Sean May Joins UNC's Spin Club: "An Academic Issue"

[OkaForPrez]

So Sean May is the latest to jump aboard the "It's an Academic Issue" spin express. You can read his defense of UNC in the above link (search for it on the other site) where he builds upon that stout defense with gems like, "But I had to go study hall?" and "I was a Comm's major, I only switched to AFAM so I could graduate in 9 years instead of 12."

One can only assume he fell short on Communications courses but was clear on AFAM because of all those free credits he was sitting on in AFAM.

Oh, he also makes it clear that he is still tight with his whole team (except McCants, that dude's crazy) and they all have the same view.

Are they really going to skate with this defense? How is it not irrefutably an athletics issue when 24.5% of enrollment in the sham classes was football and basketball players who represent <1% of the UNC population?

Yes the Sham classes are an academic issue, the systematic funneling of players into them is the athletic one. And oh by the way, while they were getting directed towards those classes, the advisers were also suggesting the grade the players should get. This is all in the report. They better get the boom.

Here's the Wainstein report if you haven't read it. The systematic funneling of players commentary starts on page 19.

http://3qh929iorux3fdpl532k03kg.wpe...-content/uploads/2014/10/UNC-FINAL-REPORT.pdf

These paper classes were also very popular among student-athletes, and especially among
those from the “revenue sports” of football and men’s basketball. Approximately 1,871 of the 3,933
total enrollments between 1999 and 2011 were student-athletes, of whom 1,189 were members of
the football and men’s basketball teams. In percentage terms, that means that 47.6% of the paper
class enrollments were student-athletes and 24.5% were football or basketball players. By
comparison, approximately 4% of the Chapel Hill student body are student-athletes in any given
year, and approximately 0.6% are football players.18

The academic counselors in ASPSA were well aware that these courses existed, that they
required relatively little work and that they generally resulted in high grades. For those reasons,
some counselors routinely steered their student-athletes into these classes. They would identify
those student-athletes who needed extra help to maintain their eligibility, steer those student-athletes
toward the paper classes and then work closely with Crowder to register them. In football, for
example, ASPSA Associate Director Cynthia Reynolds (“Reynolds”) and her staff sent Crowder lists
of players to be enrolled in paper classes each term, and in some cases apparently even indicated for
Crowder the grade or grade range the player would need to earn in the class to maintain eligibility.

 

[huskypantz]

It was an academic issue that lost UConn scholarships and resulted in a one year tournament ban. Deal with it, Sean.

 

[amory]

When is the NCAA supposed to actually make a ruling on all this BS? Syracuse, too. Slap them on the wrist already and let's move on.

 

[ctchamps]

When is the NCAA supposed to actually make a ruling on all this BS? Syracuse, too. Slap them on the wrist already and let's move on.

The Syracuse ruling will probably come in the next 3-6 months. The NCAA has already gone through the discovery phase and now they are in the process of preparing arguments for whatever penalties Syracuse will have to face.

They are still going through the discovery phase for North Carolina. If it was a two year process for Syracuse it may take that much or longer with UNC even with the Weinstein report doing much of the legwork. That's how bad the UNC problem has been. The problem with the NCAA on this issue was that they were going to ignore things altogether. This investigation should have started at least two years ago. Fortunately outside pressure was exerted to move the NCAA to action. And now this outside pressure is more than likely to end up causing Syracuse and UNC to get greater penalties than they might have gotten if the NCAA dealt with UNC in the first place.

The longer it takes the worse it is for these universities, because while they are in limbo, other schools can use negative recruiting to impact them during the uncertainty as well as during the period penalties are applied.

 

[CL82]

You know I've always felt a a bit of kindred sprit toward UNC fans... you know, the enemy of my enemy... but everytime I hear this "it's an academic issue" BS I find myself hoping that they lose acreditation. Wouldn't that be a defacto death penalty since NCAA D1 includes only accredited institutions (excluding Louisville, of course)?

 

[UChusky916]

If a 1 year death sentence were ever to be appropriate, this is it. Let's see if the NCAA really has the balls to do anything to one of ESPN's prized programs.

What will DookieV cream his pants over if UNC gets the death penalty and Duke/UNC does not happen?