Kane + ESPN article + manalishi spell ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E’ for UNC [updated 9:00am]

The real key questions of life seem to be evolving in front of us this morning. Items like the following:

• What was the News & Observer’s Dan Kane doing up so early this morning? 🙂
• Why do we bother having the NCAA if they have no problem with key member institutions contriving and executing systemic academic fraud that reaches through its entire athletics department that could have been in place for more than two decades?
• Is it a ‘coincidence’ that SEVEN key players on UNC’s 2005 National Basketball team majored in the AFAM department? (Sean May, Jackie Manuel, David Noel, Jawad Williams, Melvin Scott, Reyshawn Terry, Marvin Williams)
• What did current ACC Commissioner John Swofford know about the AFAM department considering he was the Athletics Director at UNC-Chapel for the first four years of its existence?
• Is this how to become a ‘public ivy’?
• Has anyone updated the definition of ‘The Carolina Way’ on wikipedia?
• How do Tom Ross and the UNC Board of Governors sleep at night?
• With what basis will UNC-CH fans chastise John Calipari when the Carolina basketball team ultimately has to vacate wins, championships and Final Fours for using players who would have otherwise been ineligible except for high grades in non-existent courses that were designed to keep their precious Tar heels eligible?

I was going to lead the day by linking to a fantastic post on Pack Pride’s message boards by famous poster, ‘manalishi’. The post can be found by clicking here, but is fantastically summarized (with new information) in this piece by Kane posted early this morning. The piece also incorporates information from this 2003 article from ESPN that would’ve opened the door to dozens of obvious questions for any local media that actually cared to do their job at the time.

Of course, when a kid is about to flunk out, that changes. Peppers, in that first semester of his freshman year, failed two classes and found out he had to pass a third class — Drama 15 — or be sent home. On the final, Peppers scored a 59.7, which the teacher considered a failing grade. But Carey felt a 59.7 should be rounded up to 60, and was convinced Peppers had passed. Normally, the Dean (not Dean Smith) would be the one to mediate, but the Dean was still angry about the Air Jordans. So Carey never called him. Instead, Carey banged and banged on the door of Peppers’ teacher, asking for a re-test. The teacher said yes, and Carey and Peppers crammed together, learning every four theatre productions backwards and forwards. Peppers passed the final exam — and his life was never the same.

From then on, you never saw Peppers without Carey. There was an 11-year age difference, but Carey had become the buffer between Peppers and his coaches. And, phew, did he have a lot of coaches.

Here is a link to a transcript posted on UNC’s website. The DTH notes, “Peppers accumulated a 1.824 GPA, the transcript shows. Four of the African and Afro-American Studies classes he took occurred during summer school. Summer courses in that department have been cited as some of the most extreme examples of its impropriety.”

As you will see when you read the article, the new information is particularly damning on multiple fronts…not the least of which is UNC’s continued farcical attempts to compartmentalize the academic fraud to a time frame that neatly matches the tenure of football coach, Butch Davis (starting in 2007). This fantastic piece highlights the strange academic behavior of multiple key players on Dean Smith’s National Basketball team all the way back in 1993 when the African-American Studies Department originally launched when now ACC Commissioner, John Swofford, was the Athletics Director at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The following is from Dan Kane’s article today:

A 2001 academic transcript published by The News & Observer two days ago that UNC-Chapel Hill officials insisted was fake may be the real thing, and it may belong to one of the most popular athletes in the university’s history — Julius Peppers.

If both transcripts are authentic, the university could be in far deeper trouble with regard to an ongoing academic scandal that is still coming into view. At issue is whether individuals in the university set up a series of bogus, no-show classes that were predominantly taken by athletes, possibly with the intent of helping them maintain their eligibility to play sports.

Should Peppers be entangled in the practice it would suggest that trumped-up classes for athletes may have been going on much longer than university officials have confirmed. It may also draw the basketball program deeper into a situation that initially centered on football players.

Peppers was a star football player at UNC from 1999 to 2001, and also saw significant playing time as a member of the basketball team for two seasons. He is now an All-Pro defensive standout for the Chicago Bears.

A poster to the PackPride bulletin board for rival N.C. State University fans put up a link late Sunday night that shows what appears to be a partial transcript of Peppers’ on UNC-CH’s website. The web address for the transcript is very similar to that of the test transcript.

A review of the purported Peppers transcript and the test transcript is a match for 34 of 36 classes. The two classes that are not similar show the same class and semester, but differ on the grade. The Peppers transcript shows an incomplete for a Black Nationalism class, while the test transcript shows the student receiving a B-plus. The test transcript also shows an A for an African American Seminar class that the Peppers transcript only shows he was registered to take it.

If the information is true, the discovery could cause huge problems for UNC-Chapel Hill. For one, the N&O reported the test transcript because it shares several characteristics with a major academic fraud scandal at the university, one that university officials have been reluctant to determine just how far back it goes. The African-American Seminar class, known as AFAM 070 back then and as AFAM 398 today, appears four times as a no-show class in an internal review that found 54 such classes during the period of 2007 to 2011.

The classes were all in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. University officials have said the only two people they believe to be culpable in the no-show classes are the department’s former chairman, Julius Nyang’oro, and former department manager Deborah Crowder. Evidence has suggested, however, that athletes were steered to the classes by academic counselors assigned to the athletic department.

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp has described the courses as an embarrassment to the university that deprived students who enrolled in them of a proper educational experience.

The transcripts show grades of B or better on two other classes that popped up as suspect classes, and three independent studies in which grades of B or better were given. The independent studies are also suspect because university officials could not verify that anyone taught or supervised the students who took them.

Without those grades, Peppers might have not been eligible to play either sport.

Pack fans on the bulletin board also noticed another confirming detail: A 2003 ESPN feature story on Peppers in which his agent, Carl Carey, a former academic counselor to Peppers at UNC-CH, is described as saving Peppers from receiving a failing grade in his first semester. According to the article, Carey convinced the professor to give Peppers a re-test in an Elements of Drama class. The transcripts show a D for that class and for that semester.

The transcripts could also spell trouble for UNC-CH because federal law requires universities to keep academic records private. The 37-year-old Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act can potentially force an academic institution that releases such records to lose federal funding.

University officials could not be reached early Monday morning. Over the previous several weeks, UNC officials had repeatedly said the test transcript was just that, a mock up put together to test a university computer program that helps a student learn what other courses are needed to obtain a degree. But they declined to check academic records to back up their claims.

The N&O offers some fantastic observations of the information in this entry.

–First, according to the transcript, the individual to whom it belongs earns two D’s and one F in the fall semester of 1998. That translates into a 1.075 GPA. If that GPA belonged to Peppers, he would have been ineligible to play basketball during the 1998-99 season and, indeed, he didn’t play basketball his freshman season, and instead joined the team for the first time during the 1999-2000 season. (In football, Peppers sat out the 1998 season as a redshirt.)

–There is a clear divide on the transcript between AFAM courses and non-AFAM courses. In the 12 non-AFAM courses for which grades are clearly listed on the transcript, the individual earned either a D or an F in eight of those courses. In the 18 AFAM courses for which grades are easily identifiable, the individual earned a B in exactly half of those classes.

–The transcript includes four independent study courses in AFAM, and the transcript reflects a B grade in three of those independent study courses. There is no grade listed for the other independent study class. Independent study courses in AFAM, of course, have come under fire at UNC, which identified those courses as problematic in a recent university probe into the AFAM department.

Deadspin has jumped into the fray nationally (link).

Some observations taken from the comments sections of both the N&O piece and Pack Pride’s thread:

So, Peppers never passed a math class…after failing ALGEBRA his first semester.

Alex: N & O: While you’re at it, look into test-takers for UNC-CH athletes. This really is a cultural problem at UNC-CH. Hate to say that about the alma mater, but sometimes the truth hurts.

You are exactly right Alex. This has been a systemic problem there for a long time. Regarding the test-takers, anyone remember the Sweet Carolines?

Looks to me like NCSU is doing a great job teaching computer engineering/info technology

UNC caught in atleast 3 major lies this evening…

1. When the cheating started (pre 1998 not 2007 as advertised)

2. Allowing an ineligible player to compete in two sports with a 1.65 gpa

3. Grade fixing and grade changing in four different instances. 4 of Peppers grades were changed.

4-10. More AFAM fraud of course…….were some of the other classes, profs involved?

What would have happened to Nyang’oro and Crowder if they had refused to go along with, encourage and enable this loathsome plot to undermine the school’s credibility and to insult the intelligence of its athletes? It also raises the question as to whom the board and chancellor report? To the AD? Does this go even higher? to the Gov? Maybe they should change the African American “studies” to “The School of It’s OK to cheat as long as you don’t get caught” studies, or maybe “The school of it’s OK not to learn while at UNC studies”. Any Ethics Studies at UNC?

@YieldToFrump
Also, for as smart as UNC claims to make their graduates, they employ some real idiots.