating and dishonesty and it likely goes back far beyond the current scandal.

I do agree with you on this point; AFAM was just the latest incarnation of their cheating. Lawrence Taylor talked about a culture of rampant cheating among football players in the 80’s, and Roy Williams himself described taking fake classes when he was a student.

BLPOG
05-01-2018, 03:17 PM
With all due respect to our Pack friend, the Wainstein report details how the phony AFAM program was started in 1993. Guess what happened just before that in 1991 and 1992?

Some charts in the report list classes from 1989.

PackMan97
05-01-2018, 03:58 PM
Some charts in the report list classes from 1989.

Correct.

The investigation didn't go back any further due to the difficulting in sourcing materials...and Wainstein was tasked with ONLY investigating AFAM, which time bound that to the department formation in 1993.

Carolina and cheating go hand in hand and far beyond 1993 or 1989 or whatever date you want to slap on there.

devildeac
05-01-2018, 04:43 PM
Correct.

The investigation didn't go back any further due to the difficulting in sourcing materials...and Wainstein was tasked with ONLY investigating AFAM, which time bound that to the department formation in 1993.

Carolina and cheating go hand in hand and far beyond 1993 or 1989 or whatever date you want to slap on there.

I'll go with 1000 B.C.

duke79
05-01-2018, 04:59 PM
I'll go with 1000 B.C.

LOL.....when was the earth formed......4.5 BILLION years ago? Is that too early to start?

75Crazie
05-01-2018, 05:57 PM
Correct.

The investigation didn't go back any further due to the difficulting in sourcing materials...and Wainstein was tasked with ONLY investigating AFAM, which time bound that to the department formation in 1993.

Carolina and cheating go hand in hand and far beyond 1993 or 1989 or whatever date you want to slap on there.
While you are, of course, correct ... the cheating did not become fully institutionalized until after Duke became a dominant program under K. Let's face it, Carolina undoubtedly never felt seriously threatened by State's success in the 70s/80s, because they knew they had ultimate control over the State program. As proof, look at what happened to State in 1990. The UNC BOG has no influence at all on Duke athletics, whereas they exercise stifling control over State athletics and a complete lack of control over UNC athletics. The only recourse UNC had to try to re-establish the dominance of the ACC that they lost in the late 80s was to institutionalize cheating. And to their credit ... they found a way that the NCAA was powerless to contravene.

UrinalCake
05-01-2018, 07:14 PM
Correct. The investigation didn't go back any further due to the difficulting in sourcing materials...and Wainstein was tasked with ONLY investigating AFAM, which time bound that to the department formation in 1993.

Carolina and cheating go hand in hand and far beyond 1993 or 1989 or whatever date you want to slap on there.

I think we’re arguing the same point. UNC has been cheating for decades, but Duke winning back to back titles sparked an arms race (I liken it to the Soviets launching Sputnik) and the CHeats responded by bringing in Nyan’goro and launching the AFAM sham program in 1993.