The hits just a keep on coming as the national media FINALLY wakes up to
I didn’t think it could get much better than this. I was wrong.
CBS’s Gregg Doyel tweeted today that he is mad at himself for ignoring the UNC academic fraud scandal and that he wouldn’t ignore it any longer. He didn’t. And, his work is one for the ages – click here.
The entire thing is a must read…but, we’ll call out some quotes that we want to have for easy reference in the
“Maybe the ugliest academic scandal in NCAA history”
We tend to believe what we want, and since my sister graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and loved the school so much that she still lives nearby, I didn’t want to believe this school — her school — could be so shameful.
But it is. The school’s cover is blown. The free ride, as I said, is over.
And to North Carolina’s shame on so many levels, the cover was blown by a fan at North Carolina State.
We have evidence not only of grades being given to athletes for at least a decade — but also that UNC academic support staff steered athletes to those classes. This can’t be dismissed as the rogue actions of a man named Julius Nyang’oro, the embattled former head of the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. If it was just him, well, that could be explained away to a certain extent. The school would be vulnerable to NCAA sanctions, but one man running amok? That’s not horrible.
What actually happened at North Carolina?
This is horrible.
Did the coaches know? Well, ask yourself this: Are we to believe that academic advisers were steering famous athletes to bogus classes behind the backs of the millionaire coaches who recruited, coached and needed those athletes to remain eligible?
Answers are coming, but already we know this: The scandal spanned the decade from 2001-11. Know what happened that decade? The UNC men’s basketball team played in three Final Fours. It won national titles in 2005 and ’09.
It’s time for the NCAA to start digging. In the meantime, North Carolina should get a head start on some of its own chores.
For starters? There are some banners at the Smith Center that need to come down.
