A pair of stories out of the University of North Carolina have shocked, shocked all of the folks who think that the kids recruited to play basketball and football are totally academically qualified to attend the prestigious public university. First there was the curious case of the department that wasn't there:
Last month a grand jury in Orange County, N.C., indicted Julius Nyang’oro for defrauding UNC by accepting payment for teaching a no-show course on "blacks in North Carolina." The 19 students in AFAM 280 were current or former members of the Tar Heels football team, allegedly steered to the phantom class by academic advisers who sought to help elite athletes maintain high enough grades to remain eligible for competition. AFAM 280 was one of dozens of courses offered by North Carolina’s African & Afro-American Studies Department, formerly chaired by Nyang’oro, that never actually met, according to investigators. Known for rigorous academics, North Carolina allegedly operated a Potemkin department since the late 1990s.
It was, of course, deeply troubling that such a rigorous academic discipline would be riddled with fraud. But was it terribly surprising that the university was, more or less, turning a blind eye to a huge amount of corruption in order to boost the grades of their "scholar" athletes?
Of course not, if we are to believe Mary Willingham, who just released data showing that a majority of students in revenue-generating sports at major universities are barely literate. Reported CNN:
As a graduate student at UNC-Greensboro, Willingham researched the reading levels of 183 UNC-Chapel Hill athletes who played football or basketball from 2004 to 2012. She found that 60% read between fourth- and eighth-grade levels. Between 8% and 10% read below a third-grade level.
"So what are the classes they are going to take to get a degree here? You cannot come here with a third-, fourth- or fifth-grade education and get a degree here," she told CNN.
Well, you can. But only if you're taking Afro-American Studies classes that exist solely on paper. UNC was not pleased and, it seems, essentially called Willingham a liar: "UNC issued a statement Wednesday night saying it did not believe Willingham's account of a basketball player who could not read or write." I guess they have to do that. But I ask you: Who do you believe? The school that staffed phantom classes to pump up the GPA of their ball-tossing nitwits? Or the researcher asking uncomfortable questions?
The simple fact of the matter is that schools have, for years, admitted under-qualified athletes to man their bigger sports programs. I saw it pretty regularly at the University of Virginia; I'm sure you've seen it if you attended a bigger public school. Frankly that doesn't bother me too much; I'm much more worried about the countless millions of education dollars that are being poured into what amounts to free minor leagues for a pair of multi-billion dollar sports.
College football isn't going away any time soon (unfortunately). So the least we could do is to stop deluding ourselves: If a scholarship athlete doesn't care about his academics, why should we?