<p>Well, now wait a minute, here. Theater students actually do read, write, memorize, and analyze text in addition to studying acting. dancing, and singing. Music is a language. It’s complicated. Football is not. They also have required GE’s at most schools. They are certainly required to go to class. It’s not the same, at all. They graduate with the ability to do almost any job that requires a BA in whatever and they usually have a very strong presentation package. Some college athletes cannot write a coherent sentence and many can barely speak English. No comparison.</p>
<p>There WAS evidence two years ago that there were issues with independent study classes. This has been addressed. Unc has been bowl in eligible for a number of years, actually. The ridiculous thing is that all of this has been adressed. The OB case brought it forward as if it were new. Certain faculty now want to profit from writing books. Now McCants is cashing in. In the meantime, no new violations have been uncovered </p>
<p>Well I guess it’s more like three years ago, now. </p>
<p>I don’t really have a dog in this fight, though I have a great deal of familiarity with the ongoing story, and I have to say, this “SCANDAL” reporting since January has been the province and misinformation campaign of one NC newspaper, the News and Observer, with a few national satellites who get their “facts” from said newspaper.
This is less about an academic/athletics scandal at this point (little new information has come to light in several years, and the changes already in place in response to the misdeeds by UNC are numerous and substantial) than it is about the death of mainstream journalism as we once knew it.
Recipe for a scandal-- Find a whistle-blower who is consumed by zealotry and a vindictive fire (but has very little heft as a learning specialist, and absolutely none as a researcher or interpreter of raw reading scores)-- mix with a heavily financed national cause (O’Bannon case going to trial tomorrow) and give one reporter at the local newspaper this single story as his only beat (unbelievable, when you learn that previously he covered the state legislature and NC State University, and now he only reports on The Scandal)-- and voila! A story that sells newspapers and has very little verifiable substance beyond that which has been on record for months and years. UNC has been swift-boated and defiled by folks who are still flying under the radar, and though the university has committed plenty of missteps in the past, as many have said here, Do we really think most of the basic elements of this story are unique to this school?
How many pounds of flesh must UNC pay, when so many institutional changes have been made already, and a highly respected investigator, Kenneth Wainstein, has been given a mandate to turn every remaining stone until the missing pieces of history are filled in? Let’s wait to see what Mr. Wainstein reports, instead of pinning any faith on the “reporting” by the Scandal Sleuths, all so hard at work 24/7. It’s time for people who have such strong opinions about this story to learn more of the information on record beyond the N&O, instead of trafficking in headlines and fuzzy anecdotes. </p>
<p>A player on the 2005 championship basketball team comes forward and says that the University instructed him to maintain academic eligibility by enrolling him in four sham courses for which he did no work and got As. He shows the transcript: it has four sham courses, with As. That’s new evidence. Now we know UNC cheated to get the championship. </p>
<p>No offence taken. This is, after all, the internet. While I am aware that several UNC sources have alleged FERPA violations internally or in the press, I am still unaware of any actual litigation or instance where any Federal or State court or judge has made any of the determinations against Willingham or of any illegality as you alleged at 1:47. Can you verify with a cite? </p>
<p>My SI refs say the case was O’Bannon v NCAA in 2012 and 2013 as well, EA was included but not part of the title.</p>
<p>I don’t claim to know what happened in all this business with sham/ghost courses, and as I said earlier, all of the AFAM fraud concerns will become much more clear once the Wainstein report is filed and on record. That “player on the 2005 championship team” who came forward is well-known around the sports world and the UNC community as a man who is less than reliable or forthright. Check it out, on numerous (non-UNC) sites both current and from the years he played college ball. Well-documented, so it’s not a case of throwing anyone under the bus.
It’s short-sighted and gullible to take the word of this already discredited former player, in the same way it’s short-sighted to hang anything on the word of Mary Willingham, the tutor. This whole story is fascinating and sad, and it’s not fully revealed, by any measure. But to accept and build the narrative around anything stated by McCants or Willingham means you haven’t read up on this saga. I wouldn’t be surprised if UNC isn’t soon in the vanguard of checks and balances between academics and athletics-- there’s a lot of hard work being done now and in coming months to make sure none of these misdeeds occur again in Chapel Hill. </p>
<p>Honestly, marrieta dad, I’m out of town and can’t cite from my phone. If we are still interested in a couple of days, or you are truly curious, I’ll post some sources.</p>
<p>Take care</p>
<p>“there’s a lot of hard work being done now and in coming months to make sure none of these misdeeds occur again in Chapel Hill.”</p>
<p>Why wasn’t the UNC basketball program (and possibly the football program) penalized by the NCAA like we have seen at other universities? Looks like the NCAA has two different standards depending on the school.</p>
<p>Unc was penalized by the NCAA </p>
<p>What was the penalty?</p>
<p>Last back and forth, I promise, but the football program has already been penalized. If Wainstein comes up with anything directly tied to the basketball program, let the penalties fly.(And we can be certain that no hammers will come down because of McCants’ or Willingham’s testimony alone). But if this is a Minnesota/Clem Haskins situation, when all is said and done, heavy penalties will surely follow.
One of the curious and somewhat alarming elements of all this is how many detractors rally around the Bring Down the Banners campaign with UNC’s 2005 basketball championship. Why? What can that possibly do to help the cause of the student-athletes (nationally) who could all use more effective advocacy and protections moving forward? Why so much focus on retribution toward UNC, when the facts are still so unclear? </p>
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<p>The idea behind allowing athletes to major in their sport is that the way things are currently set up (full course load and major plus 18+ hours of high intensity practices/games per week) is too onerous, so the studies suffer. If athletes were given academic credit for some of the hours they spend on their sport like courses in one’s major are given, then they would have more time to spend on the core courses. Just like every other student. </p>
<p>We can debate ad finitum about the value of time spent with a team/coach on the field versus the value of time spent contrasting Ibsen and Strindberg, but I doubt we could come up with a consensus on that, at least in the real world outside of CC.</p>
<p>So what about students who work 20+ hours per week?</p>
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<p>They are only making money for themselves, not lots of money for the school.</p>
<p>I think many of these athletes would love to have the time to work part time for spending money like regular students. Apparently, some of them are “starving” due to lack of cash. </p>
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<p>Doesn’t matter if he is unreliable. We saw the transcript ourselves, the official transcript issued by the university. We saw that he failed algebra, then the next semester got all As in courses that have already been identified as shams. Do you expect us to believe that although he said he didn’t write papers for those courses, actually he is lying and he did write papers for them?</p>
<p>We can stipulate that Rashad McCants is crazier than a sack of rabid weasels and still conclude that he’s probably telling the truth about what he did or didn’t do in class. The harder part is figuring out what Roy Williams knew and when he knew it, but if your best defense is “I didn’t really monitor my athletes’ academic program,” that’s still not a very satisfying or flattering answer, particularly from an athletic department that has for years tried to maintain a carefully cultivated reputation for being better than others. </p>
<p>No easy, the football team has not been penalize for the illegitimate academic pursuits. They have only been penalized for contact with sport agents, passage of money," paid"parking tickets, illegal car use, etc. The basketball team has not been punished at all. The reforms put in place may or may not be helpful, the major component is “checking” on athlete class attendance. The majority of the academic allegations including the whole Martin report came out after the NCAA levied it’s penalty on the football team. So these are relatively new allegations in the whole mix. In fact, the whole university is on probation. There was no penalty on UNC for all of P.J. Hairston as well as Leslie McDonald’s issues. There should be an LOI issued against the University. There have been multiple teams punished for APR failure while UNC walks scot-free. And yes the 2005 and likely 2009 banners are illegitimate and should come down. There should not be a reward for cheating just like a bank robber should not be able to keep the money while promising not to rob another bank.</p>
<p>Sure, McCants may be as sour as a salt lick and nutty to boot, but that doesn’t mean there’s no truth in his story.</p>
<p>I really enjoy college sports but I am not blind to the unfairness, bad morals and self-interests that are inherent and pervasive in college sports in America. If asking additional questions about the UNC basketball program will get us toward eliminating or even reducing the noxious aspects of college sports, then let’s get on with it.</p>
<p>By the way, I am really annoyed about how African-American Studies coursework has evidently been misused. I had a few such literature and history courses back in they day and by no means were they a cakewalk. I doubt if Dr. Cornell West or Dr. Skip Gates ever gave an “A” for little or no work. I didn’t attend their schools but my own professors were scholars and just as demanding as those guys. McCants would have been shown the door in their classes.</p>
<p>Four things that people here are overlooking:</p>
<ol>
<li>The eligibility/probation meeting w/ Roy never happened, because Rashad was never at risk of being ineligible</li>
<li>Rashad’s Spring 2005 course registration/performance had no impact on his 2004 - 2005 basketball eligibility. </li>
<li>Nobody expected Rashad to return for his senior year in the first place, so fall 2004 was the last semester where UNC basketball would be impacted by his academic performance.</li>
<li>Rashad’s Spring 2005 schedule looks like a schedule that was put together for a kid that needed flexibility for travel or for NBA preparation.<br></li>
</ol>