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Elite Athletes Steered to "Easy" Classes?

IdaGriz01

IdaGriz01

Well-known member
The report, at http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/11745036/north-carolina-investigation-says-advisers-pushed-sham-classes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
concerns a basketball program, but the it's really about big-time athletic program, obviously including football. There are really two issues here, one no big surprise, the other ... well, we're only allowed to sigh.

First I must say I am shocked, utterly shocked that academic advisers would recommend that "student-athletes" should take classes that are known to be "easier." :lol:
Just kidding ... really. I have no particular problem with advisers suggesting that students (athletes or not) who are academically under-prepared should avoid situations where they're more likely to fail. Their job is to try to give all students a successful college experience -- even if that means recommending remedial or "foundational" classes before they tackle the tough stuff.

The bad part here is that some classes seem to have been specifically designed, and administered, to help under-qualified (academically) athletes maintain the GPA needed to be eligible. It's crap like this, in what has been viewed as a relatively clean program, that gets the athlete-hating clique on campus all riled up (and rightly so).
 
Proud Griz Man said:
Ask Marty Mornhinweg about those easy PE classes soon.
Click to expand...

I remember 'ol Marty struggling (at least) with academics. And yet he seems to have done pretty darn well for himself. I think the academic world should recognize that athletics IS a kind of intelligence, and one that can be parlayed into a variety of meaningful careers. Might it be time to say that it's not unlike a degree in music or theater in how it "gives back" to society? And yet we are always shocked when athletes cheat to stay eligible. Perhaps athletes who struggle academically should be allowed an appropriate legit curriculum tailored for that discipline.
 
The athletes at UNC might have been elite 5 years ago, but a few ACC schools' athletes have very lately emerged from literal obscurity. Accordingly, UNC's athletes are no longer elite, and this thread is therefore incorrectly titled. Please amend, thx.
 
This was a politically correct motivation that is infected more by PC than "athletics."

"The classes were a creation of Deborah Crowder, student-services manager in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM). Sympathetic toward students who were not “the best and the brightest,” and a diehard UNC athletics fan, she concocted hundreds of classes, issuing paper topics and grading papers — giving, of course, As and high Bs — though she was not a faculty member. The faculty member formally listed, AFAM department chairman Julius Nyang’oro, acquiesced to the scheme, and when Crowder retired in 2009 took up the fraud. Counselors in the know pushed struggling students into the department, and some even mentioned to Crowder what grades a student required to remain NCAA-eligible. Coaches knew. Academic advisers knew. A whole lot of students knew. And no one said anything — except Mary Willingham, an on-campus reading specialist who worked with a number of student-athletes, who says she was demoted for blowing the whistle. She filed suit against the university this summer."

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/391068/eliminate-college-sports-ian-tuttle" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This was an "affirmative action" program of the kind contaminating all aspects of the collegiate experience.
 
This was bad, and bad academic fraud, almost any way one looks at it. I believe UNC will get hammered by the ncaa. Talk about lack of institutional control. If the ncaa can determine that specific athletes were or should have been ineligible, that would make the program even bigger. Surprising for a strong academic institution like UNC.

On the other hand, and just focusing on the paper courses, there were 3100 students in paper courses over 18 years, half of whom were athletes. That's 86 athletes per year on average. Assuming each athlete took only 1 paper course in a year, the athlete would have taken about 1/12 of his/her course load that year with a paper course. UNC appears to have semesters at this time, and I guessed 12 courses per year. Over 4 years, it would be 1/48. I haven't read the report, but I assume 86 athletes taking the paper courses per year, still had to take 47 other presumably harder or normal courses. Not trying to justify what UNC did, but trying to put this in some perspective.

UNC has 28 sports at this time. altho most of the athletes taking these courses were football and basketball players.

Saying what grade an athlete needed is not necessarily the same as actually getting that grade. I'll have to look at the report to see if it was able to determine that grades were given as "requested". Presumably, almost every grade given in the paper courses was high anyway.
 
So the school was lowering the bar for athletes to stay eligible? What is wrong with that, it happens everyday in life now.
 
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