UNC = Fraud 

How many other school are behaving like this? That's what I want to know. (Read the whole story here )

News Observer -- During the season that the UNC men’s basketball team made its run to the 2005 NCAA championship, its players accounted for 35 enrollments in classes that didn’t meet and yielded easy, high grades awarded by the architect of the university’s academic scandal.

The classes, some advertised as lectures but that never met and others listed as independent studies, were supervised by Deborah Crowder, a manager in African and Afro-American studies who a report from former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein says graded required end-of-semester work leniently as part of a “paper class” scheme to keep athletes eligible. Crowder was not a professor and admitted to investigators that she assigned grades without reading the papers.

Of the 35 bogus class enrollments, nine came during the fall semester of 2004, when eligibility for the spring was determined. Twenty-six were during the spring semester, when the season climaxed with a victory over Illinois in St. Louis.

When I read this story my blood boils. College sports is supposed to be about the student athlete. The University of North Carolina should be given the death penalty, but that won't happen, they're part of the Big Five cabal. Meaning if the "Big Five" doesn't like way things are going they will just leave the NCAA and form their own athletic affiliation. They should just call it crooks are us.

Related articles

• Report: '04-05 UNC title team got fake credits(cbssports.com)

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• 2005 UNC basketball champs: 2 semesters, 35 bogus 'paper' classes(charlotteobserver.com)

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• 8 Fast Facts About The UNC Academic Fraud Scandal(detroit.cbslocal.com)

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Are there more than one set of rules for certain universities?

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a story that happened to catch my eye today - especially after the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. It appears that the NCAA has cleared the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill of any wrong doing when it appeared that UNC did in fact commit academic fraud. I guess the unprecedented precedence the NCAA set this past summer only applies to certain schools and not to other schools.

First off, I want to be clear - in no way is accademic fraud as bad as a child sex abuse scandal - that being said there should have been some kind of punishment for UNC's transgressions.

Dan Kane, News Observer --- The NCAA’s position that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has done nothing wrong by offering bogus classes that helped athletes maintain their eligibility has spurred a wave of skepticism from national sportswriters and others who follow college sports.

“The NCAA concludes no violations in UNC academic scandal,” tweeted Stewart Mandel, a college football writer for Sports Illustrated’s website. “This actually happened.”

Several said the announcement last Friday has given universities looking to gain the advantage in the big-money sports of football and basketball a license to bend the rules.

Bruce Feldman, a college football columnist for CBSSports.com, said in a blog post the announcement shows that the “NCAA MAKES IT UP AS IT GOES ALONG. The NCAA finds pretty much whatever it wants to find ... or not find.”

Jay Bilas, ESPN analyst and former Duke basketball player, said on Twitter: “And the NCAA wonders why it’s a laughingstock? Cue NCAA Prez to lecture on integrity, and who’s ‘in charge.’ ”

Neither UNC-CH officials nor the NCAA offered an explanation for the determination. UNC-CH officials announced the news Friday morning ahead of a holiday weekend. The NCAA did not issue a statement, but provided a brief confirmation of UNC’s announcement later in the day.

Again, I want to be clear, while  child rape and abuse for 15+ years is much worse than academic fraud - in anyone's universe; because in the end the fact that PSU athletic department knew about Jerry Sandusky and and covered up the crimes of Sandusky is not acceptable and inexcusable and I have no problem with how the NCAA treated Penn State University. I honestly don't know, if you can punish the PSU football team enough to make things right - they are going to be cleaning up Sandusky's mess for a very long time.

That being said, the NCAA also set a precedence by letting big basketball/football programs let players that shouldn't have been eligible continue to compete on the playing field. By letting one college fudge academic records to keep a player eligible has set  a precedence for other schools that might be entertaining this idea and this is also not acceptable.

If any thing the next school that get's caught cheating and doing the same thing should immediately stand up and say hey, you let UNC get away with it and if they are sanctioned the NCAA will open itself up for a lawsuit in my opinion. I was also wondering how long before something like this happen - you knew the NCAA would return to it's hypocrisy of not treating all institutions of higher living the same way. We should know by now that the big schools in many instances are allowed to skate while other smaller schools feel the full brunt of the NCAA.

Column: After UNC ruling, what does NCAA tell Penn State? Or UConn? m.si.com/news/wr/wr/det…
— Michael Rosenberg (@Rosenberg_Mike) August 31, 2012

And NCAA wonders why it's a laughingstock?:bit.ly/O1bzUF Cue NCAA Prez to lecture on integrity, and who's "in charge."
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 31, 2012

Related articles

• Are there more than one set of rules for certain universities?
• NCAA clearing North Carolina leaves some in disbelief