Former North Carolina basketball star Rashad McCants showed no signs of flinching when he appeared on ESPN “Outside the Lines” for a second time in less than week Wednesday to talk about his alleged academic fraud at that ACC university.
McCants stuck to his story that tutors wrote his term papers, only attended classs half his time at UNC and remaining eligible to play largely because he took crib courses specificialy designed for that purpose. His response came after Tar Heels’ Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams told ESPN last weekend he was in shock and disbelief over McCants’ allegations. He vehemently disagreed with them and brought 16 former players with him to support his position.
McCants went as far as to challenge all former players from the 2005 national championship team, which he played on, to release their transcripts, which would show whether they took took bogus courses in African-American studies.
“If you want to find the truth, the truth is there in the transcripts,” he said.
A copy of McCants’ university transcript, labeled “unofficial” and obtained by “Outside the Lines,” shows that in his non-African-American studies classes, McCants received six C’s, one D and three F’s. In his African-American studies classes — many of which are referred to as “paper classes” because students did not have to attend them — his grades were 10 A’s, six B’s, one C and one D.
McCants also stood behind an allegation that when he was concerned about becoming ineligible during the 2004-05 season, Williams told him in a meeting before second semester that a summer session could be swapped out with a failed class to improve his GPA and then directred his to the Afraican American studies course, which McCants aced. He also ripped into Williams personally for not remembering the so called meeting. “Maybe he’s getting a little old,” McCants claimed. “You know, that’s something that I can’t … I don’t have any control over what he remembers. All I know is the truth. And I’m not up here to lie about anything.”
Williams did say that if a player were having academic trouble, he probably would talk with the player, But Williams said he and his staff have drawn lines they don’t cross when it comes to players’ academics. North Carolina is conducting a second universrity funded investigation into alleged academic fraud on campus and hopes to speak with McCants. But McCants would not commit to any cooperation with school investigators.
This continuing soap opera isn’t doing much for Carolina’ basketball’s pristine image. But it could do a lot for sales of the tell-all book McCant’s is supposedly writing. Suffice to say, McCants’ has severed ties with the school that cannot be repaired after his latest actions and likely won’t be invited to any functions involving Carolina basketball alums. Not that he cares.
