UNC Challenges the NCAA's Authority

[nddulac]

North Carolina to the NCAA: Stay in your lane

The school is essentially saying that, yes, the courses in the African-American Studies department were a sham. And yes, a disproportionate number of athletes took those sham courses. But, the school counters, the NCAA shouldn't be able to charge the school with lack of institutional control or failure to monitor for two reasons:

• It's not the NCAA's business
  
  
• Sitting next to the scores of men's and women's basketball players and football players were everyday students.
  

Thoughts?

 

[Cyder]

Well of course African American studies are a sham as are the professors who teach it.

That being said, if the course was open to all students to pad their grades it really isn't an athletic issue. They found a nice little loop hole

 

[nathans8823]

Well of course African American studies are a sham as are the professors who teach it.

That being said, if the course was open to all students to pad their grades it really isn't an athletic issue. They found a nice little loop hole

 

[Guy Incognito]

You forgot "Lexington style BBQ cole slaw" on your list.

 

[nddulac]

You forgot "Lexington style BBQ cole slaw" on your list.

I heard that was a sham.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

North Carolina to the NCAA: Stay in your lane



Thoughts?

Ehh...ummm...this is pretty slippery, but they kinda have a point. The NCAA is about athletics, there are other bodies that govern things like a school's academic integrity. Accrediting bodies and so forth. THOSE agencies probably need to also be involved.

UNC has basically said what we've all known for years: NCAA, you're full of shit when it comes to academics.

 

[GNG]

Well of course African American studies are a sham as are the professors who teach it.

That being said, if the course was open to all students to pad their grades it really isn't an athletic issue. They found a nice little loop hole

I wonder if they have Caucasian American studies.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

I wonder if they have Caucasian American studies.

They do, it's called "History"

 

[The Q]

Ehh...ummm...this is pretty slippery, but they kinda have a point. The NCAA is about athletics, there are other bodies that govern things like a school's academic integrity. Accrediting bodies and so forth. THOSE agencies probably need to also be involved.

UNC has basically said what we've all known for years: NCAA, you're full of shit when it comes to academics.

The fact that there's NCAA rules for academic eligibility gives them enough standing for this IMO.

If you're allowed to make sham classes to skirt the academic rules...then why make the athletes go to class anyway?

 

[douggie]

Well of course African American studies are a sham as are the professors who teach it.

That being said, if the course was open to all students to pad their grades it really isn't an athletic issue. They found a nice little loop hole

The problem here is that opening this class up to all who will sign up covers their ass for just this reason.

 

[douggie]

I heard that was a sham.

Nope, here's a chopped plate. Lexington BBQ is the Mecca.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

The fact that there's NCAA rules for academic eligibility gives them enough standing for this IMO.

If you're allowed to make sham classes to skirt the academic rules...then why make the athletes go to class anyway?

Ahhh, but those rules just say you can't play sports...they don't necessarily keep you out of the university. There is an entirely different, self-regulated set of standards by the school itself, and the school does not need the NCAA to tell them how to enforce those standards. In fact, they are usually more stringent than the NCAA's, even though they don't get applied evenly amongst athletes and the general pop.

As an academic enforcer, the NCAA is technically redundant.

 

[nddulac]

View attachment 144891 Nope, here's a chopped plate. Lexington BBQ is the Mecca.

Yup. Sham. (as in "Sh'am hungry now!)

 

[The Q]

Ahhh, but those rules just say you can't play sports...they don't necessarily keep you out of the university. There is an entirely different, self-regulated set of standards by the school itself, and the school does not need the NCAA to tell them how to enforce those standards. In fact, they are usually more stringent than the NCAA's, even though they don't get applied evenly amongst athletes and the general pop.

As an academic enforcer, the NCAA is technically redundant.

But they're more concerned with athlete eligibility than the actual quality of education. But there is some kind of intersection when you're creating sham classes to keep kids eligible. And when you're playing players who aren't taking real classes, it means they really shouldn't have been eligible to play...

 

[nddulac]

I say that UNC is just asking for a USC-esque punishment - and will deserve every bit of it when they get it. Here's why:

1. I agree that the rigor and/or merit of an academic program or the courses within it are completely outside the purview of the NCAA. There are plenty of academic accrediting agencies that serve those purposes. And UNC is already in deep doodoo with the most important one for them - the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges (SACS). Lose your accreditation with SACS and you lose federal student aid. You might as well just close and shutter your doors. That is not trivial, and SACS has already served UNC notice.
2. In order to appease SACS (and because duh - they are guilty as hell), UNC fully admits that the academic program in question, and classes offered in the program, were a sham. So the question of whether or not they were offering joke classes, many taken by student athletes, is not in question.
3. According to undisputed numbers, some 1500 student-athletes benefited from these sham classes, as did some 1500 students who were not student athletes. But since this proportion does not reflect the overall student population. It is impossible to conclude that student-athletes were not benefiting disproportionately from these courses.
4. There is evidence that sections of these courses were opened specifically for student athletes at the request of the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes (ASPSA). See the book "Cheated: The UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes, and the Future of Big-Time College Sport" for this. There is stuff in there that will make your head spin - like discussion of changing a player's major for 6 hours while the NCAA looked at his academic progress, and then changing it back when they were done.
5. The NCAA has purview over cases where student-athletes receive benefits unavailable to the general student population. So while there were non-athlete students in these courses, to conclude that they were not providing extra benefits to student athletes, UNC will have to show that the sections were available for all students to enroll. But the evidence given in "Cheated" indicates that that is not the case.
6. Offering grades for little or no work is not significantly different from having tutors write papers for student-athletes.

The conclusion is that UNC offered impermissible benefits to student athletes, not significantly different than having tutors write papers for them - an infraction for which UNC has already accepted punishment from the NCAA in earlier incarnations of this ever-expanding scandal. Hence, I think UNC's argument is not substantiated by the facts. They deserve to get hammered. Hard.

 

[umichgradfan]

North Carolina to the NCAA: Stay in your lane



Thoughts?

NC played players that were not eligible (the course they were taking was a sham). Also, NC did not provide players with the education their "scholarship" was supposed to provide for their services. Shame on NC.

 

[4down20]

By UNC's logic, the NCAA has no business requiring minimum academic standards for athletes.

 

[Hitman Hart]

View attachment 144891 Nope, here's a chopped plate. Lexington BBQ is the Mecca.

Probably the most accurate post that has ever been made on an internet message board.

 

[nddulac]

By UNC's logic, the NCAA has no business requiring minimum academic standards for athletes.

That's not technically true. What UNC is saying is that the NCAA has no business saying how student-athletes maintain minimum standards. And I actually agree with that. The trouble is that UNC admits that they failed to monitor a program that developed into a sham by which student-athletes benefited. And that is ultimately where their argument will fail. Because there is no question that the courses in question were fake.

 

[4down20]

That's not technically true. What UNC is saying is that the NCAA has no business saying how student-athletes maintain minimum standards. And I actually agree with that. The trouble is that UNC admits that they failed to monitor a program that developed into a sham by which student-athletes benefited. And that is ultimately where their argument will fail. Because there is no question that the courses in question were fake.

If there is no say in how they maintain minimum standards, then where are the actual minimum standards?