"NCAA's Clean Bill For unc Brings Howls" (c/p)

Sep 2, 2012, 11:10 PM

Published Sun, Sep 02, 2012 10:52 PM
Modified Sun, Sep 02, 2012 11:021
The NCAA’s clean bill for UNC brings howls

By Dan Kane - dkane@newsobserver.com

UNC-Chapel Hill’s announcement Friday that the NCAA continues to find no violations related to an academic scandal at the university that predominately benefited athletes has drawn criticism and disbelief from national sportswriters and others who follow college sports.

“The NCAA concludes no violations in UNC academic scandal,” tweeted Stewart Mandel, a college football writer for Sports Illustrated’s website. “This actually happened.”

Several said the announcement has given universities looking to gain the advantage in the big-money sports of football and basketball a license to bend the rules. Bruce Feldman, a college football columnist for CBSSports.com, said in a blog post the announcement shows that the “NCAA MAKES IT UP AS IT GOES ALONG. The NCAA finds pretty much whatever it wants to find – or not find.”

Jay Bilas, ESPN analyst and former Duke basketball player, said on Twitter: “And the NCAA wonders why it’s a laughingstock? Cue NCAA Prez to lecture on integrity, and who’s ‘in charge.’?”

Neither UNC-CH officials nor the NCAA offered an explanation for the determination. UNC-CH officials announced the news Friday morning ahead of a holiday weekend. The NCAA did not issue a statement or respond to an N&O request for comment, but provided a brief confirmation of UNC’s announcement later in the day.

UNC-CH has become embroiled in an investigation into academic fraud for more than a year, since The News & Observer obtained a partial transcript of former football defensive standout Marvin Austin, who was kicked off the team in 2010 after he was found to have accepted improper financial benefits from a sports agent. That NCAA investigation found others also received improper financial benefits, and a tutor was found to have provided improper help on college papers.

Austin’s transcript, which The N&O published Aug. 21, 2011, showed he had been allowed to take an upper-level African studies class before he took his full slate of classes as a freshman. He received a B-plus in the class, taught by the African studies department chairman, Julius Nyang’oro, before he had taken remedial writing as a first-semester freshman.

UNC-CH’s statement Friday makes no mention of this. The university said it notified the NCAA of “potential academic issues involving student-athletes in African and Afro-American Studies courses” on Aug. 24, 2011 – three days later.

The statement said an NCAA enforcement staff member later visited Chapel Hill “several times in the fall” to take part in the investigation. The NCAA staff member participated in interviews with faculty and staff in the African studies department and athletes who took several courses there. At that time, the NCAA determined no violations had occurred.

According to the statement, the NCAA has not visited the university since, but has relied upon the university’s information to determine no violations have occurred.

In May, UNC officials announced that an internal investigation found that Nyang’oro and a former department manager, Deborah Crowder, were involved in creating dozens of classes that had little or no instruction, including the class taken by Austin, who now plays for the New York Giants. Nyang’oro was directly tied to all but nine of the 54 bogus classes found over a four-year period that began in summer 2007.

Athletes filled classes

Since then, public records requested filed by the N&O showed that athletes accounted for nearly two-thirds of the enrollments in the bogus classes. Some of the classes had nothing but athletes enrolled; two had nothing but a single basketball player.

In avoiding a finding of violations, UNC appears to have persuaded the NCAA that the classes did not constitute special treatment for athletes because nonathletes were also enrolled.

David Ridpath, an Ohio University sports administration professor, said in a recent column for the College Sports Business News website that UNC-CH’s contention is an “extremely weak and disingenuous argument.”

The academic treatment of UNC athletes attracted national attention three weeks ago when a second transcript was accidentally made available online due to a staff error. It belongs to one of the university’s most popular star athletes, Julius Peppers, who played both football and basketball at UNC-CH, and is now an All-Pro defensive end for the Chicago Bears.

The transcript shows that Peppers had done poorly in many classes, but received grades of B or better in several courses that several years later were found to be suspect in the internal investigation. For example, Peppers was allowed to take an independent studies class the summer after his freshman year, a period in which he received two D-pluses, two Ds, an F, a C and a B.

Independent studies are typically offered to students who have shown the study and organizational skills to accomplish a research project on their own. Those classes, as his transcript showed, kept Peppers eligible to compete in football and basketball.

The transcript suggests the bogus classes and poorly supervised independent studies stretch back into the 1990s. Nyang’oro, who was forced into retirement in July, had been chairman of the African studies department since 1992.

Peppers has not given any interviews regarding the transcript, but in a statement released by his agent, Carl Carey Jr., Peppers said the transcript was his, but he committed no academic fraud as it related to his transcript.

On Thursday, Chancellor Holden Thorp explained to a UNC Board of Governors panel how the transcript became public, but offered no explanation for the odd configuration of Peppers’ academic record.

The panel was assembled to review the university’s academic fraud investigation. After Peppers’ transcript surfaced, Thorp announced an additional investigation, led by former Gov. Jim Martin, to determine whether additional academic irregularities occurred.

UNC-CH officials first told the public about their internal investigation on Sept. 1, 2011. At the time, the university offered few details other than to say there were “academic irregularities” in the department that involved athletes and nonathletes.

Since then, the university has cited that there were also nonathletes enrolled in the classes to contend that this was not a matter for the NCAA. A former head of the NCAA’s infractions committee, Josephine Potuto, told the N&O in an interview two months ago that the NCAA does not get involved in cases in which the academic fraud was not intended to specifically benefit athletes.

But Thorp recently told the UNC BOG panel that the university does not know the motive behind Nyang’oro’s and Crowder’s actions. In one summer 2011 class, records obtained by the N&O show that Nyang’oro created the class two days before the semester began and it immediately filled with football players. A faculty report also said evidence suggests academic counselors assigned to the athletes steered them to the classes, and Crowder, the former departmental chairwoman, had close ties to the athletic department and particularly the men’s basketball team.

Protecting the program?

If the intent of the no-show classes and independent studies were to keep athletes eligible, the university could face major sanctions that could bring down championship banners for its men’s basketball team.

Basketball is where the NCAA makes the lion share of its revenues. A nonprofit association, its most recently available tax return on Guidestar.org shows nearly all of its $740 million in revenues came from the nationally-televised basketball tournament.

Hence, there is concern that what happened Friday was the NCAA protecting a celebrated, lucrative basketball program.

“I don’t know how the NCAA can justify this,” wrote Michael Rosenberg, another Sports Illustrated columnist. “I don’t understand why Penn State has to spend four years in the NCAA’s intensive-care-unit for the abhorrent actions of a few former employees, while North Carolina gets a pass for its rampant academic fraud.”

Brian Barbour, a blogger on Tar Heel Blog, writes that, according to NCAA rules and available information, no action against UNC is appropriate.

“Show me a well thought out piece with actual rules cited and real information from the NCAA or former NCAA staff members then I will be glad to listen,” he writes. “Otherwise I can do without the faux rage, excessive whining and incessant insinuations that prove nothing.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/09/02/2312659/the-ncaas-clean-bill-for-unc-brings.html#storylink=cpy

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"NCAA's Clean Bill For unc Brings Howls" (c/p)

As I have said since the beginning

Re: As I have said since the beginning

Hate to burst your bubble

I think you missed his sarcasm***

This is only going to fire up the media, especially in

Lets hope***

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