Academic Fraud at UNC Basketball Program

<p>Hark and Poet, it seems you protest a bit too much? That’s why it’s been on ESPN OTL twice (btw espn pres is a unc grad), NYTimes, Yahoo, SI, and Bus. Weekly (whose head is a Unc BOG member). Yeah right, no one outside of Carolina cares. </p>

<p>If the Gov’s report was so exhaustively complete, then why yet another internal investigation?</p>

<p>How has it been addressed? The basketball team still has the championship they cheated to get. </p>

<p>If you deny that the Martin report found phony courses, I don’t think you read it. This is what the Martin report says (my bold):

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<p>CardinalFang, you say this:</p>

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<p>And then you quote from a report that states that the athletic department was not involved in any of this, and therefore did not “cheat”, like you say. You can’t have it both ways. There have been 9 investigations, including one done by the NCAA, that have determined that the basketball team didn’t cheat. I will take their word over yours. </p>

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<p>Remember Duke lacrosse? Extensive media coverage doesn’t mean it is true, and there have been numerous problems with the stories aired about UNC. First and foremost, OTL, the NY Times, Yahoo, SI, and BusinessWeek all based their stories on a woman who has since been discredited (Mary Willingham, the self-proclaimed “researcher” who resigned in disgrace last month after her numbers were thoroughly debunked by three separate outside academics). Mary Willingham is to UNC what Crystal Magnum was to Duke. </p>

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<p>There is a criminal trial underway; Wannstein’s job is to determine if information in the criminal trial matches up with information from the previous nine investigations. If for some reason it doesn’t, his job is to determine why. </p>

<p>Championships are taken away when athletes cheat, even when the coaches didn’t know. Even if we suspend disbelief and assume that the coaches had no idea that their players were taking phony courses, had no idea that phony courses existed, didn’t steer their athletes to phony courses and didn’t knowingly employ tutors to write papers for their students, nevertheless, the athletes cheated. Cheaters should not retain championships.</p>

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<p>With all due respect, the NCAA says that you are wrong, and their opinion is the only one that matters here. </p>

<p>But, you shouldn’t have to “suspend belief” to acknowledge the conclusions of a report that you have cited numerous times here. You can’t cite the report to back up your arguments and then trash the same report when it doesn’t support your own conclusions. </p>

<p>Since Thorpe resigned, the new chancellor is busy going thru it all again. If anything, there are more investigations because unc is doing more investigations than they need to do. But, if this new investigation turns up athletic involvement, I want the school sanctioned. I just don’t think it will </p>

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<p>Agreed. The difference between UNC people and ABC people: UNC people want their school judged for what investigations uncover. ABCers want UNC punished for what investigations don’t uncover. </p>

<p>Tell you what, SOG, if unc basketball is found involved, I will post a duke avatar for a month. ;)</p>

<p>Hark, You are comparing the testimony of a long time UNC hired learning specialist with a crackhead, murdering prostitute. OK, if you say so. My comment was actually regarding the increasing interest in the scandal outside of the state. </p>

<p>Also, I agree Fang. It seems you are severely misusing the Martin report from which the assoc. accounting firm has distanced itself. Even Martin said that he could only assess the info supplied by UNC. I have the utmost confidence that UnC was very transparent ;)</p>

<p>Credibility is credibility…it doesn’t matter what walk of life you are from, a liar is a liar. If you are interested in the particular details of Willingham’s rise and fall, I suggest you check out the work of Bradley Bethel. He is a fellow learning specialist and has very interesting (and factually-based) opinions on Willingham’s work. In fact, Bethel was largely responsible for Willingham being uninvited to testify before a Congressional panel on college athletics last month. Here’s his site, I’m sure you will find the information illuminating:</p>

<p><a href=“http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/[/url]”>http://coachingthemind.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Regarding your last point, Martin’s Investigation had access unprecedented access to tens of thousands of courses over two decades. His conclusion was undeniably that this scandal was an academic, not an athletic, scandal. Since Fang continues to cite this report, I’m sure he agrees with the report’s conclusions. </p>

<p>Hark, you didn’t help your argument with the Duke lacrosse “comparison.” And Poetgrl, I think the issues herein are a bit more important than what avatar you favor.</p>

<p>The Duke lacrosse comparison is valid. You had the media (and 88 Duke University faculty members and professors) publicly condemning a sports team that, it turned out, had done nothing wrong. And the Duke basketball comparison is valid as well. If both schools recruit the same athletes, why is there a “vast conspiracy” to keep athletes eligible at UNC and not one at Duke? Why have none of the UNC athletes who have transferred out over the past decade failed out at their new schools? </p>

<p>Lake Washington, I know how serious they are, but yeah thanks for the interest. I’ve been aware of this for years now, gotten upset about much of it, was glad Thorpe resigned. Am glad about the new investigation And will be interested in the actual results. But,yeah, thanks for that. </p>

<p>Interesting that they go Nifonged by a UNC grad. I guess not too many honest people over there.</p>

<p>Duke had many academic causalities over a long time period when UNC had virtually none. Other schools had exceptions that couldn’t cut it while UNC pounded their chest as the Carolina Way. And Yes, I think it is apparent to most outside of Chapel Hill that UNC will do what ever it can to protect Dean, Roy and the BBall program. But you go on spotting about the legitimacy of 9 or how many ever interval “investigations” there are. It’s great that UNC has put all these hall monitors in place.</p>

<p>LaxDad, with your “Nifonged” comment it appears that you are just a rival fan and are motivated more by your hatred of UNC than you are about the actual events that have occurred. </p>

<p>Who is the last Duke basketball academic casualty that you can think of? We’ll wait. And while you are looking that up, perhaps you can fill us in on Lance Thomas, and his miraculous ability to purchase over $100,000 in jewelry while he was playing for Duke and unemployed? </p>

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<p>Yes, I’m sure that SACS, the NCAA, Governor Jim Martin, the State Bureau of Investigation, etc are all just in on the “conspiracy”, right? </p>

<p>If Duke cheated too, that does nothing to absolve UNC.</p>

<p>Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We know there were phony classes at UNC because the Martin report found them. We cannot conclude that everyone in the athletic department was ignorant of the phony classes simply because the Martin report was unable to discover anyone who knew about the classes. The athletic department has every reason to cover up any knowledge, if such knowledge existed.</p>

<p>I ask myself, if the athletic department were involved, and investigators investigated the way the Martin report people investigated, would they discover the involvement? And I conclude, maybe, maybe not. So I do not feel justified in using the Martin report to absolve the athletic department.</p>

<p>I remember Lance Armstrong’s defenders talking about all the investigations that cleared him, right up until he admitted he cheated. So I am unpersuaded by a laundry list of investigations of UNC-- they found some problems, but that doesn’t mean they found them all.</p>