The seemingly never ending academic scandal at North Carolina, which stemmed from an NCAA investigation into the football program in 2010 and led to a discovery of fraud in a department featuring significant enrollments of football and basketball players, does not show any signs of letting up.
The latest bomb shell comes courtesy of CNN, which conducted its own investigation in the matter and led with an accusation by Mary Willingham, the UNC learning specialist who blew the whistle on the flaws in the system, who claimed one of Roy Williams players couldn’t read or write and offered to show him proof. “I stand by what I said, and if he wants to meet with me and go through his players, I’d be happy to share that,” said Willingham, who worked in the tutoring program for student athletes from 2003 to 2010. “I have his scores and … I’m the one who taught him.
“I went to a lot of basketball games in the Dean Dome, but Roy never came and sat with me while I tutored his guys.”
Willingham also provided copies of emails that show twice last summer, she sent findings of her research into athletes’ reading problems to university officials, claiming 60 percent of the 183 football or basketball players at UNC from 2004-12 had were reading at a level between the fourth and eighth grades.
As you can imagine, incendiary accusations like this, which aired on a national cable news network, did not sit very well with Williams, the highly respected Hall of Fame basketball coach who has won two national championships in Chapel Hill in 2003 and 2009.
“I don’t believe it’s true,” Williams said.”It’s totally unfair. I’m really proud of the kids we’ve brought in here. We haven’t brought anyone in like htat. We’ve had one senior since I’ve been here that did not graduate.”
“Anybody can make any statement they want to make but that is not fair. The University of North Carolina doesn’t do that. The University of North Carolina doesn’t stand for that.”
Carolina senior officials are also upset. They say they have constantly asked Willingham for the data behind those findings. “It doesn’t make any sense to us,” UNC Provost Jim Dean said. “If you feel you have the proof, why wouldn’t you show the proof? For the life of me I can’t understand it.”
Willingham , 52, said she is bound by research regulations not to identify the athletes in question.
Wllingham brings up some good questions. How many athletes can do the work? She has our attention. Now she needs to support her findings if she cares about helping Carolina rebuild its academic integrity.
There is a much bigger problem at stake here. How many regular students who attend college are capable of doing the work they need to do? A growing number of schools are waiving SAT requirements and accepting students because they need paying customors. Many of those students– not only athletes– are unprepared for college because of inadequate secondary school training. But they don’t get steered to special classes with teachers who hand out passing grades to student athletes for minimum work and attendance so they can retain their eligibiliity.
Dick Weiss is a sportswriter and columnist who has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Daily News. He has received the Curt Gowdy Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and is a member of the national Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He has also co-written several books with Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Dick Vitale and authored a tribute book on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
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