UNC Football and bball LOL (2 Viewers)

[The Commish]

That report essentially says Crowder created "paper classes" under the AFAM department because she sympathized with students and student athletes who were struggling because they weren't prepared. The classes were for anyone/everyone to take and she ran everything from top to bottom. It also says that student athletes were advised by advisors to take the classes because word had gotten out on how easy they were. From what I remember 47 or 48% of the students that took the classes were student athletes....most of them being football players.

I think it was reported that the classes were for the athletes, and word got out about how they were fake and easy, and it spread throughout the greek system, and they told their non-greek friends. Crowder worried about all the greeks and others starting to fill up the classes. *Greeks as in fraternity and sorority, not people from Greece. lol

Gotcha....I'd like to read more about this theory. The report sorta mentions it here but is careful not to be as black and white as you with this comment:

A. Debby Crowder’s Focus on Helping Challenged Students Crowder came to Chapel Hill as an undergraduate student in the 1970s. After earning her degree in English and working for a few years at a department store, Crowder returned to Chapel Hill in 1979 as a secretary in what was then the Curriculum of African and Afro-American Studies – essentially the same position she would hold for 30 years until she retired from the University in September 2009. Crowder was known throughout campus as a “do-gooder” who was always willing to help out a student who was struggling. This compassionate approach derived from her firm belief that Chapel Hill should be a school that welcomes and supports students of all types – and “not just the best and the brightest” – and also from her own experience of feeling left adrift as a Chapel Hill student without any support or guidance from the Chapel Hill faculty or staff. Crowder was passionate about helping struggling students of all kinds, and often adopted “special cases,” who were students she saw as particularly deserving of her assistance – from sexual assault victims to students with mental health issues to under-prepared student-athletes from difficult backgrounds. Crowder was also passionate about Carolina athletics. Her affinity for Chapel Hill’s teams – and particularly the men’s basketball team – was well known. She kept the men’s basketball calendars on her office walls; her office was a regular gathering place for the players; and according to several faculty members, she cared so much about the fortunes of the basketball team that she was occasionally unable to come to work for a day or two after the Tar Heels lost a basketball game. These two passions – her desire to help underprepared students and her love of Chapel Hill athletics – would ultimately lead her to cut corners to help students and student-athletes make their grades. But, that would not happen for several years, due to the strong leadership and high academic standards imposed by the two chairpersons who led the AFAM Department in its early years.

The report seems to be very careful to always say "students and student athletes". Remember, these comments started because someone above suggested all they were going to use was this report, so if that's true, there's really nothing in this report that points to the assertion you make above. Though I am 100% confident that there were classes created and that student athletes wouldn't have a problem getting into them.

 

[The Commish]

There are no easy classes at Duke

Funny....my cousin said the hardest part about being a Duke student was getting in He was a computer science under grad / mechanical engineering grad student.

 

[drfeelgood]

This touches a little on the greeks and the fake classes;

Wainstein and his team found 729 enrollments by members of the Greek system in paper classes from 1999 to 2011. At one point, there were so many Greek community members in paper classes that Deborah Crowder, the former administrator in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies who created the paper class scheme, became worried she was providing paper classes to students who were “looking for a ‘slack’ class” rather than students who she thought were in need of an academic boost.

I remember it also being mentioned that Crowder told a colleague that she was also worried that word had spread around campus by the Greeks to others about the fake classes, and those too were signing up.

 

[Yenrub]

There are no easy classes at Duke

True. They get on a bus to NC Central to take the easy classes

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Interesting. So it sounds like she started doing it for students with hardships or something like single moms, the athletes started taking them and then the Greeks started taking them. Seems like an expected progression.

 

[drfeelgood]

Interesting. So it sounds like she started doing it for students with hardships or something like single moms, the athletes started taking them and then the Greeks started taking them. Seems like an expected progression.

No, athletes were one of her main targets to cater the classes to. It was reported that Crowder and Nyang’oro had a specific concern for student athletes, because those students found the curriculum at UNC difficult. Many of the students weren't qualified for admissions in the first place. Advisors, coaches, and APSA counselors took advantage of this scheme to keep student athletes eligible, but Crowder is the one who created the sham classes all on her own, and Nyang'oro continued Crowder's scheme. I keep getting signed out, and having to edit.

 

[The Commish]

This touches a little on the greeks and the fake classes;

Wainstein and his team found 729 enrollments by members of the Greek system in paper classes from 1999 to 2011. At one point, there were so many Greek community members in paper classes that Deborah Crowder, the former administrator in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies who created the paper class scheme, became worried she was providing paper classes to students who were “looking for a ‘slack’ class” rather than students who she thought were in need of an academic boost.

I remember it also being mentioned that Crowder told a colleague that she was also worried that word had spread around campus by the Greeks to others about the fake classes, and those too were signing up.

I often wonder if these academic types think about the ramifications of the decisions they are making and how college students think. I know when I was in school, I was looking for the easiest path to that piece of paper....period. I actually laughed reading the bold. OF COURSE THEY WERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Construx....what I'll say is this. The reports are very careful to say "students and student athletes". I'm not sure how genuine that is or not. We don't know what she was really thinking etc. But I don't think it matters from an academic perspective what group she was targeting. The fact that there were classes set up to be taken by a specific group of "disadvantaged" or "struggling" students (and not the whole school) is an issue. I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America, but that doesn't make it right. It also doesn't make it wrong in the way a lot of rivals want it to be wrong.

 

[Tau837]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

A couple counterpoints/questions:

1. Giving "unearned" grades is not a violation if some work was done by the athlete and it wasn't plagiarized, because at that point who's to say what is earned? Nobody at the NCAA or elsewhere going to get into subjective evaluations of whether the grading was too lenient or the coursework wasn't sufficient to warrant the credits. That would be a Pandora's Box that nobody wants to get within a country mile of opening. So I'm not sure about your Point #1. Plagiarism or not doing any work, sure, that's a violation. Not doing "sufficient work" based on subjective judgment calls despite the courses being accredited? No chance.

2. "Has been reported" is a weird choice of phrasing. Who reported these things? Was it Willingham, who was herself guilty of plagarism, and been forced to retract several of her previous statements and now has apparently also been caught in a lie about her work with the "5 starters +1" from the 2005 championship team? If so that's pretty much worthless at this point. If it's in the Wainstein Report, that's another story.

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

 

[drfeelgood]

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

Wainstein said "there was an established channel of moving basketball players into these classes." Walden admitted knowing about the irregular aspects of the paper classes, and that Crowder graded some of them. Walden said he didn't recall telling Holladay or Williams about it. The report said that Walden and Burgess McSwain "routinely called Crowder to arrange classes for their players."

 

[TobiasFunke]

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

Wainstein said "there was an established channel of moving basketball players into these classes." Walden admitted knowing about the irregular aspects of the paper classes, and that Crowder graded some of them. Walden said he didn't recall telling Holladay or Williams about it. The report said that Walden and Burgess McSwain "routinely called Crowder to arrange classes for their players."

I don't see anything here that conflicts with the portion of my post that you pulled for your reply. There's nothing about a men's basketball player getting a grade without doing any work. In fact the report says "unlike the football players who largely conceded that these classes held little educational value, several of the basketball players insisted that they read extensively and worked hard to produce their papers for the classes." And the one basketball player who ever said otherwise refused to speak for the report.

Also I just did a text search of the report for the phrase "established channel" and found nothing. Where did you get that quote?

Finally, the report's summation of Walden doesn't really strike me as problematic (page 126 of the pdf, 122 of the report).

So again ... what rule was violated?

 

[ConstruxBoy]

This touches a little on the greeks and the fake classes;

Wainstein and his team found 729 enrollments by members of the Greek system in paper classes from 1999 to 2011. At one point, there were so many Greek community members in paper classes that Deborah Crowder, the former administrator in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies who created the paper class scheme, became worried she was providing paper classes to students who were “looking for a ‘slack’ class” rather than students who she thought were in need of an academic boost.

I remember it also being mentioned that Crowder told a colleague that she was also worried that word had spread around campus by the Greeks to others about the fake classes, and those too were signing up.

I often wonder if these academic types think about the ramifications of the decisions they are making and how college students think. I know when I was in school, I was looking for the easiest path to that piece of paper....period. I actually laughed reading the bold. OF COURSE THEY WERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Construx....what I'll say is this. The reports are very careful to say "students and student athletes". I'm not sure how genuine that is or not. We don't know what she was really thinking etc. But I don't think it matters from an academic perspective what group she was targeting. The fact that there were classes set up to be taken by a specific group of "disadvantaged" or "struggling" students (and not the whole school) is an issue. I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America, but that doesn't make it right. It also doesn't make it wrong in the way a lot of rivals want it to be wrong.

I agree with that. Lots of gray here of course.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

Two quick points. I think you're grouping my 3-5 cases together. As I stated, I think that case 3 is doing something wrong, but I think it's really hard to be certain what the proper grade is for something. As mentioned, if everyone in the class is getting easy grading, how do you tell what the "correct" grades should be for the given work?

You're correct that the NCAA isn't a court of law, but I think the cases of 3 are harder to pin down and punish. 4 and 5, though, should be punished severely.

And speaking of the NCAA, they tend to work on their own, slow schedule (other then with PSU of course). What makes you think they won't eventually act? Are you just Keerocking us again?

 

[The Commish]

To JWB....I'm speaking only in the context of the Wainstein report and it's findings mainly because someone above said the only thing the NCAA was going to use was that report which I don't believe for a second. There are reports here and there, all over the place. I get that. If proven true, I'm with you. So far, the best "smoking gun" folks have is some shenannigans between AFAM and the Woman's Basketball Academic Counselor.

Report clearly states that Crowder was doing her own thing "giving" grades to everyone....athletes included. You can start at page 38 of this report to address everything you have brought into question with their findings, which isn't much.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

Wainstein said "there was an established channel of moving basketball players into these classes." Walden admitted knowing about the irregular aspects of the paper classes, and that Crowder graded some of them. Walden said he didn't recall telling Holladay or Williams about it. The report said that Walden and Burgess McSwain "routinely called Crowder to arrange classes for their players."

I don't see anything here that conflicts with the portion of my post that you pulled for your reply. There's nothing about a men's basketball player getting a grade without doing any work. In fact the report says "unlike the football players who largely conceded that these classes held little educational value, several of the basketball players insisted that they read extensively and worked hard to produce their papers for the classes." And the one basketball player who ever said otherwise refused to speak for the report.

Also I just did a text search of the report for the phrase "established channel" and found nothing. Where did you get that quote?

Finally, the report's summation of Walden doesn't really strike me as problematic (page 126 of the pdf, 122 of the report).

So again ... what rule was violated?

I think you found what I found in the report. It seems like the basketball players mainly were involved in case 3, doing some work/papers, but getting better grades than they probably deserved. If that's the truth, I think it will be harder to punish them than the other sports that had more instances of cases 4 and 5.

So either:

1) Basketball players are "smarter" or not as "lazy" and did honestly do some work

2) Adults in charge of basketball players made sure they did some work because they knew that was harder to detect/punish than fraud or grade changing

3) Since everyone at UNC is more concerned with basketball and the titles, the report is skewed to find that basketball players did the least grievous violation

 

[drfeelgood]

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

Wainstein said "there was an established channel of moving basketball players into these classes." Walden admitted knowing about the irregular aspects of the paper classes, and that Crowder graded some of them. Walden said he didn't recall telling Holladay or Williams about it. The report said that Walden and Burgess McSwain "routinely called Crowder to arrange classes for their players."

I don't see anything here that conflicts with the portion of my post that you pulled for your reply. There's nothing about a men's basketball player getting a grade without doing any work. In fact the report says "unlike the football players who largely conceded that these classes held little educational value, several of the basketball players insisted that they read extensively and worked hard to produce their papers for the classes." And the one basketball player who ever said otherwise refused to speak for the report.

Also I just did a text search of the report for the phrase "established channel" and found nothing. Where did you get that quote?

Finally, the report's summation of Walden doesn't really strike me as problematic (page 126 of the pdf, 122 of the report).

So again ... what rule was violated?

The basketball players worked hard to produce papers for the classes? lol The classes were a sham. What exactly did these basketball players read exclusively in these fake classes? There was no professor, and they didn't have to attend a class. All they had to do was turn in a research paper at the end of the term, and Crowder, who was an administrator and not a professor, either gave the paper an A or B.

Wainstein spoke of the established channels during his press conference on television.

 

[Tau837]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

A couple counterpoints/questions:

1. Giving "unearned" grades is not a violation if some work was done by the athlete and it wasn't plagiarized, because at that point who's to say what is earned? Nobody at the NCAA or elsewhere going to get into subjective evaluations of whether the grading was too lenient or the coursework wasn't sufficient to warrant the credits. That would be a Pandora's Box that nobody wants to get within a country mile of opening. So I'm not sure about your Point #1. Plagiarism or not doing any work, sure, that's a violation. Not doing "sufficient work" based on subjective judgment calls despite the courses being accredited? No chance.

2. "Has been reported" is a weird choice of phrasing. Who reported these things? Was it Willingham, who was herself guilty of plagarism, and been forced to retract several of her previous statements and now has apparently also been caught in a lie about her work with the "5 starters +1" from the 2005 championship team? If so that's pretty much worthless at this point. If it's in the Wainstein Report, that's another story.

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

With regard to point #1, I'm not sure what you are taking issue with. We appear to agree that if the athlete did no work or if the athlete submitted plagiarized work, it is a violation. I mentioned another case of someone else doing the work for an athlete, and you didn't touch on that, but I assume you would agree that is a violation. I agree that if an athlete wrote his own, non-plagiarized paper, and it was given a better grade than it should have been (since Crowder apparently gave nothing but As and Bs, for example), there is nothing that can be done about that. It is still inappropriate, but too hard for anyone to get into the weeds on that.

I used "has been reported" because I don't remember the source now that so much time has passed. I believe the Wannstein report or some other official source (i.e., not Willingham or a reporter sourced only by her) has reported that. I know it has been discussed in this thread.

I agree that steering students to easy classes is not a violation. It is as if you didn't read my post.

I said that *if* athletes were given grades they did not earn (by not doing any work, having someone else do all or part of it, or plagiarizing) and/or grades were inappropriately changed after they were submitted and without justification for doing so, all in order to maintain athletic eligibility, that is a major violation. And I believe that is exactly what happened.

I care about sports other than men's basketball. I care about football, which was involved in this and should be punished again. I care about men's baseball, which was involved with this and should be punished. I also believe men's basketball was involved in this and should be punished but, no, I can't prove it.

Like I said, I doubt anything will ever be done. If anything was going to be done, it could and should have been done by now. So any unethical athletic departments out there should feel free to set up the same cheating system at their universities, since there are no repercussions.

 

[Tau837]

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

Wainstein said "there was an established channel of moving basketball players into these classes." Walden admitted knowing about the irregular aspects of the paper classes, and that Crowder graded some of them. Walden said he didn't recall telling Holladay or Williams about it. The report said that Walden and Burgess McSwain "routinely called Crowder to arrange classes for their players."

I don't see anything here that conflicts with the portion of my post that you pulled for your reply. There's nothing about a men's basketball player getting a grade without doing any work. In fact the report says "unlike the football players who largely conceded that these classes held little educational value, several of the basketball players insisted that they read extensively and worked hard to produce their papers for the classes." And the one basketball player who ever said otherwise refused to speak for the report.

Also I just did a text search of the report for the phrase "established channel" and found nothing. Where did you get that quote?

Finally, the report's summation of Walden doesn't really strike me as problematic (page 126 of the pdf, 122 of the report).

So again ... what rule was violated?

I think you found what I found in the report. It seems like the basketball players mainly were involved in case 3, doing some work/papers, but getting better grades than they probably deserved. If that's the truth, I think it will be harder to punish them than the other sports that had more instances of cases 4 and 5.

So either:

1) Basketball players are "smarter" or not as "lazy" and did honestly do some work

2) Adults in charge of basketball players made sure they did some work because they knew that was harder to detect/punish than fraud or grade changing

3) Since everyone at UNC is more concerned with basketball and the titles, the report is skewed to find that basketball players did the least grievous violation

I think #1 and #2 are possible, at least to some degree. I absolutely think #3 happened.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

A couple counterpoints/questions:

1. Giving "unearned" grades is not a violation if some work was done by the athlete and it wasn't plagiarized, because at that point who's to say what is earned? Nobody at the NCAA or elsewhere going to get into subjective evaluations of whether the grading was too lenient or the coursework wasn't sufficient to warrant the credits. That would be a Pandora's Box that nobody wants to get within a country mile of opening. So I'm not sure about your Point #1. Plagiarism or not doing any work, sure, that's a violation. Not doing "sufficient work" based on subjective judgment calls despite the courses being accredited? No chance.

2. "Has been reported" is a weird choice of phrasing. Who reported these things? Was it Willingham, who was herself guilty of plagarism, and been forced to retract several of her previous statements and now has apparently also been caught in a lie about her work with the "5 starters +1" from the 2005 championship team? If so that's pretty much worthless at this point. If it's in the Wainstein Report, that's another story.

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

With regard to point #1, I'm not sure what you are taking issue with. We appear to agree that if the athlete did no work or if the athlete submitted plagiarized work, it is a violation. I mentioned another case of someone else doing the work for an athlete, and you didn't touch on that, but I assume you would agree that is a violation. I agree that if an athlete wrote his own, non-plagiarized paper, and it was given a better grade than it should have been (since Crowder apparently gave nothing but As and Bs, for example), there is nothing that can be done about that. It is still inappropriate, but too hard for anyone to get into the weeds on that.

I used "has been reported" because I don't remember the source now that so much time has passed. I believe the Wannstein report or some other official source (i.e., not Willingham or a reporter sourced only by her) has reported that. I know it has been discussed in this thread.

I agree that steering students to easy classes is not a violation. It is as if you didn't read my post.

I said that *if* athletes were given grades they did not earn (by not doing any work, having someone else do all or part of it, or plagiarizing) and/or grades were inappropriately changed after they were submitted and without justification for doing so, all in order to maintain athletic eligibility, that is a major violation. And I believe that is exactly what happened.

I care about sports other than men's basketball. I care about football, which was involved in this and should be punished again. I care about men's baseball, which was involved with this and should be punished. I also believe men's basketball was involved in this and should be punished but, no, I can't prove it.

Like I said, I doubt anything will ever be done. If anything was going to be done, it could and should have been done by now. So any unethical athletic departments out there should feel free to set up the same cheating system at their universities, since there are no repercussions.

As has been repeated over and over, plenty has already been done. The people responsible for the problems are long gone, measures have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again, and of course now everyone is acutely aware that workarounds like this can become public embarrassments, which by itself makes them far less likely.

What I think you mean is that you doubt they will ever punish innocent college kids for the long-ago sins of adults in a way that will satisfy your schadenfreude. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. What exactly do you mean?

 

[Tau837]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

A couple counterpoints/questions:

1. Giving "unearned" grades is not a violation if some work was done by the athlete and it wasn't plagiarized, because at that point who's to say what is earned? Nobody at the NCAA or elsewhere going to get into subjective evaluations of whether the grading was too lenient or the coursework wasn't sufficient to warrant the credits. That would be a Pandora's Box that nobody wants to get within a country mile of opening. So I'm not sure about your Point #1. Plagiarism or not doing any work, sure, that's a violation. Not doing "sufficient work" based on subjective judgment calls despite the courses being accredited? No chance.

2. "Has been reported" is a weird choice of phrasing. Who reported these things? Was it Willingham, who was herself guilty of plagarism, and been forced to retract several of her previous statements and now has apparently also been caught in a lie about her work with the "5 starters +1" from the 2005 championship team? If so that's pretty much worthless at this point. If it's in the Wainstein Report, that's another story.

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

With regard to point #1, I'm not sure what you are taking issue with. We appear to agree that if the athlete did no work or if the athlete submitted plagiarized work, it is a violation. I mentioned another case of someone else doing the work for an athlete, and you didn't touch on that, but I assume you would agree that is a violation. I agree that if an athlete wrote his own, non-plagiarized paper, and it was given a better grade than it should have been (since Crowder apparently gave nothing but As and Bs, for example), there is nothing that can be done about that. It is still inappropriate, but too hard for anyone to get into the weeds on that.

I used "has been reported" because I don't remember the source now that so much time has passed. I believe the Wannstein report or some other official source (i.e., not Willingham or a reporter sourced only by her) has reported that. I know it has been discussed in this thread.

I agree that steering students to easy classes is not a violation. It is as if you didn't read my post.

I said that *if* athletes were given grades they did not earn (by not doing any work, having someone else do all or part of it, or plagiarizing) and/or grades were inappropriately changed after they were submitted and without justification for doing so, all in order to maintain athletic eligibility, that is a major violation. And I believe that is exactly what happened.

I care about sports other than men's basketball. I care about football, which was involved in this and should be punished again. I care about men's baseball, which was involved with this and should be punished. I also believe men's basketball was involved in this and should be punished but, no, I can't prove it.

Like I said, I doubt anything will ever be done. If anything was going to be done, it could and should have been done by now. So any unethical athletic departments out there should feel free to set up the same cheating system at their universities, since there are no repercussions.

As has been repeated over and over, plenty has already been done. The people responsible for the problems are long gone, measures have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again, and of course now everyone is acutely aware that workarounds like this can become public embarrassments, which by itself makes them far less likely.

What I think you mean is that you doubt they will ever punish innocent college kids for the long-ago sins of adults in a way that will satisfy your schadenfreude. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. What exactly do you mean?

That's the way athletic programs that cheat get punished. It isn't possible for the NCAA to punish the players who actually cheated, unless current players are identified as having done so (in which case they should obviously be directly punished). Instead, the NCAA punishes the program, which means the program's current players. At least in this case, the players had every opportunity to be aware that punishment could be coming since this has been in the news for so long. They made their choices to go to UNC and have to live with any consequences they may face.

You seem to now be taking the stance that a program that cheats should not be punished at all by the NCAA because it is unfair to current players. Then what is the point of having rules? What deterrent can the NCAA provide that would stop unethical programs like UNC from cheating, if there are no repercussions on the court/field?

And, by the way, all the people involved are not long gone. Roy Williams is still there. The baseball coach is still there. I'm sure there are many others.

And at "measures have been taken."

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

 

[ConstruxBoy]

I'm not foolish enough to believe these kinds of classes can't be found on just about every campus in America

You've said something to this effect a couple times in this recent exchange. There is no issue with "easy" classes or "paper" classes. Yes, all colleges have some classes and majors that are easier than others. Maybe all colleges have paper classes, not sure about that.

There are two major issues here as relates to athletes in these classes at UNC:

1. It has been reported that a large number of athletes were given grades without doing work sufficient to earn the grades. It doesn't really matter if that means someone else (e.g., tutors) did the work, the athletes did token work that didn't merit the grade given (e.g., plagiarizing a paper from the internet, as McAdoo did), or the athletes literally didn't do anything at all.

2. It has been reported that many athletes' grades were changed (lower grades to higher grades) after they were submitted by the professors without knowledge of those professors and without any documentation or apparent justification.

Bottom line, if either or both happened, it is likely that athletes maintained eligibility when they otherwise would have been ineligible. And it has been reported that athletes were steered to these classes, which shows that a system was in place to maintain eligibility and suggests that it was a large number of athletes, not a small number.

That is a major violation, and justifiably so. Doing that on a large scale affects wins and losses, postseason eligibility for UNC and opponents, recruiting, coaching jobs, etc.

And it really doesn't matter who knew. The university and its athletic department and athletic programs should be held accountable, regardless. (I personally don't buy for a second that Roy Williams didn't know, anyway, since we know his predecessors Guthridge and Doherty knew and we know his own guy Walden knew.)

The NCAA is not bound to treat this like a court of law. They could act on this information if they choose to do so. So far they haven't, and I'm skeptical they ever will. So what is to stop UNC and other universities from doing this again? Nothing.

A couple counterpoints/questions:

1. Giving "unearned" grades is not a violation if some work was done by the athlete and it wasn't plagiarized, because at that point who's to say what is earned? Nobody at the NCAA or elsewhere going to get into subjective evaluations of whether the grading was too lenient or the coursework wasn't sufficient to warrant the credits. That would be a Pandora's Box that nobody wants to get within a country mile of opening. So I'm not sure about your Point #1. Plagiarism or not doing any work, sure, that's a violation. Not doing "sufficient work" based on subjective judgment calls despite the courses being accredited? No chance.

2. "Has been reported" is a weird choice of phrasing. Who reported these things? Was it Willingham, who was herself guilty of plagarism, and been forced to retract several of her previous statements and now has apparently also been caught in a lie about her work with the "5 starters +1" from the 2005 championship team? If so that's pretty much worthless at this point. If it's in the Wainstein Report, that's another story.

3. I don't think the bolded is true. Steering students to easy classes to maintain eligibility is not a violation. It's done openly at pretty much every school in the country. What NCAA rule do you think has been violated? If there's evidence that NO work was done by specific students who nevertheless received passing or high grades, sure, that's a violation. But if anything the Wainstein Report found the opposite with respect to the men's basketbal team, which we all know (even if some of us won't admit it) is the only aspect of this that anyone really cares about.

With regard to point #1, I'm not sure what you are taking issue with. We appear to agree that if the athlete did no work or if the athlete submitted plagiarized work, it is a violation. I mentioned another case of someone else doing the work for an athlete, and you didn't touch on that, but I assume you would agree that is a violation. I agree that if an athlete wrote his own, non-plagiarized paper, and it was given a better grade than it should have been (since Crowder apparently gave nothing but As and Bs, for example), there is nothing that can be done about that. It is still inappropriate, but too hard for anyone to get into the weeds on that.

I used "has been reported" because I don't remember the source now that so much time has passed. I believe the Wannstein report or some other official source (i.e., not Willingham or a reporter sourced only by her) has reported that. I know it has been discussed in this thread.

I agree that steering students to easy classes is not a violation. It is as if you didn't read my post.

I said that *if* athletes were given grades they did not earn (by not doing any work, having someone else do all or part of it, or plagiarizing) and/or grades were inappropriately changed after they were submitted and without justification for doing so, all in order to maintain athletic eligibility, that is a major violation. And I believe that is exactly what happened.

I care about sports other than men's basketball. I care about football, which was involved in this and should be punished again. I care about men's baseball, which was involved with this and should be punished. I also believe men's basketball was involved in this and should be punished but, no, I can't prove it.

Like I said, I doubt anything will ever be done. If anything was going to be done, it could and should have been done by now. So any unethical athletic departments out there should feel free to set up the same cheating system at their universities, since there are no repercussions.

As has been repeated over and over, plenty has already been done. The people responsible for the problems are long gone, measures have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again, and of course now everyone is acutely aware that workarounds like this can become public embarrassments, which by itself makes them far less likely.

What I think you mean is that you doubt they will ever punish innocent college kids for the long-ago sins of adults in a way that will satisfy your schadenfreude. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. What exactly do you mean?

That's the way athletic programs that cheat get punished. It isn't possible for the NCAA to punish the players who actually cheated, unless current players are identified as having done so (in which case they should obviously be directly punished). Instead, the NCAA punishes the program, which means the program's current players. At least in this case, the players had every opportunity to be aware that punishment could be coming since this has been in the news for so long. They made their choices to go to UNC and have to live with any consequences they may face.

You seem to now be taking the stance that a program that cheats should not be punished at all by the NCAA because it is unfair to current players. Then what is the point of having rules? What deterrent can the NCAA provide that would stop unethical programs like UNC from cheating, if there are no repercussions on the court/field?

And, by the way, all the people involved are not long gone. Roy Williams is still there. The baseball coach is still there. I'm sure there are many others.

And at "measures have been taken."

The NCAA needs to hit them where it hurts, the pocketbook. Make the school pay a big fine. Make it tough for them to pay big bucks for their coaches. Make them have to wait a while to upgrade facilities and keep up with the other schools because they can't afford it.

That's what they should do.

 

[The Commish]

I'd make them pay a butt load of money personally. That will mean more than taking away wins already established or making them forfeit tournament appearances in the future.

 

[TobiasFunke]

As has been repeated over and over, plenty has already been done. The people responsible for the problems are long gone, measures have been taken to make sure it doesn't happen again, and of course now everyone is acutely aware that workarounds like this can become public embarrassments, which by itself makes them far less likely.

What I think you mean is that you doubt they will ever punish innocent college kids for the long-ago sins of adults in a way that will satisfy your schadenfreude. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. What exactly do you mean?

That's the way athletic programs that cheat get punished. It isn't possible for the NCAA to punish the players who actually cheated, unless current players are identified as having done so (in which case they should obviously be directly punished). Instead, the NCAA punishes the program, which means the program's current players. At least in this case, the players had every opportunity to be aware that punishment could be coming since this has been in the news for so long. They made their choices to go to UNC and have to live with any consequences they may face.

You seem to now be taking the stance that a program that cheats should not be punished at all by the NCAA because it is unfair to current players. Then what is the point of having rules? What deterrent can the NCAA provide that would stop unethical programs like UNC from cheating, if there are no repercussions on the court/field?

And, by the way, all the people involved are not long gone. Roy Williams is still there. The baseball coach is still there. I'm sure there are many others.

And at "measures have been taken."

Ah, so when you say "the people involved" what you mean is "the people I think were involved even though there's no evidence of any wrongdoing". At least you're no longer attempting rational discussion and you've gone full Pack Pride mode. The honesty is refreshing, at least.

And apparently you disagree with the statement "measures have been taken," but I'm not sure how. They've fired people, they've financed independent investigations, and I think they are working on or adopted a new oversight group. Those are "measures." They're just not the measures you want because they're focused on improving academic problems rather than making it more likely that an NC State sports team will beat a UNC sports team. That's a bummer for you I guess. But maybe if NC State's fan base focused more on supporting their own teams and less on criticizing a university and athletic program they have no ties to that would also help improve their chances? I seriously doubt kids dream of one day playing for a fan base that does things like having a 48 page thread that started just three weeks ago about UNC's academic scandal but only a ten page thread about recruiting/transfers and an eight page thread about the current team's status in the various ranking systems, as we see here.

Also, yes, I do think it's silly when the NCAA punishes kids for stuff they didn't do. I think most of the NCAA's rules are preposterous, as are its enforcement efforts. The whole thing is silly and outdated, collusion meant to protect the schools financially and to cater to people who naively want to believe that the football and basketball players at their school are just regular students like they were so they feel some special tie to them that isn't really there. But that's a conversation for another time.

 

[Archer]

The delusion in here is outrageous. We have SEEN emails that are now public records. The school cheated for DECADES. Yes, they should pay HUGE fines, as well take away every win and title where they had ineligible players who were ONLY on the court/field because of the A's and B's they got for classes they never went to, papers they never wrote, or grade changes that were made. And this happened over and over and over. Why do you think the school did everything they could to NOT release the transcripts??? Peppers info is out there for everyone to see:

http://www.barstoolu.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screen-Shot-2012-08-13-at-12.30.42-AM.png

I can't wait to see what all the defenders say when the NCAA awakes from its coma and the hammer falls.

 

[TobiasFunke]

The delusion in here is outrageous. We have SEEN emails that are now public records. The school cheated for DECADES. Yes, they should pay HUGE fines, as well take away every win and title where they had ineligible players who were ONLY on the court/field because of the A's and B's they got for classes they never went to, papers they never wrote, or grade changes that were made. And this happened over and over and over. Why do you think the school did everything they could to NOT release the transcripts??? Peppers info is out there for everyone to see:

http://www.barstoolu.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screen-Shot-2012-08-13-at-12.30.42-AM.png

I can't wait to see what all the defenders say when the NCAA awakes from its coma and the hammer falls.

I guess I must be missing something. Can you show me where on that link it shows that he didn't go to class, didn't write papers or that his grades were changed? Yeah there's some Ds and Fs, so he probably didn't do too much work in those classes. But those Ds and Fs didn't drag him down to the point where he was no longer eligible to play sports, did they?

Walk me through this evidence you have that Peppers or any other basketball player was or should have been ruled ineligible. Perhaps you have evidence that one of them received payments from an AAU coach or something?

 

[Archer]

Take your head out of sand long enough to read this.

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

and this

http://www.statefansnation.com/2012/08/espn-article-manalishi-spell-t-r-o-u-b-l-e-for-unc/

 

[TobiasFunke]

Take your head out of sand long enough to read this.

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

and this

http://www.statefansnation.com/2012/08/espn-article-manalishi-spell-t-r-o-u-b-l-e-for-unc/

So is that a "no," then? You don't have any evidence demonstrating that Peppers was given a grade he didn't earn? Because I clicked the first link and didn't see any such evidence.

It's OK to admit it. People often think things that they can't prove. For example, when a college basketball player who's not supposed to be getting paid to play drops $30,000 in cash at a jewelry store and is extended a line of credit for another $70,000, I'm pretty darn sure that kid is getting paid to play basketball and thus should be ineligible and the team for which he played should probably be stripped of any wins it got while he was on the roster based on the rules. I'm certainly way more sure of that than I am that a kid who took certain classes didn't do the work for those classes just because some other people who took those or similar classes didn't do the work. I think most people would agree with me on that. But since it can't be proven that he was paid to play I don't think there should be any repercussions.

 

[Tau837]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

 

[Archer]

Better yet, how about I just post this here.

Massive cheating scandal at UNC included athletes, fake classes and automatic grades Published October 23, 2014Associated Press

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Bogus classes and automatic A's and B's are at the heart of a cheating scandal at the University of North Carolina that lasted nearly two decades, encompassing about 3,100 students -- nearly half of them athletes.

At least nine university employees were fired or under disciplinary review, and the question now becomes what, if anything, the NCAA will do next. Penalties could range from fewer scholarships to vacated wins. ***So Tobias I'm sure all these people were fired because your beloved program did nothing wrong. They just held "easy classes for athletes" right? That kind of stuff happens all the time...

Most of the athletes were football players or members of the school's cherished basketball program, which won three of its five national titles during the scandal (1993, 2005, 2009).

Many at the university hoped the eight-month investigation by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein would bring some closure. Instead, it found more academic fraud than previous investigations by the NCAA and the school, exposing a "shadow curriculum" run within the former African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department from 1993 to 2011.

 

[TobiasFunke]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

What people disagree with is the notion that they're getting away unpunished. Roy's reputation is taking a hit, deserved or not. One day this scandal will be mentioned in articles about his retirement and probably in his obit. It's likely harming the recruiting efforts of the basketball team and other teams as well. The university has been getting dragged through the mud for years now. The repercussions have been more than enough to discourage other programs from doing the same. Your complaint is that they haven't been the repercussions you want.

 

[Archer]

Take your head out of sand long enough to read this.

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

and this

http://www.statefansnation.com/2012/08/espn-article-manalishi-spell-t-r-o-u-b-l-e-for-unc/

So is that a "no," then? You don't have any evidence demonstrating that Peppers was given a grade he didn't earn? Because I clicked the first link and didn't see any such evidence.

You don't know how to read very well then. Your idiotic school accidentally posted Peppers ORIGINAL transcript online. It then later posted another transcript where grades were changed. An F suddenly became a D and an incomplete grade suddenly became a B+.

ESPN reported and I quote "The AFAM investigation also found unauthorized grade changes, reports of possibly forged faculty signatures on grade rolls and infrequent classes."

There is PLENTY of proof, you just clearly aren't willing to accept reality here.

 

[TobiasFunke]

Better yet, how about I just post this here.

Massive cheating scandal at UNC included athletes, fake classes and automatic gradesPublished October 23, 2014Associated Press

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Bogus classes and automatic A's and B's are at the heart of a cheating scandal at the University of North Carolina that lasted nearly two decades, encompassing about 3,100 students -- nearly half of them athletes.

At least nine university employees were fired or under disciplinary review, and the question now becomes what, if anything, the NCAA will do next. Penalties could range from fewer scholarships to vacated wins. ***So Tobias I'm sure all these people were fired because your beloved program did nothing wrong. They just held "easy classes for athletes" right? That kind of stuff happens all the time...

Most of the athletes were football players or members of the school's cherished basketball program, which won three of its five national titles during the scandal (1993, 2005, 2009).

Many at the university hoped the eight-month investigation by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein would bring some closure. Instead, it found more academic fraud than previous investigations by the NCAA and the school, exposing a "shadow curriculum" run within the former African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department from 1993 to 2011.

They university did plenty of things wrong. Everyone admits that. Don't change the subject. Just admit that you can't demonstrate wrongdoing by a player or coach. It's fine to admit it. JWB has basically admitted it. I just admitted that I can't demonstrate wrongdoing by Lance Thomas or Duke Men's Basketball even though anyone with an ounce of common sense knows he was paid a ton of money to play basketball and that if all the facts ever became known that 2010 banner would be yanked down faster than Mercer player blowing by the Duke defense.

Go ahead. It's easy. I bet you even feel a little relief at coming clean about the lack of evidence of violations/ineligibility.

 

[Archer]

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

There, 2 screen shots of Peppers grades, showing the F suddenly becoming a D, and Incomplete a B. Anything else you want to argue?

 

[TobiasFunke]

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

There, 2 screen shots of Peppers grades, showing the F suddenly becoming a D, and Incomplete a B. Anything else you want to argue?

The F becoming a D is fully explained here. Actually paints a flattering picture of Peppers' academic efforts and integrity. I don't know how grading works but I see no reason to believe that something similar didn't happen with the incomplete; maybe the incomplete was pending a late exam or makeup work he was allowed to do. And that's assuming both those images are genuine and the grades are verified by the school as Peppers', which I see no reason to believe. For future reference- sports gossip sites and sites called statefans.com probably aren't your best bets when you're looking for ironclad evidence of something.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

I mean, now that all the PSU sanctions are reversed, other than the $60 million fine, do you think other schools are thinking that not properly reporting (at best) a child molesting former coach doesn't turn out that badly?

Of course not. That just sounds stupid.

Now, clearly the UNC academic scandal is more applicable to other schools than the PSU scandal. But I just don't see how other schools are now going to use the same methods to cheat, more than any of them currently do, because of the lack of a NCAA hammer, yet, at UNC.

Certainly the death penalty would do more to dissuade them. But I just don't buy that other schools will cheat more in the future if UNC isn't punished further.

 

[Archer]

How about this Tobias

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heel AFAM starter pack:

twitter.com/BDevilU1/status/566353459977269248

Tweet includes the following

1) Wainstein Report chart of earliest fake enrollments
2) Complete 23 year chart of "irregular" enrollments that UNC sent to SACS
3) The "22 of 25 fake enrollments" and "13-6 bball players" under Dean (BEFORE his 1993 title) comment
4) Crowder's "this is how we avoid NCAA 'red flags'" email

Go read that, especially #2, and then come back and tell me there is no proof, and no wrong doing okay?

 

[TobiasFunke]

How about this Tobias

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heel AFAM starter pack:

twitter.com/BDevilU1/status/566353459977269248

Tweet includes the following

1) Wainstein Report chart of earliest fake enrollments

2) Complete 23 year chart of "irregular" enrollments that UNC sent to SACS

3) The "22 of 25 fake enrollments" and "13-6 bball players" under Dean (BEFORE his 1993 title) comment

4) Crowder's "this is how we avoid NCAA 'red flags'" email

Go read that, especially #2, and then come back and tell me there is no proof, and no wrong doing okay?

I've seen it all. Not one shred of evidence of a UNC college basketball player getting a grade without doing the work. And as I've mentioned several times, if you want to go the "common sense" route than Duke's got even worse problems than UNC, because you and I both know there's about a 99.9% chance that Lance Thomas got paid to play basketball.

 

[Archer]

What about McCants. Here is his transcript.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DIKq_mpRiiM/VII3xMY8dZI/AAAAAAAAASA/ihU-Y6P4AJg/s1600/McCants%2BAFAM%2BCore%2BCourses.jpg

He said he he never took a test, turned in a paper, or even attended some of those classes. There is your proof. From one of your own PLAYERS. BOOM.

 

[Tau837]

The NCAA needs to hit them where it hurts, the pocketbook. Make the school pay a big fine. Make it tough for them to pay big bucks for their coaches. Make them have to wait a while to upgrade facilities and keep up with the other schools because they can't afford it.

That's what they should do.

This idea sounds good, but how much would they have to fine them to make it really hurt? What is the most the NCAA has ever fined a program?

 

[Archer]

Considering what they are spending on lawyers, I'm not sure hitting them in the purse is going to do that much. Take down the banners. take away the tainted wins. Cut the scholarships. Death penalty and all that jazz. That's what they deserve. I mean 2+ decades of cheating, and then lying to the NCAA about it...come on.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

 

[Tau837]

Ah, so when you say "the people involved" what you mean is "the people I think were involved even though there's no evidence of any wrongdoing". At least you're no longer attempting rational discussion and you've gone full Pack Pride mode. The honesty is refreshing, at least.

I have been quite clear in saying that I think Roy Williams knew. I refuse to believe that Guthridge, Doherty, and Walden knew, but Roy didn't. There is no question the baseball coach knew, as he was already caught in a lie about it.

I have also been quite clear in saying that I think those two and whatever others remain who were involved should be fired or otherwise punished.

And apparently you disagree with the statement "measures have been taken," but I'm not sure how. They've fired people, they've financed independent investigations, and I think they are working on or adopted a new oversight group. Those are "measures." They're just not the measures you want because they're focused on improving academic problems rather than making it more likely that an NC State sports team will beat a UNC sports team.

I laugh because UNC has announced other measures in the past several years as the football stuff unfolded, and they didn't seem to be effective. But fair point. You are right that they have taken measures. Hopefully they will be successful.

But maybe if NC State's fan base focused more on supporting their own teams and less on criticizing a university and athletic program they have no ties to that would also help improve their chances? I seriously doubt kids dream of one day playing for a fan base that does things like having a 48 page thread that started just three weeks ago about UNC's academic scandal but only a ten page thread about recruiting/transfers and an eight page thread about the current team's status in the various ranking systems, as we see here.

So the nature of posts on a fan message board could improve State's chances at winning games on the court/field? Who knew?

It so happens that State has excellent fan support for its programs, but thanks for your concern.

Also, yes, I do think it's silly when the NCAA punishes kids for stuff they didn't do. I think most of the NCAA's rules are preposterous, as are its enforcement efforts. The whole thing is silly and outdated, collusion meant to protect the schools financially and to cater to people who naively want to believe that the football and basketball players at their school are just regular students like they were so they feel some special tie to them that isn't really there. But that's a conversation for another time.

I don't necessarily disagree with this. But there is a system of rules in place. If the NCAA doesn't enforce them and punish the rule breakers, what is the point?

 

[Tau837]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

What people disagree with is the notion that they're getting away unpunished. Roy's reputation is taking a hit, deserved or not. One day this scandal will be mentioned in articles about his retirement and probably in his obit. It's likely harming the recruiting efforts of the basketball team and other teams as well. The university has been getting dragged through the mud for years now. The repercussions have been more than enough to discourage other programs from doing the same. Your complaint is that they haven't been the repercussions you want.

Can you show any evidence that it is harming recruiting?

at the notion that blemishing Roy's and the university's reputation is sufficient punishment.

 

[Tau837]

http://thebiglead.com/2012/08/13/unc-screwed-up-and-now-julius-pepperss-college-transcript-is-online-for-everyone-to-see/

There, 2 screen shots of Peppers grades, showing the F suddenly becoming a D, and Incomplete a B. Anything else you want to argue?

The F becoming a D is fully explained here. Actually paints a flattering picture of Peppers' academic efforts and integrity. I don't know how grading works but I see no reason to believe that something similar didn't happen with the incomplete; maybe the incomplete was pending a late exam or makeup work he was allowed to do. And that's assuming both those images are genuine and the grades are verified by the school as Peppers', which I see no reason to believe. For future reference- sports gossip sites and sites called statefans.com probably aren't your best bets when you're looking for ironclad evidence of something.

I agree with this. I don't doubt that Peppers may have maintained eligibility through this scheme, but I don't think what is posted here proves it.

 

[Tau837]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

I mean, now that all the PSU sanctions are reversed, other than the $60 million fine, do you think other schools are thinking that not properly reporting (at best) a child molesting former coach doesn't turn out that badly?

Of course not. That just sounds stupid.

Now, clearly the UNC academic scandal is more applicable to other schools than the PSU scandal. But I just don't see how other schools are now going to use the same methods to cheat, more than any of them currently do, because of the lack of a NCAA hammer, yet, at UNC.

Certainly the death penalty would do more to dissuade them. But I just don't buy that other schools will cheat more in the future if UNC isn't punished further.

You can't compare the PSU situation to the UNC situation. IMO there are a lot of unethical people in athletic departments who would consider doing what UNC did if they felt they could get away with it. It is a huge gulf between that and not reporting child molestation.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Yeah, I have to admit that JWB is losing me on the whole "other schools will do this because nothing bad happened". That's absurd. They didn't have the Men's Basketball titles vacated, which I think is what you and the Pack Pride folks, want to happen. But do you honestly think other schools think that this is the way to go? Or that people, both internal and external, won't be checking for these paper course a hell of a lot more in the future?

I couldn't care less about vacated titles. I care about scholarship restrictions, postseason bans, Roy retiring, etc.Yes, I absolutely believe that a flagship program cheating and getting away unpunished will encourage other unethical programs to cheat. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would disagree with that.

I mean, now that all the PSU sanctions are reversed, other than the $60 million fine, do you think other schools are thinking that not properly reporting (at best) a child molesting former coach doesn't turn out that badly?

Of course not. That just sounds stupid.

Now, clearly the UNC academic scandal is more applicable to other schools than the PSU scandal. But I just don't see how other schools are now going to use the same methods to cheat, more than any of them currently do, because of the lack of a NCAA hammer, yet, at UNC.

Certainly the death penalty would do more to dissuade them. But I just don't buy that other schools will cheat more in the future if UNC isn't punished further.

You can't compare the PSU situation to the UNC situation. IMO there are a lot of unethical people in athletic departments who would consider doing what UNC did if they felt they could get away with it. It is a huge gulf between that and not reporting child molestation.

Fair enough.

 

[Archer]

What about McCants. Here is his transcript.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DIKq_mpRiiM/VII3xMY8dZI/AAAAAAAAASA/ihU-Y6P4AJg/s1600/McCants%2BAFAM%2BCore%2BCourses.jpg

He said he he never took a test, turned in a paper, or even attended some of those classes. There is your proof. From one of your own PLAYERS. BOOM.

Hmmm, crickets from Tobias. Figures....

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

What about McCants. Here is his transcript.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DIKq_mpRiiM/VII3xMY8dZI/AAAAAAAAASA/ihU-Y6P4AJg/s1600/McCants%2BAFAM%2BCore%2BCourses.jpg

He said he he never took a test, turned in a paper, or even attended some of those classes. There is your proof. From one of your own PLAYERS. BOOM.

Hmmm, crickets from Tobias. Figures....

You never responded to his facts about Lance Thomas either.

 

[Archer]

Prove to me what NCAA rule lance Thomas broke. If you can't howabout you never post here again, or only after GT beats Duke. In other words, never again...