15 years ago... (stealth UNC academic fraud discussion)

[tennbengal]

...This UNC academic fraud thing would have been a HUGE deal.

Now...it doesn't even seem to register.

Is that because:

1. Its UNC so they get a pass like Notre Dame does with the general public?

or

2. Enough people now view the whole "amatuerism" thing of the NCAA such a sham that this sort of thing doesn't really raise an eyebrow?

or

3. Other?

I tend to think a combo of 1 and 2, leaning more toward 2, BUT...the scope of the fraud is stunning, and it includes plenty of athletes from the non-revenue sports.

Any thoughts?

[HaulCitgo]

partly because its been strung out over the past 5 years so nothing really new. partly because its a known issue. guess what, you cant admit 100+ professional athletes and expect that they perform at a similarly high level academically. the real deal though is that a lot of large public academic institutions already have about 60 credits of remedial to basic classes that below average students should be able to pass. especially UNC that has a liberal arts focus and requires students to take a variety of lower level coursework to graduate. maybe the major credits would be an issue but really the problem is that too many kids are too unprepared. I remember when UNC's admissions office denied Jason Parker. now that might have been as much about SAT fraud (ironic?) more so than admissions standards but isn't that the real problem here? the woman implicated doesn't even have to do what she did if these guys weren't in school at all. that said, UNC has no program if these guys cant get admitted. although this whole thing saddens me and id say devalues my degree seeing as though I have an AFAM class on the transcript, but mostly I want UNC to win. guess I have no morals. on average, having the athletes on campus makes the academic experience better and certainly the teams make the social experience better. I can say definitely that I learned something from being around world class athletes. you don't realize it at the time but its pretty cool to date (breed with?) people who go get gold medals and chat it up with people that are really different from you. I wasn't a journalism major but I took an entry level class and volunteered to write an article in a student publication and theyre like, go sit with eddie pope for a long time and write up something. it was horrible, but what that could have been for a student really interested. the best part about UNC was meeting people from all across the state and the athletes were part of that. anyway its personal to me and still a big story locally but really its not UNC. its the system and im a bit scared that someone is going to quite reasonably decide that winning isn't that important and the athletic programs will suffer.

[brian]

The pretty galling thing is that it (in my opinion) is almost as bad as the Penn State/Sandusky thing, yet UNC didn't really get hit with any serious penalties. You could make a legitimate case that the entire athletic department should have been shut down for at least a couple of years as a punishment.

[HaulCitgo]

The pretty galling thing is that it (in my opinion) is almost as bad as the Penn State/Sandusky thing, yet UNC didn't really get hit with any serious penalties. You could make a legitimate case that the entire athletic department should have been shut down for at least a couple of years as a punishment.

WTF? you get a pass I suppose. but only for a couple more weeks.

[brian]

The pretty galling thing is that it (in my opinion) is almost as bad as the Penn State/Sandusky thing, yet UNC didn't really get hit with any serious penalties. You could make a legitimate case that the entire athletic department should have been shut down for at least a couple of years as a punishment.

WTF? you get a pass I suppose. but only for a couple more weeks.

I thought they already meted out penalties for this?

[HaulCitgo]

well, the NCAA did back off on Penn St. but mostly I cant see any similarity between ignoring academic fraud in the name of football and ignoring child molestation in the name of football.

[brian]

well, the NCAA did back off on Penn St. but mostly I cant see any similarity between ignoring academic fraud in the name of football and ignoring child molestation in the name of football.

Except it wasn't just football, it was the entire athletics department (though largely football). PSU's cover-up was limited to just a few individuals and from what I've read UNCs was more widely spread.

[Gunpowder]

I think people just assume this happens everywhere.

[HaulCitgo]

there were other athletes and students but this is driven by football. the other sports are either small enough in number of athletes or more have talent more evenly distributed among social/economic class that its less of an issue. football requires that you bring in 100 guys, probably 70-80 of which are not prepared to be on campus. academically, of course, but also some of these guys are criminals and gangbangers.

[DSafetyGuy]

I just hope that it distracts the NCAA so much, they let Syracuse off the hook at their hearing next week.

[tennbengal]

I just hope that it distracts the NCAA so much, they let Syracuse off the hook at their hearing next week.

Since the NCAA is pretty much letting UNC skate, cannot imagine they can do much to anyone else.

[Joe K]

While football had the biggest issues, it's worth noting that a huge percentage of the 2005 NCAA Champion basketball team was enrolled in these classes. Yet you don't hear much talk of stripping that title. Quite the contrast with Memphis and the Derrick Rose issues. The fact that UNC is a blue blood program has to have a lot to do with that. (Plus the fact that a lot of people like to pretend that Calipari is a singularly bad actor and the rest of the big name coaches are honorable.)

[tennbengal]

While football had the biggest issues, it's worth noting that a huge percentage of the 2005 NCAA Champion basketball team was enrolled in these classes. Yet you don't hear much talk of stripping that title. Quite the contrast with Memphis and the Derrick Rose issues. The fact that UNC is a blue blood program has to have a lot to do with that. (Plus the fact that a lot of people like to pretend that Calipari is a singularly bad actor and the rest of the big name coaches are honorable.)

Indeed.

[Pruitt]

Two thoughts - 1) UNC is like Notre Dame, so high up on the pantheon that double standards are in force. And Dean Smith was a fine moulder of men, right?

2) You can't compare academic fraud with pedophilia. You just can't.

[Gunpowder]

Why do you we have to compare how bad they are only? Sure the act of pedophilia is worse than cheating on tests, but Penn State was just a few idiots trying to protect a program who were criminally prosecuted for being criminals (right? Or were they not?).

This was purely an act performed directly to athletes to keep them eligible and winning games. You can say that the kid rape cover up was in order to stay good at football, but I really think it was more about school and coach reputation. Either way, I don't think they are direct comps.

[Steve of phpBB]

While football had the biggest issues, it's worth noting that a huge percentage of the 2005 NCAA Champion basketball team was enrolled in these classes. Yet you don't hear much talk of stripping that title.

No objection here.

[DSafetyGuy]

I just hope that it distracts the NCAA so much, they let Syracuse off the hook at their hearing next week.

Since the NCAA is pretty much letting UNC skate, cannot imagine they can do much to anyone else.

I just hope that with the way the NCAA fucked up the Miami investigation and the Penn State penalty repeal, as well as some of the moves Syracuse did (Suspending Melo twice, including for the NCAA's, suspending James Southerland a couple years ago until his appeal was won, overhauling the academic support staff for the athletic department, which included firing a guy), that they end up in the clear.

Of course, with some of the chatter about the Power 5 conferences just breaking away from the NCAA, I wonder if the NCAA is afraid to really drop the hammer on any school in those conferences.

[Pruitt]

Why do you we have to compare how bad they are only? Sure the act of pedophilia is worse than cheating on tests, but Penn State was just a few idiots trying to protect a program who were criminally prosecuted for being criminals (right? Or were they not?).

This was purely an act performed directly to athletes to keep them eligible and winning games. You can say that the kid rape cover up was in order to stay good at football, but I really think it was more about school and coach reputation. Either way, I don't think they are direct comps.

Got you. That makes sense - this cover up is astounding.

And I hate to say it, but the fact that the non-course courses were in the Department of African American Studies is probably setting certain parts of the internet on fire.

[testuser2]

I don't see a good comparison to the Sandusky situation. PSU handled it poorly and threw itself under the bus with a biased investigation. UNC seems to have done a better job. UNC also has an academic problem that seems widespread. No matter how screwed up athletics are it usually doesn't cross over to the rest on the university.

What will be interesting to see is the accreditation for UNC. Faculty will not like their programs and experiences being questioned wither. Were there a significant number of non-athletes that were in these classes?

[HaulCitgo]

I need to go find some clients.

[Shirley]

The N&O did some digging and uncovered some pretty damaging details in the Wainstein report that make the basketball program, the 2005 team in particular, look pretty bad.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/08/ ... /100/&rh=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You have to think that 2005 banner (at least) is coming down.

[Bensell]

The N&O did some digging and uncovered some pretty damaging details in the Wainstein report that make the basketball program, the 2005 team in particular, look pretty bad.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/08/ ... /100/&rh=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You have to think that 2005 banner (at least) is coming down.

Since they made many other schools take down banners for far less, you would think so. But I have little faith in the NCAA doing anything at all to North Carolina basketball

[mister d]

NCAA will probably punish Oakland University for allowing a team with infractions to move out of the first round and warn UNC.

[Shirley]

This is an interesting look at previously vacated Final Four appearances. None of these quite match what happened at Carolina, so it's hard to say there's a clear precedent.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the school has done retroactively about those classes. As far as I know, they haven't gone back and said those classes didn't really count. I'm not clear what leeway the NCAA has to step in and make that call. It's more clear with amateur status situations, but this is purely an academic deal. These classes DID exist, they were just essentially shams. A reasonable person could say they were frauds and those players shouldn't count as eligible, but the NCAA is far from a reasonable person.

[A_B]

This is an interesting look at previously vacated Final Four appearances. None of these quite match what happened at Carolina, so it's hard to say there's a clear precedent.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the school has done retroactively about those classes. As far as I know, they haven't gone back and said those classes didn't really count. I'm not clear what leeway the NCAA has to step in and make that call. It's more clear with amateur status situations, but this is purely an academic deal. These classes DID exist, they were just essentially shams. A reasonable person could say they were frauds and those players shouldn't count as eligible, but the NCAA is far from a reasonable person.

A person is smart. People are dumb.

[Bensell]

This almost could go into the irony thread:

OGDEN — A Weber State University math instructor violated NCAA rules by completing coursework for five football athletes resulting in a three year probation period, according to the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions panel.

"We take full responsibility for the incident," Weber State President Charles Wight said in a statement. "While we regret that it occurred, it is reassuring to know the systems we have in place quickly detected these unethical activities. We must remain vigilant going forward."

The decision came Wednesday morning after investigators found that five football athletes were given help on quiz and test answers, according to a statement released by the NCAA. The math instructor admitted the five athletes gave her their usernames and passwords and that she would complete various tests and exams.

An adjunct professor at the university noticed one of the athletes had completed six quizzes and a final exam in less than an hour, according to the NCAA statement. The math department immediately did a “full review of the developmental math program” and charged the five students with academic dishonesty and issued failing grades, according to the statement.

"We self reported within three weeks of learning of a potential violation, and the NCAA definitely commended Weber State on its proactive approach," said Allison Barlow Hess, director of public relations for the univeristy. "Anything that the NCAA requested Weber State provided as part of this investigation."

The NCAA panel found that Weber State was quick to action, but a penalty would still be issued to the university. Penalties include three years probation from Nov. 19, 2014 through Nov. 18, 2017, reduction of scholarships by nine for the football team (three each season), a $5,000 fine plus 2 percent of the school’s football program operating budget.

In addition, there is a “five-year show-cause order for the math instructor,” which means a member school must appear before a committee panel if the math teacher has responsibilities in its athletic department.

Based on NCAA rules, the students and teacher involved have not been named at this time. The teacher is no longer employed at the university and has resigned, according to Hess.

"The math instructor is no longer employed at Weber State," Hess said. "If she had not resigned abruptly, upon learning of learning of the developmental math investigation, her employment would have been terminated."

Link to story & video: https://www.ksl.com/?sid=32417262&nid=1153


How much do you want to bet North Carolina doesn't even get this "harsh" of a penalty?

[testuser2]

I'm disappointed that this may end the lawsuits. I think it was the only chance alumni had in finding out what happened. However, it does prove that the PSU admin are idiots and the NCAA are morons.

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/med ... an-lawsuit

The proposed settlement agreement with the NCAA, university and state officials, among other things, restores Penn State’s vacated wins from 1998 through 2011.

Subject to board approval from Penn State and the NCAA, the new agreement between the NCAA and Penn State, replacing the 2012 consent decree between the parties, provides the following:

Penn State agrees to commit a total of $60 million to activities and programs for the prevention of child sexual abuse and the treatment of victims of child sexual abuse.
Penn State acknowledges the NCAA's legitimate and good faith interest and concern regarding the Jerry Sandusky matter.
Penn State and the NCAA will enter into a new Athletics Integrity Agreement that (with concurrence of the Big Ten) includes best practices with which the university is committed to comply and that provides for the university to continue to retain the services of Sen. George Mitchell and his firm to support the university's activities under the Athletics Integrity Agreement and in the areas of compliance, ethics and integrity.

[Rex]

Everyone is innocent again? Man, does anyone ever do anything wrong?

[Brontoburglar]

lol

[EnochRoot]

Burn it to the ground.

[A_B]

The N&O did some digging and uncovered some pretty damaging details in the Wainstein report that make the basketball program, the 2005 team in particular, look pretty bad.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/08/ ... /100/&rh=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You have to think that 2005 banner (at least) is coming down.

We were so young, then.

[Steve of phpBB]

You have to think that 2005 banner (at least) is coming down.

I'd be okay with that.

[Rex]

Narrator voice: It didn't.

[Rex]

Don't you wish we could exhume Jerry Tarkanian for a comment?

[DSafetyGuy]

Just gonna wait until Jim Boeheim gets 100+ wins back.

Not holding my breath until about six months until his eventual death.

[mister d]

I don't even care about this relative to Penn State and Baylor. I think I'd actually be mad if the NCAA dropped the hammer.

[brian]

I think the nefarious thing about this scandal is that the fig leaf that the NCAA hides behind as far as not paying players is that "Well, they're getting paid by getting a free education" but this pretty baldly shows that many of these schools have no interest in trying to educate these players (and it should be said the players often have no interest in even the most rudimentary classes).

[Joe K]

I think the nefarious thing about this scandal is that the fig leaf that the NCAA hides behind as far as not paying players is that "Well, they're getting paid by getting a free education" but this pretty baldly shows that many of these schools have no interest in trying to educate these players (and it should be said the players often have no interest in even the most rudimentary classes).

Agreed. Also, so many people bitch about "one-and-dones," and lament the good old days when superstars played all 4 years, while ignoring the fact that you're just not going to be able to keep those guys eligible for years without either joke classes or straight-up academic fraud.

[HaulCitgo]

As a Carolina grad, this is almost as embarrassing as the actual fraud.

[A_B]

NCAA also decided to fuck over NC State on the same day UNC skates.