A report titled the “Wainstein Report” uncovered 18 years of fraudulent courses at the University of North Carolina when it was released in late October. The “paper classes” were courses that athletes took in order to remain eligible for sports.
Essentially the classes consisted of enrolling, submitting a one-paragraph essay and receiving a grade. Last year a 146-word essay from a former UNC football player surfaced. Even though it was only 146 words, laced with grammatical errors and not accurate to the real story, the student received an A-.
This was commonplace for UNC in the last 18 years. More than 3,100 students enrolled in these courses. Now, the university has the audacity to say that the current coaches had “no knowledge” of the fake courses.
I find that awfully hard to believe. Especially with all of the academic regulations coaches are aware players must respect to remain eligible.
Perhaps the saddest part of this entire scandal is that it originally surfaced five years ago, and few people know. Whether or not the lack of publicity is because news outlets didn’t want to touch the subject is unclear. But now that the eight-month Wainstein Report is available to the public, they must.
Unless, of course, you’re ESPN. The supposed world leader in sports reporting has completely ignored the issue. That said, it’s worth pointing out ESPN’s current president, John Skipper, received his degree from UNC.
What all this boils down to is that UNC created fake courses so athletes could meet academic standards. The athletes enrolled in these courses had no interest in being actual students. That presents a big problem.
The NCAA requires that athletes are student-athletes. That they attend courses the same as any other student. If you ever watch a press conference during the NCAA Basketball Tournament you will hear the “student-athlete” term a few dozen times.
Now, it’s time for the NCAA to step in. An organization that prides itself on amateurism and student-athletes needs to ensure that it takes appropriate measures to punish UNC. A punishment that includes taking into account that the last 18 years of North Carolina sports were played by what should have been ineligible athletes.
IU received a harsher punishment for Kelvin Sampson making illegal phone calls than UNC has received so far. It’s time for the NCAA to step in and strip UNC of anything they have achieved in the last 18 years and bar them from any postseason for years moving forward.
If they honestly pride themselves in the idea of the student-athlete, this would be the appropriate measure to take.
After all, I just wrote more in this column than one of those UNC students did in a semester.
