N & O: UNC-CH football and basketball players made up 39% of the suspect classes

I hope nobody passes out from shock when they read this N & O article that explains how UNC-CH football and basketball players accounted for a wildly disproportionate number of the enrollees in the imaginary classes over in Chapel Hill.  We never saw that one coming!  Wow!  Who could have imagined!

Some highlights:

There were 686 enrollments for the 54 suspect classes. Of those, football players accounted for 246 of the enrollments, or 36 percent, while basketball players accounted for 23 of the enrollments, or three percent, according to UNC. All told football and basketball players accounted for 39 percent of the enrollments.

Football and basketball players account for less than one percent of the total undergraduate enrollment…

and

The investigation covered courses offered within the department from the summer of 2007 to the summer of 2011, though all but two of the classes were offered from 2007 to 2009. UNC officials said the only two people within the department who appear to have been responsible for the suspect classes are Nyang’oro and his administrative secretary, Deborah Crowder. Some professors interviewed for the probe said they did not authorize grade changes that students taking the classes had received and said their names had been forged on academic records.

Crowder retired in September 2009 and declined requests for interviews by the investigators.

On Monday, Tom Ross, the UNC system president, said in a statement that he saw no need to look further into the academic improprieties.

“I believe that this was an isolated situation and that the campus has taken appropriate steps to correct problems and put additional safeguards in place,” Ross said.

For those of you too young to remember, this is exactly how the UNC system acted in 1990.

While we are on the subject of Professor  Nyang’oro, let’s all remember that, according to this N & O piece from September 2011, he hired a professional football agent to teach classes at UNC-CH.  Julius Peppers’ agent in fact.  Hmmmm.  That’s interesting.

And does everyone remember this tweet from UNC-CH running back Shaun Draughn?  We did an entry on it at the time. No wonder he did not know what his classes were or who his professors were!

This tweet from UNC-CH basketball player Reggie Bullock is even more interesting given recent events.

Stay tuned