Many UNC-AAS questions remain, including: Are Roy Williams and Butch Davis being unfairly targeted?

College Basketball NCSU Sports History UNC Scandal43

The scope of the UNC academic scandal continues to widen as national outlets are finally catching onto the story. Many of these stories are linked in this entry from yesterday. If you missed it, please take a moment to catch up on the recent developments concerning the UNC faculty’s request for an independent investigation given its collective (and reasonable, we might add) concern that the school has not been completely forthcoming or even diligent in its own investigation and reporting of the scope of potential academic misconduct.

As is the case with many North Carolinians, many of us Wolfpackers and SFN contributors are married to UNC alumnae. (Perhaps it’s just part of their narcissism that makes them forget we steal their women.) Just yesterday, the latest edition of the UNC alumni association magazine, The Carolina Review, was sent to some of our homes. (Thanks!)

In it is a surprisingly somewhat fair assessment of the most recent developments in Chapel Hill surrounding UNC’s African and Afro-American Studies curriculum (AAS) and that department’s connection to academic fraud involving UNC athletes. The piece mostly recaps the press releases. It by no means blazes any trails. That’s certainly understandable since this is, well, the official UNC alumni association publication.

There is, however, a most interesting tidbit of information provided therein that SFN has yet to see elsewhere despite what has become an onslaught of media coverage in recent days and weeks. The latest hit coming from NBC.

Specifically, the Carolina Alumni Review points out that Dr. Nyang’oro, the professor (and department head) at the center of the AAS athletic scandal, was employed by the University as a faculty member in 1988. Nyang’oro became the chair of the curriculum at issue in 1992. The Carolina Alumni Review also points out that Nyang’oro was the *first* and *only* department head.

As a matter of deduction, that means that African American Studies as a curriculum was created in 1992 when Nyang’oro was designated the first and only chair.

In 1992-1993, the University of North Carolina basketball team won the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship in New Orleans finishing the year with an impressive 34-4 record.

UNC’s roster for the 1992-1993 team can be viewed here. However, below is a clip from that link for your convenience:

Roster
——
Scott Cherry Sr 6-4 G
George Lynch Sr 6-7 F *
Henrik Rodl Sr 6-7 F/G
Travis Stephenson Sr 6-6 F
Matt Wenstrom Sr 7-1 C
Eric Montross Jr 7-0 C *
Derrick Phelps Jr 6-4 G *
Brian Reese Jr 6-6 F *
Kevin Salvadori Jr 7-0 F
Pat Sullivan Jr 6-8 F
Pearce Landry So 6-5 G
Donald Williams So 6-3 G *
Dante Calabria Fr 6-4 G
Larry Davis Fr 6-1 G
Ed Geth Fr 6-9 F

As you will see, the starting line up for the 1993 National Champion Tar Heels consisted of George Lynch, Brian Reese, Donald Williams, Derrick Phelps, and Eric Montross.

Before we move forward, a disclaimer: In the not-so-distant past, SFN was able to peruse old UNC Basketball Media Guides. For some reason we are having trouble relocating those online. But at that point, we were able to determine from UNC’s own publications the curriculum/majors of many of the former UNC basketball players.

The curriculum majors/minors for that group based on our best collected information and belief are as follows:


Lynch (Sr): African American Studies
Reese (Jr): Communications (minor in African American Studies)
D. Williams (So): African American Studies
Phelps (Jr): African American Studies
Montross (Jr): Communications

It seems worth pointing out that in the first year a curriculum for African American Studies existed at UNC (1992) 4 of 5 members of the starting lineup of the National Championship Basketball team immediately majored/minored in the brand new curriculum with Dr. Nyang’oro at the helm. In just one year, an almost entire team happened to migrate to one particular, and brand new, curriculum?

Amazing.

Perhaps even more amazing is that some of these players were juniors and seniors when the curriculum was created!

There are so many side stories to this “coincidence.”

1) Roy Williams was in Kansas for the 1992/1993 season and for a decade thereafter.
2) Donald Williams was an NC State commitment only to finally sign with Dean Smith and the Tar Heels.
3) Not long thereafter Jerry Stackhouse, a lifelong Wolfpack fan, also signed with UNC.
4) Stackhouse, brace yourself, also purportedly majored in African American Studies.

So many questions remain in light of The Big Lead and other national outlets starting to put pressure on the basketball program’s connection to AAS. If you haven’t read the story by the Big Lead linked above, you should immediately. It raises some great points and great questions, but does it even encompass the entire picture given the information above?

Just starting from 2003-04 the Big Lead provides this tidbit and data:

So in 2009, a year before the scandal went public, the academic adviser to the basketball team – a team which had a history of players who majored in African and Afro-American Studies – left UNC, as did a longtime administrator in that department. Since the departures of Walden and Crowder, records obtained by the News & Observer (click here for the UNC academic info PDF) show a dramatic drop in athletes majoring in African and Afro-American Studies. We specifically looked at the basketball team’s numbers in that major from when Roy Williams took over in 2003-2004, and here are the numbers we found (African & Afro-American majors/players who had chosen a major):

2003-04 AA 5/13
2004-05 AA 7/13 < —- Won NCAA title.
2005-06 AA 3/11
2006-07 AA 3/15
2007-08 AA 2/12
2008-09 AA 1/16 2009-10 AA 0/10
2010-11 AA 0/8
2011-12 AA 0/9

There is little doubt to the objective observer that many questions remain unanswered. The scope of the investigation perhaps cannot be broad enough to truly get to the bottom of the questions that linger surrounding the UNC athletic department.

To leave you with just a few to chew on:

– Was AAS created at UNC specifically for basketball players?

– Was UNC tipped off that people were starting to make that connection?

– How many recruits did UNC lure away from other schools with promises of easy degrees in the newly created AAS curriculum after its creation under Nyang’oro in 1992?

– Is it fair to just point a finger at Roy Williams or does academic fraud in the athletic department and University as a whole long predate his arrival?

– Did Butch Davis take the fall for a system that existed long before he, too, arrived in Chapel Hill?

– If it worked so long for basketball, why not football? (There’s a cliche about a secret and three people… it’s anecdotal, but it’s likely applicable to a secret and 5 people versus a secret and 75 people.)

– Can the true breadth of the competitive advantage be even comprehended when a coach enters a recruit’s home and speaks of ridiculously over-inflated graduation rates to a superstar’s parents eagerly wanting to hear that “Junior” will earn a degree before he suffers a blown knee?

– Now that there is an immediate trend away from AAS by UNC athletes, or at least there was in anticipation of the NCAA investigation as pointed out above, is communications the degree of choice?

– Prior to the creation of AAS, was communications the degree of choice for UNC athletes? If so, why then and why a return to that now?

The questions linger, and for now no one at UNC seems willing to open up and address them.

The 216 decision lingers, and there seems to be no slowing down to this story anytime soon.

Stay tuned, Wolfpack fans. All those years of suffering through intolerable rhetoric from holier-than-though UNC fans and friends seem poised to be repaid… and some.

*******************************************************************************************
Also, congratulations to one of our most favorite Tar Heels, Marvin Austin, for graduating from UNC in 2012! (Assuming of course the alumni magazine’s use of a “(’12)” behind his name in the above-referenced article does indeed indicate he is a graduate. Other former players mentioned therein had no such qualifier.) Congrats, Marvin, and best of luck with the NY Giants!

Are we the only ones out there pulling for this kid who obviously has had to pick himself up from under the bus countless times? You go, Anchorman. Best wishes from Wolfpack Nation! Learn more on Marvin’s NFL quest here at NJ.com.

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

College Basketball NCSU Sports History UNC Scandal

43 Responses to Many UNC-AAS questions remain, including: Are Roy Williams and Butch Davis being unfairly targeted?

  1. GAWolf 07/27/2012 at 5:51 PM #

    Tell it all, brother, tell it all!

  2. GAWolf 07/27/2012 at 5:53 PM #

    Very interesting stuff that they yanked the media guides. Sneaky.

  3. choppack1 07/27/2012 at 7:43 PM #

    It would be nice if someone alerted Dan Kane as to what was being pulled from media guides.

    I tell you, this is an incredibly dirty university in an incredibly dirty state.

  4. 85Designo 07/27/2012 at 7:53 PM #

    My wife worked at State while I was in Grad School. We were here for the big one in 83. After I graduated she got her Masters at UNC (not in AAS!)but in the health field, a real degree. Anyway she spent many a day wearing her Wolfpack red while attending. She enjoyed the education there at the hole but hated the teams and the walmart fans. She recently wrote Thorp a letter outlining her disgust with the situation over there. Did she get a reply? Hell no! not even an email stating “nothing to see here move along” Typical…. there must be a picture of her over there wearing her 83 Championship sweatshirt.

  5. wolfonthehill 07/27/2012 at 9:20 PM #

    For reference, there’s no “purportedly” to Stackhouse majoring in African American Studies. See link below for Stackhouse & Jamison both graduating in it…

    http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/142525/

    I remember it well because my wife (yes, perversely also a unc@ch fan) used it as bragging ammunition at the time, saying that it showed what a great program unc@ch was because even the guys who left early would come back and graduate.

    Of course, this has been quite fun to remind her of lately… the days of bragging about unc@ch “doing things right” are gone forever.

    Thank God.

  6. wolfonthehill 07/27/2012 at 9:22 PM #

    To add to it, the degrees were earned during summer school. 😉

    Yes, it’s Friday.

  7. Since74 07/28/2012 at 3:11 AM #

    I love this site.

    Great article.

    Thanks to all the admin, writers, and posters for all you do.

  8. tractor57 07/28/2012 at 7:08 AM #

    We all know students will try to find the easiest courses in general – athletes would be no different. This is a vastly different thing – when the university creates not only easy courses but whole departments for the express purpose to win NC’s.

    It will all come out in the end.

  9. Hungwolf 07/28/2012 at 7:42 AM #

    Stackhouse was gonna go to NCSU, but learned he probably was not going to qualify. Yet he was able to qualify at UNC and major in African Studies. That is an unfair advantage!

  10. Hungwolf 07/28/2012 at 7:47 AM #

    One interesting tid bit, is during our NCAA investigation and everything you never heard or read references from Valvano or NCSU administration about UNC. Notice how UNC. Butch Davis, and other UNC people reference NCSU, TOB, and how somehow we should be investigated or put under any similar restrictions the UNC BOG may impose. WE never drug UNX into our affairs amazing how they want to drag us down with them! Which as I always said the difference between UNC fans and NCSU for the most part is we have character and UNC lacks class!

  11. Wufpacker 07/28/2012 at 9:55 AM #

    Yup. Definitely like school on Saturday.

  12. knpstate 07/28/2012 at 12:05 PM #

    Hold on…it IS possible to have a curriculum, and therefore a ‘major’, in a discipline without the curriculum having its own department. I’m not comfortable, therefore, with the assumption that the BB players joined a ‘new’ curriculum during their championship run. For example, at the college where I teach, we have a major in Spanish but there is (and has never been) a ‘Department of Spanish’ and no ‘Chair of Spanish’ Rather, that major is administered through the English and Foreign Languages Department. Similarly, we have a strong psychology major but no psychology department. Again, that curriculum is administered through a separate department.

    I am in no way defending UNC. In fact I am appalled at the number of student-athletes that are all in the same few majors in a disproportionate ratio relative to the rest of the student body. That observation itself should draw suspicion (and, unfortunately, is too common at all the ACC schools).

  13. knpstate 07/28/2012 at 12:15 PM #

    tractor57: I agree…the fact that the players were steered toward one particular major is an issue. A few years back, UNC underwent an audit that eventually concluded that their administrative organization was bloated and inefficient (both staff and academic structures). Several groups had departments/units of one person with multiple managers in place (think “Office Space” on steroids). State has been proactive in evaluating majors, departments, and administrative structures. In short, it would be difficult to create a ‘safety valve’ department at NC State. Did the African/Afro-American Department at UNC get created as an athlete ‘safety valve’? Or did its curriculum and creation slip through the cracks of a bloated and inefficient governance system?

  14. goldeagle 07/28/2012 at 12:16 PM #

    Glad to see people are figuring out that the whole AFAM major was always part of a UNC strategy to promote athletics without academics. The strategy accelerated in the early 1990s.

    Even before there was an AFAM major, there was an AFAM “curriculum” run by Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone, which was primarily an avenue for athletes to take easy courses.

    Don’t forget that the new AFAM major was the primary demand associated with the early 1990s protests that also resulted in creation of the the Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone Center at UNC. The protests were led by the Black Awareness Council. Football player Jimmy Bradley said the goal of the Black Awareness Council was “Creation of an Afro-American department.” His coach Mack Brown was quoted as saying he encouraged his players to be involved in that cause. These quotes are from the Charlotte Observer (17 Sep 1992, “Fight for Black Cultural Center Spills into UNC Stadiums”).

    At the time of the protests, the Stone Center was supposed to be the home for the new AFAM major. This was widely reported at the time, including in the Charlotte Observer (13 Sep 1992, “Dispute at UNC Gains Attention”).

    Who led those protests? According to Wikipedia, it was “a coalition of black athletes,” namely, “four football players – John Bradley, Jimmy Hitchcock, Malcolm Marshall, and Tim Smith.” See complete link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sonja_Haynes_Stone_Center_for_Black_Culture_and_History

    Spike Lee acknowledged that the push for an AFAM department and Stone Center were all about athletics when he came and joined in the protests: “This building (Smith Center) wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Michael Jordan, Phil Ford, James Worthy and Sam Perkins. … Black athletes, please understand the power you have. … If black athletes go away there would be no Final Four, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and no cotton pickin’ bowl.” Charlotte Observer (19 Sep 1992, “Spike Lee Pushes for Black Center at UNC”).

    And don’t forget the role that Michael Jordan played in establishing the Stone Center. He promised money to fund it and got his mother appointed to the board overseeing it. Although in 1996 it was reported that he never followed through with his promise. Charlotte Observer (14 Jan 1996, “Black Cultural Center Funds Lag”).

    Since then, NC taxpayers have been responsible for funding both the Stone Center and the fraudulent AFAM department (and thereby indirectly fund the athletics program against our will). It was widely questioned at the time why only UNC-Chapel Hill got an AFAM major, when the legislature would not institute such a major at any other school (including the several historically black colleges). The reason, from the beginning, has been that it’s always been about UNC athletics.

    Today, the Stone Center is merely listed as a “resource” of the AFAM Department on their webpage. It is a forum for those professors to display their “scholarship” in such topics as “The Image of the Black Athlete: Icons, Scandal and the Business of Sport.” How appropriate.

  15. groupthink 07/28/2012 at 1:58 PM #

    i remember reading that ms. crowder was changing grades, past posting, so to speak. i just have to wonder which professor was she changing grades for in the department. i assume it was for athletes and not just anyone. why would she need to change grades for dr julius, he was giving away a’s and b’s. maybe it was for other professors in the department. hell maybe with her access to the computer she could change any grade, from any department, the prof would never know if she changed them after the fact. random thoughts —i know, but i does make me wonder.

  16. choppack1 07/28/2012 at 7:40 PM #

    Another kane article just hit the presses.

  17. ncsu05mit10 07/28/2012 at 11:53 PM #

    Having the conversation with my UNC wife last year about AAS, we looked at the current majors of the basketball team. Surprisingly, there weren’t many AAS majors (maybe 1 or 2). But there were many ‘undeclared’ (freshman and sophomores). So It’s hard to pinpoint the number of players taking advantage of AAS without seeing transcripts. I’d imagine a considerable amount of the undeclared are taking quite a few AAS courses. And they only have to declare that major their junior year, if they stay in school that long.

  18. PackHooligan 07/30/2012 at 8:17 AM #

    Swofford did not become ACC commish until 1997, which means this department was set up under his watch, with athletes immediately steered towards it (if they were not already steered towards such a major under a different department). His silence is becoming more and more deafening.

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