(08-15-2017 10:13 AM)XLance Wrote:  BTW the ONLY professor involved was the Dean of the department.

Has there been any interview with this person released publicly? IE ...... what the hell was he/she thinking?????

(08-15-2017 11:07 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I cannot conceive of a situation in which a person who had that particular job would not have known.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But for some reason, I feel pretty strongly that there was no such job in athletic depts. I think they have one person who handles all matters and activities related to compliance. So, checking that hundreds of student-athletes are "on track", per the NCAA requirements of credits earned by such and such a milestone in their academic career, is just one aspect, of one part, of that one position.

But the level of course investigation I'm talking about here would be a full-time job alone.

(08-15-2017 11:05 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Because it was the school that joined the NCAA, not the athletic department. In the eyes of the NCAA the latter is merely an aspect of the former, and not a separate entity. Hence the term "institutional control" is appropriate.

If UNC also committed a crime, fraud, that should be punishable under the law. But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

This is not an honest argument, in my opinion.

Because, for example, you would never argue that the NCAA should be called upon to judge the school for fraud in the IT dept. That has nothing to do with sports, but everything to do with the school. Therefore, it was understood that the NCAA had to do with sports, and sports alone.

Likewise, if only non-athlete students had taken the fake course, you would never call upon the NCAA to judge the school. Only because student-athletes were steered into the course, by university staff outside the athletic dept, are you calling upon the NCAA.

I reject that. And I reject the notion that athletic dept staff must maintain complete and total control, over the university or over their student-athletes.

That is my opinion. I know you don't agree with it, and we can just let it lie there, with you getting the last word if you like.

(08-15-2017 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Well, the legal fiction that is the reasonably prudent person is a topic we could fill pages on.

In the legal world a jury would decide wether or not a person has acted in accordance with the standard but in this instance it would be the NCAA.

It's just asking yourself how a person, acting reasonably and prudently, would act under a certain set of circumstances.

In my layperson's opinion, a jury must view that an athletic dept staffer would have had to perform an unreasonable and unexpected amount of investigation into the operations of individual courses offered at the university and enrolled in by student-athletes to catch the fake courses.

Maybe in light of this case, such duties will now be commonplace tasks assigned to the athletic dept. Perhaps they'll need to hire someone to dig into courses and make sure they're legit, interviewing university faculty, deans, teaching assistants, etc. But that wasn't true before this happened.

Bison this is my last post with you on this subject. Obviously you want to turn another thread into your nonsensical quibbling. It has everything to do with the NCAA when it involves the eligibility of athletes to compete. My point is that the athletic department didn't join the NCAA, the school did. So when a violation pertaining to athletics occurs it is the school that is held responsible since it is the school that joined of which the athletic department is only a component. Therefore it is the school who is responsible for the oversight of the athletic program, not the hooey you are trying to use to obfuscate the point where you claim that it would require the athletic department to have oversight of the school. The athletic department may be to blame in many cases, but the school is the legal entity charged with enforcement and it is the school which is punished. Sanctions from the NCAA may punish by singling out the offending entity within the school by leveling sanctions against the actual offender, but it is the school itself which remains responsible throughout the process. Why? Because it is the school that tasked with oversight of its athletics, not the athletic department.

(08-15-2017 11:14 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Bison this is my last post with you on this subject. Obviously you want to turn another thread into your nonsensical quibbling. It has everything to do with the NCAA when it involves the eligibility of athletes to compete. My point is that the athletic department didn't join the NCAA, the school did. So when a violation pertaining to athletics occurs it is the school that is held responsible since it is the school that joined of which the athletic department is only a component. Therefore it is the school who is responsible for the oversight of the athletic program, not the hooey you are trying to use to obfuscate the point where you claim that it would require the athletic department to have oversight of the school. The athletic department may be to blame in many cases, but the school is the legal entity charged with enforcement and it is the school which is punished. Sanctions from the NCAA may punish by singling out the offending entity within the school by leveling sanctions against the actual offender, but it is the school itself which remains responsible throughout the process. Why? Because it is the school that tasked with oversight of its athletics, not the athletic department.

I think that's a good point actually.

I think perhaps a solution to what happened at UNC is that there should be some oversight from the administration to ensure every course offered is legitimate. Now what form that takes, I'm not sure and wouldn't be the person to ask.

One could argue that academic freedom is paramount, but when it comes to whether or not the school is faced with a suspension of accreditation or some financial penalty(which is essentially what an NCAA penalty is) then it behooves the school to ensure there's a system in place that prevents professors from abusing their privileges.

But yeah, I'd have to agree it is the school's ultimate responsibility to make sure an athlete is eligible.

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

It's still a power grab. Is the NCAA going to go after every team that steers athletes into the easiest classes on campus, or is the NCAA going to look at every class and decide for itself whether the class is too easy? They'll be deciding that a class with no exams and only two group projects is ok, while a class with no exams and one 10-page report is not ok. That ought to be a decision for university administrators and accrediting committees, not the NCAA. I'm not basing this on blind faith in universities, I'm basing it on a lack of faith in the NCAA machinery.

Now, if you have classes open only to athletes, or to athletes on a certain team, or if athletes are the only students allowed to do little or no work in a class, then that's a violation and an easy line to draw.

Who hasn't lost credibility out of UNC and the NCAA?

i always tought that you join a club, you agree with the by-laws & accept dicisions made by such club
a Dean of school wakes up one day and decides to offer fake classes to keep tution money coming in, to his dept nonetheless.
it take 10 yrs to figure this out, now your talking consperisay & coverup
this would be NCAA, D of Educaton & FBI matter

(08-15-2017 11:56 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

It's still a power grab. Is the NCAA going to go after every team that steers athletes into the easiest classes on campus, or is the NCAA going to look at every class and decide for itself whether the class is too easy? They'll be deciding that a class with no exams and only two group projects is ok, while a class with no exams and one 10-page report is not ok. That ought to be a decision for university administrators and accrediting committees, not the NCAA. I'm not basing this on blind faith in universities, I'm basing it on a lack of faith in the NCAA machinery.

Now, if you have classes open only to athletes, or to athletes on a certain team, or if athletes are the only students allowed to do little or no work in a class, then that's a violation and an easy line to draw.

I think there's a distinction here between the NCAA overseeing academic standards and balking at academic fraud.

I'm not sure the NCAA should really have purview in this particular case, but as long as the school and accreditation agency have highlighted wrong doing and as long as it affects athletics in some respect then I think an argument could made it's appropriate for the NCAA to act.

Now personally, I think the NCAA is a fairly useless bureaucracy so I'm not going to get upset if they don't act, but I don't think it would be the worst thing if they did.

(08-15-2017 10:11 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 09:37 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  My opinion, while not popular here but I believe is absolutely correct, is that there should be a complete and total firewall between the NCAA and anything that happens outside a school's athletic dept and athletic dept staff.

If academic counselors, who weren't working for the athletic dept, took it upon themselves to invent fake courses and then took it upon themselves to steer student-athletes to those courses ...... of course that's wrong, and some sort of punishment to those people should be given. The school of course should review its processes to make sure it can't happen again. But none of that has or should have anything to do with the NCAA. The athletic dept staff can't be 24/7 policeman, running about looking for any possible trace of any wrongdoing whatsoever that might possible involve any student-athlete.


Otherwise, what essentially would be the case is that the NCAA is telling athletic dept staff that "if you don't know every single detail and can't account for every possible action and second of time of every student-athlete at the school, then you're breaking an NCAA rule that says you must have absolute and total control over your student-athletes, and therefore we can punish you". Such interpretation are horse manure, and the school should threaten to sue the NCAA if the punishments are in any way excessive (ie, more than wrist slaps).

Whatever happened to the culpability that goes along with intending to obfuscate and deceive? Fake classes were offered, fake grades were given, and those fake classes were billed. That's fraud. The fact that the athletic department can't police the university is precisely why the university is held responsible. That again is the essence of "Lack of Institutional Control" because the institution has designed the "Lack" so that they don't have to claim "Control".

And a point that never gets addressed here is that the NCAA has the right to punish the school. Why? Because the damned school joined the NCAA and ceded them the right by becoming a member of their association. If UNC doesn't like what the NCAA does in response to their egregious violations they have the right to withdraw if they do not wish to suffer the penalty.

The whole legal argument that the UNC lawyers are putting forth merely highlights the careful obfuscation that the University perpetrated in order to cheat. Their very legal argument is essentially an admission of their guilt.

Bison your position here is consistent, but reflective of the kind of argumentation that anarchists like to perpetuate. No ability to govern wrongdoing is by definition anarchy.

You are describing fraud, though, and wouldn't that be handled via a criminal or civil case? The NCAA could sue UNC for committing fraud or violating the NCAA charter.

There is a very thin line between NCAA enforcing policies and the NCAA enforcing law.

(08-15-2017 12:17 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 11:56 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

It's still a power grab. Is the NCAA going to go after every team that steers athletes into the easiest classes on campus, or is the NCAA going to look at every class and decide for itself whether the class is too easy? They'll be deciding that a class with no exams and only two group projects is ok, while a class with no exams and one 10-page report is not ok. That ought to be a decision for university administrators and accrediting committees, not the NCAA. I'm not basing this on blind faith in universities, I'm basing it on a lack of faith in the NCAA machinery.

Now, if you have classes open only to athletes, or to athletes on a certain team, or if athletes are the only students allowed to do little or no work in a class, then that's a violation and an easy line to draw.

I think there's a distinction here between the NCAA overseeing academic standards and balking at academic fraud.

I'm not sure the NCAA should really have purview in this particular case, but as long as the school and accreditation agency have highlighted wrong doing and as long as it affects athletics in some respect then I think an argument could made it's appropriate for the NCAA to act.

Now personally, I think the NCAA is a fairly useless bureaucracy so I'm not going to get upset if they don't act, but I don't think it would be the worst thing if they did.

I'm not going to feel bad for the coaches and ADs who were complicit if they get hit. I'm just not a fan of the NCAA extending its tentacles into new areas.

(08-15-2017 01:58 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:11 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 09:37 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  My opinion, while not popular here but I believe is absolutely correct, is that there should be a complete and total firewall between the NCAA and anything that happens outside a school's athletic dept and athletic dept staff.

If academic counselors, who weren't working for the athletic dept, took it upon themselves to invent fake courses and then took it upon themselves to steer student-athletes to those courses ...... of course that's wrong, and some sort of punishment to those people should be given. The school of course should review its processes to make sure it can't happen again. But none of that has or should have anything to do with the NCAA. The athletic dept staff can't be 24/7 policeman, running about looking for any possible trace of any wrongdoing whatsoever that might possible involve any student-athlete.


Otherwise, what essentially would be the case is that the NCAA is telling athletic dept staff that "if you don't know every single detail and can't account for every possible action and second of time of every student-athlete at the school, then you're breaking an NCAA rule that says you must have absolute and total control over your student-athletes, and therefore we can punish you". Such interpretation are horse manure, and the school should threaten to sue the NCAA if the punishments are in any way excessive (ie, more than wrist slaps).

Whatever happened to the culpability that goes along with intending to obfuscate and deceive? Fake classes were offered, fake grades were given, and those fake classes were billed. That's fraud. The fact that the athletic department can't police the university is precisely why the university is held responsible. That again is the essence of "Lack of Institutional Control" because the institution has designed the "Lack" so that they don't have to claim "Control".

And a point that never gets addressed here is that the NCAA has the right to punish the school. Why? Because the damned school joined the NCAA and ceded them the right by becoming a member of their association. If UNC doesn't like what the NCAA does in response to their egregious violations they have the right to withdraw if they do not wish to suffer the penalty.

The whole legal argument that the UNC lawyers are putting forth merely highlights the careful obfuscation that the University perpetrated in order to cheat. Their very legal argument is essentially an admission of their guilt.

Bison your position here is consistent, but reflective of the kind of argumentation that anarchists like to perpetuate. No ability to govern wrongdoing is by definition anarchy.

You are describing fraud, though, and wouldn't that be handled via a criminal or civil case? The NCAA could sue UNC for committing fraud or violating the NCAA charter.

There is a very thin line between NCAA enforcing policies and the NCAA enforcing law.

I don't know why there is so much confusion between rules and regulations of membership in the NCAA and criminal law. Just because something is a crime it doesn't keep those aspects of the crime that violate the rules and regulations of the NCAA from being treated separately.

When laws are broken it is up to state or federal law to prosecute. Their action to prosecute, or their failure to prosecute, does not nullify the ability of the organization to administer their own oversight with regard to membership in their organization. One may face sanctions from the NCAA and simultaneously be prosecuted under the law. For the NCAA to refrain to impose their own sanctions just because there is a legal matter to be decided is an abnegation of their responsibility to the member institutions.

I do think Penn State was both clean of infractions regarding their program under the NCAA and yet criminally liable for wrong doing.

In the case of Baylor they are both likely to be found guilty of covering up felonies, and simultaneously be found guilty for lack of institutional control over an athletic department run amok. Also it might be argued that covering up the crimes of players is tantamount to a benefit that the ordinary student couldn't receive.

In the case of UNC clearly there may be criminal fraud involved especially as it pertains to billing for classes not held. But it is also very clear that the primary beneficiaries of the bogus classes were athletes. So both criminal charges and NCAA sanctions could be merited.

(08-15-2017 11:07 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 11:05 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Because it was the school that joined the NCAA, not the athletic department. In the eyes of the NCAA the latter is merely an aspect of the former, and not a separate entity. Hence the term "institutional control" is appropriate.

If UNC also committed a crime, fraud, that should be punishable under the law. But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

This is not an honest argument, in my opinion.

Because, for example, you would never argue that the NCAA should be called upon to judge the school for fraud in the IT dept. That has nothing to do with sports, but everything to do with the school. Therefore, it was understood that the NCAA had to do with sports, and sports alone.

Likewise, if only non-athlete students had taken the fake course, you would never call upon the NCAA to judge the school. Only because student-athletes were steered into the course, by university staff outside the athletic dept, are you calling upon the NCAA.

I reject that. And I reject the notion that athletic dept staff must maintain complete and total control, over the university or over their student-athletes.

That is my opinion. I know you don't agree with it, and we can just let it lie there, with you getting the last word if you like.

(08-15-2017 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Well, the legal fiction that is the reasonably prudent person is a topic we could fill pages on.

In the legal world a jury would decide wether or not a person has acted in accordance with the standard but in this instance it would be the NCAA.

It's just asking yourself how a person, acting reasonably and prudently, would act under a certain set of circumstances.

In my layperson's opinion, a jury must view that an athletic dept staffer would have had to perform an unreasonable and unexpected amount of investigation into the operations of individual courses offered at the university and enrolled in by student-athletes to catch the fake courses.

Maybe in light of this case, such duties will now be commonplace tasks assigned to the athletic dept. Perhaps they'll need to hire someone to dig into courses and make sure they're legit, interviewing university faculty, deans, teaching assistants, etc. But that wasn't true before this happened.

And that's totally fair.

I am not familiar with every position in an athletic department but I would think that there is somebody who is responsible for staying on them academically to make sure they remain eligible. Maybe I'm wrong.

I cannot conceive of a situation in which a person who had that particular job would not have known.

Are you saying that if, someone in the IT department falsified records to fraudulently maintain an athletes eligibility, the NCAA could/should do nothing?

Athletic departments have people checking to see if they are in fact going to class, passing or failing, need tutors, etc. FBS schools have 800-1000 athletes (my guestimate). I can't imagine 1 person being able to keep up with that. I'm guessing they would need 1 person for every 100 athletes or so. Coaches and staff get reports of all that stuff. So, yes, someone should have caught that way before 10 years.

(08-15-2017 03:02 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 11:07 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 11:05 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 10:51 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Because it was the school that joined the NCAA, not the athletic department. In the eyes of the NCAA the latter is merely an aspect of the former, and not a separate entity. Hence the term "institutional control" is appropriate.

If UNC also committed a crime, fraud, that should be punishable under the law. But the intent to make ineligible players eligible is under the purview of the NCAA.

This is not an honest argument, in my opinion.

Because, for example, you would never argue that the NCAA should be called upon to judge the school for fraud in the IT dept. That has nothing to do with sports, but everything to do with the school. Therefore, it was understood that the NCAA had to do with sports, and sports alone.

Likewise, if only non-athlete students had taken the fake course, you would never call upon the NCAA to judge the school. Only because student-athletes were steered into the course, by university staff outside the athletic dept, are you calling upon the NCAA.

I reject that. And I reject the notion that athletic dept staff must maintain complete and total control, over the university or over their student-athletes.

That is my opinion. I know you don't agree with it, and we can just let it lie there, with you getting the last word if you like.

(08-15-2017 10:55 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Well, the legal fiction that is the reasonably prudent person is a topic we could fill pages on.

In the legal world a jury would decide wether or not a person has acted in accordance with the standard but in this instance it would be the NCAA.

It's just asking yourself how a person, acting reasonably and prudently, would act under a certain set of circumstances.

In my layperson's opinion, a jury must view that an athletic dept staffer would have had to perform an unreasonable and unexpected amount of investigation into the operations of individual courses offered at the university and enrolled in by student-athletes to catch the fake courses.

Maybe in light of this case, such duties will now be commonplace tasks assigned to the athletic dept. Perhaps they'll need to hire someone to dig into courses and make sure they're legit, interviewing university faculty, deans, teaching assistants, etc. But that wasn't true before this happened.

And that's totally fair.

I am not familiar with every position in an athletic department but I would think that there is somebody who is responsible for staying on them academically to make sure they remain eligible. Maybe I'm wrong.

I cannot conceive of a situation in which a person who had that particular job would not have known.

Are you saying that if, someone in the IT department falsified records to fraudulently maintain an athletes eligibility, the NCAA could/should do nothing?

Athletic departments have people checking to see if they are in fact going to class, passing or failing, need tutors, etc. FBS schools have 800-1000 athletes (my guestimate). I can't imagine 1 person being able to keep up with that. I'm guessing they would need 1 person for every 100 athletes or so. Coaches and staff get reports of all that stuff. So, yes, someone should have caught that way before 10 years.

If said IT guy is doing it without the Athletic department knowing then no the athletic department should not be punished.

The mechanism for punishing that activity already exists.

I figured they did have people like that. If those people know about what is going on, or bury their head in the sand, then there should be punishment from the NCAA.

(08-15-2017 03:23 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I figured they did have people like that. If those people know about what is going on, or bury their head in the sand, then there should be punishment from the NCAA.

But again, there is a huge gap between "Athletic departments have people checking to see if they are in fact going to class, passing or failing, need tutors, etc" and "Athletic departments have people who deep dive and investigate every course that has a student-athlete enrolled, interviewing faculty, past teaching assistants, and deans, to makes sure that the class is 'legitimate' per NCAA requirements".

Huge gap. You can't prove that UNC compliance staff is culpable in ignoring a "duty" to perform the second definition tasks. And also again, may just be one person doing compliance for the whole athletic dept.


Let alone, as Wedge already highlighted, there are no such NCAA requirements for what constitutes a "minimum amount of work" for a course to be "legitimate", nor do we want the NCAA going down that path!

(08-15-2017 03:57 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 03:23 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I figured they did have people like that. If those people know about what is going on, or bury their head in the sand, then there should be punishment from the NCAA.

But again, there is a huge gap between "Athletic departments have people checking to see if they are in fact going to class, passing or failing, need tutors, etc" and "Athletic departments have people who deep dive and investigate every course that has a student-athlete enrolled, interviewing faculty, past teaching assistants, and deans, to makes sure that the class is 'legitimate' per NCAA requirements".

Huge gap. You can't prove that UNC compliance staff is culpable in ignoring a "duty" to perform the second definition tasks. And also again, may just be one person doing compliance for the whole athletic dept.


Let alone, as Wedge already highlighted, there are no such NCAA requirements for what constitutes a "minimum amount of work" for a course to be "legitimate", nor do we want the NCAA going down that path!

I'm not going so far as to institute any kind of academic rigor minimum standard.

However, the people that are making sure these kids are going to class do know when they are in blowoff classes. That by itself is fine. But, if you layer the UNC situation on top of that I find it hard to believe those individuals did not know the extent of it.

I remember one kid getting an A for a Rosa Parks essay which wouldn't get a 3rd grader a C. That is the kind of thing that should have been passed on.

(08-15-2017 04:12 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I'm not going so far as to institute any kind of academic rigor minimum standard.

However, the people that are making sure these kids are going to class do know when they are in blowoff classes. That by itself is fine. But, if you layer the UNC situation on top of that I find it hard to believe those individuals did not know the extent of it.

I'm just curious why you think that is so easy to know?

You can't simply know that from looking at the title of the class, unless it's like "Intro to Scuba-diving". Why would anyone, a coach, a counselor, a compliance staffer, look at a class title like "History of Afro-American Studies" or something to that effect and assume that it was severely lacking in academic rigor, to the point of being fraudulent??????

That is completely non-apparent to me. I could well just be missing something ...


You could say perhaps that "well they could easily see that many student-athletes over the last 10 years have taken that class". Of course. But how would you know the difference between simply an "easy" class, yet meeting sufficient rigor, and a fraudulent class, not at all meeting rigor, unless you took the effort to investigate it yourself??? You could then perhaps say "well they should have investigated it! That's their job". To that I would only say that hindsight is 20/20. I don't believe that is a normal part of the job, and would have taken an extraordinary circumstance (perhaps dumb luck) to even stumble upon something actionable to even go down the path of such an investigation.

(08-15-2017 05:12 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 04:12 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I'm not going so far as to institute any kind of academic rigor minimum standard.

However, the people that are making sure these kids are going to class do know when they are in blowoff classes. That by itself is fine. But, if you layer the UNC situation on top of that I find it hard to believe those individuals did not know the extent of it.

I'm just curious why you think that is so easy to know?

You can't simply know that from looking at the title of the class, unless it's like "Intro to Scuba-diving". Why would anyone, a coach, a counselor, a compliance staffer, look at a class title like "History of Afro-American Studies" or something to that effect and assume that it was severely lacking in academic rigor, to the point of being fraudulent??????

That is completely non-apparent to me. I could well just be missing something ...


You could say perhaps that "well they could easily see that many student-athletes over the last 10 years have taken that class". Of course. But how would you know the difference between simply an "easy" class, yet meeting sufficient rigor, and a fraudulent class, not at all meeting rigor, unless you took the effort to investigate it yourself??? You could then perhaps say "well they should have investigated it! That's their job". To that I would only say that hindsight is 20/20. I don't believe that is a normal part of the job, and would have taken an extraordinary circumstance (perhaps dumb luck) to even stumble upon something actionable to even go down the path of such an investigation.

In the revenue sports the nature of every single class is known by the academic advisors in the P-5. Every single class.

Having a degree from UNC, I can assure you that Independent Study Classes such as this were not only frowned upon, but highly regulated, typically reserved only for qualified Seniors and Juniors doing an independent research. A paper in such a class would typically run 50 pages and contain more than a review of the literature.

The woman at the center is a "cut out" and it is not a coincidence that she has lived for years with a former UNC basketball player. The reason the frat boys could wedge their way into a few of these "classes" is because they could expose the scheme used to keep players eligible that otherwise would not make it the first year at UNC.

UNC-Ch is not easy for a real student. No it's not as rigorous as Duke, or as rigorous as a STEM program at NC State, but it's not a cake walk. The scheme evolved because these kids had no business in school at UNC. It was first done to help a few basketball players and keep Smiths' promise to the parents of these kids. That's the reason no basketball player has been ruled ineligible at UNC since Robert McAdoo in 1971.

After Smith retired and Doh was run off, the skirting of the standards escalated began to include football and culminated with astonishing things like a baseball player making 4 A's in Summer School at UNC while playing Legion ball in another state.

The NCAA has the ability to punish UNC for this because it was perpetuated to keep players eligible.

The competitive advantage for UNC is the guaranteed degree and the ability for players not to have to worry about academics.

Anyone who thinks the NCAA can't punish UNC for this is ill-informed and knows very little about how Universities work at the P-5 level.

For those who don't get it - the scheme worked because so many at UNC-Ch felt that UNC already had exploited many of these student athletes and didn't like it - but what could they do? If they blow the whistle, how does that help the student-athlete? That's the crux upon which the heads turned a blind eye. As he recruited, Smith and Gut made PERSONAL promises to the mother of the kids that their kid would get a degree from UNC and that he would keep them out of the newspapers and courthouse.

This happens in other venues in universities in other situations - a kid is there, can't do the work, and for some reason, the ptb take pity on the person and nurse them through. The greed of the big boosters is secondary to this reality. The difference with UNC was the willingness to hold to this image in the face of the reality being known by far too many to keep it quiet.

Ballplayers at State, Duke, and ECU knew what was going on as did kids at VT and SC. People in the Iron Dukes and Wolfpack Club knew, but without black and white confirmation what could you PROVE? UNC-Ch had more moles than your typical backyard garden. Moles with all sorts of axes to grind and some of them were former players and not the ones in the revenue sports.

The unraveling of this did not start with poor fat Marvin Austin. Marvin tossed gasoline on the smoulder but the unraveling starts with soccer - womens soccer. Nothing like a woman scorned. Tell the right people with other axes to grind and there you are.

(08-15-2017 06:19 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  Marvin tossed gasoline on the smoulder but the unraveling starts with soccer - womens soccer. Nothing like a woman scorned.

How were they scorned? There were reportedly many women's soccer players in those classes.

(08-15-2017 06:52 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(08-15-2017 06:19 PM)lumberpack4 Wrote:  Marvin tossed gasoline on the smoulder but the unraveling starts with soccer - womens soccer. Nothing like a woman scorned.

How were they scorned? There were reportedly many women's soccer players in those classes.

No there were not many soccer girls in those classes although many soccer girls were accommodated in various ways. The soccer girls are legitimate students. I'll PM you.

There are two issues and they are separate even though they overlap by distinction. The violation of rules and NCAA's power to monitor and enforce them.

There are a lot of rules that are academic and a lot that are athletic. That is the fine line the NCAA is skirting - especially in this case. If they start governing the academic stuff beyond the pass/fail aspect, they are going down a deep and dark hole that that they are not big enough to monitor properly.

If the NCAA does decide to overstep their authority and/or "over enforce" the penalty on this it could be a watershed moment for the NCAA and not in a good way. There will be some who are fist pumping with a harsh penalty, but there will be many, many more who will be more than uncomfortable with this to the point that it may be the final straw that the P5 needs to break away and create their own organization and that would suck....


NC and Richard Nixon have a lot in common, everybody does it, they just got caught.