Paul Barrett writes for Bloomberg.com that the NCAA’s latest missive in the UNC academic/athletics scandal proves the governing agency doesn’t really want to punish Carolina.
The NCAA wants to let UNC off easy. The organization’s academic-fraud findings against the University of North Carolina at first glance seem tough, but the accusations are actually crafted to protect a storied men’s basketball program.
Understanding the NCAA charges matters a lot. How the college sports world reacts to the findings—and UNC’s defensive response—will help determine the punishment the NCAA eventually imposes. The punishment, in turn, will shape the lessons drawn from the fiasco. If the outcry is loud and angry, there’s a chance the powers that be at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis, who are nothing if not image-conscious, will rethink their instinct to protect one of the most valuable franchises in the $16 billion-a-year college sports industry.
The NCAA found that to keep Tar Heels athletes eligible, UNC officials turned in assignments on players’ behalf, suggested inflated grades, and operated a system of fake lecture courses requiring little to no actual academic work. The NCAA enumerated this corruption in five “Level 1” violations—the most egregious sort—including a comprehensive “lack of institutional control” over the sports program. The NCAA sent the charges to UNC last month, and the school released them on Thursday as part of a protracted back-and-forth that will continue for the balance of 2015 and could stretch into next year before the NCAA determines how to punish UNC.
This entire scandal has its roots in UNC’s desperation to field championship men’s basketball teams. The school’s premier sports franchise has brought home national trophies, most recently in 2009 and 2005. Previous investigations, including one sponsored by UNC and released last fall, showed that the school ran a “shadow curriculum” in its former African and Afro-American Studies department. The black-studies department offered hundreds of fake classes disproportionately populated with athletes—and men’s basketball and football players in particular.
Yet longtime men’s basketball coach Roy Williams has only a walk-on role in the NCAA’s findings, suggesting he’s a mere bystander. Instead, the NCAA comes down hard on marginal campus figures, including a former women’s basketball academic adviser and a former black-studies chairman.
