Can Academic Scandal Affect This Year’s North Carolina Tar Heels?

Roy Williams

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

For those of you that do not know, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill athletic department is under investigation for a possible academic scandal. To put it nicely, the basketball team may be screwed.

The school is one of the most prestigious universities in the entire country, and the students that are admitted to the school perform tremendously when it comes to academics. Of course, the athletes at the school do not just play their respective sport, but they participate academically as well, which most fans overlook. Players on the basketball team receive scholarships, most of them four-year, to attend classes while playing the sport. The students must maintain a ‘C’ average in order to be eligible to play their sport, and the NCAA is accusing the school of giving their athletes an unfair advantage in order to obtain such an average.

Most of the athletes that attend the school, particularly in their football and basketball programs, are not the type of the students that attend the school solely for academics. They may not have received the appropriate grades that others received in order to be accepted into the university, but managed to get in due to their athletic abilities. For these student athletes, the university placed them into classed called independent study. These independent study courses are supposed to give athletes an opportunity to receive extra tutoring and assistance to complete their appropriate academic studies while participating in their sport. The only problem with this is the fact that the student are not required to attend the class, but they are only required to submit a paper at the end of each semester. The professors of these classes always gave the students A’s or B’s, so they are essentially just classes set up in order to boost a student athletes grade point average (GPA).

It is obvious as to why this is illegal in terms of NCAA rules and regulations, because the athletes basically have one less course than all the other students and receive unfair grades. The professors automatically give them a high grade and give them an unfair advantage on these final papers. The athletes call these independent study classes “paper classes,” because if they submit the one paper at the end of the semester, then they have completed all of their requirements. Apparently, these paper classes have been in effect dating all the way back to the Tar Heels’ 2005 national championship team. This means that some of their most profound players of all time, including Raymond Felton and Sean May, have passed through the university almost illegally. Who knows whether or not current players such as Marcus Paige and James Michael McAdoo are receiving the same illegal benefits.

Right now, it seems that the NCAA is close to cracking the case and revealing that the university has been illegally giving their athletes illegal academic benefits in order for them to fully succeed in their respective sports. If this does happen, then sanctions will be placed within each program that has been taking part in the scandal. The NCAA could possibly revoke the Tar Heels’ 2005 and 2009 championships, and any other successes they have had in the years moving forward. Players could be subject to suspension and even head coach Roy Williams can face serious consequences.

This year’s Tar Heel team is already struggling on the court, and the last thing they need is to have struggles off the court. P.J. Hairston has already been expelled as a result of receiving impermissible benefits, and now the school faces many other possible suspension as a result of this much larger scandal. It is very scary to think about, but if the NCAA does declare the Tar Heels’ academic tactics as an illegal scandal, then they could possibly be banned from future postseason play and a tremendous loss in scholarships.

Only time will tell whether or not this nightmare becomes reality, but for now, this is a very frightening thought that the Tar Heels hope they can avoid. After all, the entire Tar Heel basketball team is student athletes, and even though we only view them as athletes, the NCAA is more focused on their roles as students. If they are found to be cheating their roles as students, then the Tar Heels are in a tremendous amount of trouble.

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  • Laffin’atcha

    If they didn’t study fairly, take the championships. Make an example for the rest of the NCAA schools and then publish a list of schools to be audited providing an amnesty period to come clean before the audit.

  • Big Diesel

    This must be breaking news because UNC is not under investigation by the NCAA, nor is the basketball team “screwed.” This is a lame attempt at a “story” based on uneducated assumptions that have no facts to back up any of the false claims….flame on!!!

    • Jeremy Roth

      Watch the documentary titled Schooled: The Price of College Sports. There is a segment in the documentary that outlines the NCAA’s involvement with the university and their academics. Just because it is not all over SportCenter, it does not mean that this is breaking news. The reason it hasn’t been brought to the public’s full attention just yet is due to the fact that there are very few pieces of information regarding the scandal as a whole. These are just the beginning facts I gathered from research and from the segment in the documentary. Before you call a story lame or uneducated, educate yourself a little bit more about the topic you are reading about.

      • Matt

        So you know for an absolute 100% fact that Raymond Felton and Sean May participated in this program (Your article insinuated this)? Who gave you that fact? Because UNC would not give this information to anyone but NCAA. So IF you just put their names into the story because they were big time players on a national championship team without the facts then your credibility as a journalist is now tarnished. (I’m not saying you don’t have the fact, I just want to know where you got it from.)

        Also, this happens at virtually every major university in some fashion. It’s unfortunate that UNC is under the radar again.

        • Jeremy Roth

          I never said that they 100% participated in it, but in my research it said that it has been going on since 2004, and since they played on the 2005 national championship team it is very possible. I just used those two players as an example of those on one of the teams that is under investigation. Almost like a “remember who was on this team” kind of thing. Like I said in a previous comment, the documentary Schooled: The Price of College Sports outlines all of the facts that I described in the article.

          • Big Diesel

            Your “research” is about as reliable as Ms. Willingham’s (which has been refuted by UNC with FACTS). Again, your claim of UNC being investigated currently by the NCAA is completely false. I also noticed that you have written a back-peddling piece as well. Maybe you realized your “research” was very flawed like your claims above. Also, throwing names out there and insinuating they are involved in stuff is pretty reckless in itself.

          • Jeremy Roth

            Hence the follow up article where I said that the university refuted her statements. Looks like someone is still yet to watch the documentary that I said the research was from that is not my problem. I guess I am just a pretty reckless writer, thank you for noticing. By the way, these are all opinionated pieces on the site, so nothing has to be straight fact is all of our own insight.

          • Big Diesel

            You claim that UNC is currently being investigated by the NCAA (which apparently you edited out now) and base this assumption on a documentary you watched (one you claim as your research) that came out several months ago? The NCAA looked at this over a year ago and deemed it an academic issue, not an athletic one. Therefore, there is no current NCAA investigation into UNC as you claim. I understand these are opinion pieces, but to disregard the actual facts and make false claims is not an opinion, that’s just making stuff up. It is obvious that “nothing has to be straight facts” when it comes to this site. As for being reckless, yes, that is obvious when you write lines like “…Raymond Felton and Sean May, have passed through the university almost illegally.” But again, “nothing has to be straight facts,” right?!?!

          • Jeremy Roth

            First of all, what exactly are you getting out of criticizing an aspiring journalists blog? Secondly, the NCAA is still looking into it, there are new facts about it released all the time and I found it interesting so I wrote about it to shed light on the topic. You are not an editor, just a reader, so I suggest you stop trying to bash someone’s hard work just because you do not agree with it.

          • Big Diesel

            I’m sorry, I thought you wrote this on a public site for many to see and read. I didn’t realize your worthless drivel was above criticism (with facts that disagree with it, not just myself). If you would have presented this blog in a better way maybe it wouldn’t have warranted such a response. Your piece wreaked of an agenda, one that was grossly misguided, so I responded to it. I apologize for pointing out the loose ends in your blog, please carry on with your fictional writings. I’ve wasted enough time on it anyway…good luck to you, sir!

          • Jeremy Roth

            Thank you Mr. Diesel!

    • Dom Palermo

      Big Diesel must have a tiny dick

  • Larry Woodruff

    Really the NCAA is more focused on their role as students?

    • Jeremy Roth

      The NCAA has the responsibility of handling the athletes as students as well. After all, they are just students that participate in their university’s athletics.

  • Bryan Thomas

    I hope they get the death penalty like SMU in both sports!

  • Bill McKinney

    Sounds like Jeremy Roth is a Dookie.