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Post by dex on Oct 22, 2014 16:57:17 GMT -5
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mikemc
Friar Fanatic
Posts: 3,240
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Post by mikemc on Oct 22, 2014 18:01:35 GMT -5
In the mean time back on Smith Hill, Mr. Benil's eligibility wallows in a quagmire of NCAA Clearinghouse red-tape over potential 9th grade classes taken in Ghana for crice sakes!!!!
....gotta love friartown...
..i have no idea....
..haven't seen a minute...
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Post by dex on Oct 24, 2014 8:07:32 GMT -5
Jim Donaldson
Cheating at UNC points to greater hypocrisy
Listen to the telecast of any college football game this fall — tune in right now, there seems to be one going on all the time — and you’ll hear an announcer say: “He’s a true freshman!”
As opposed to the more common, “redshirt” freshman, who spent most of his first year of college in the weight room rather than, except in rare instances, the library.
What would be much more refreshing to hear is “He’s a true student!”
The NCAA insists on calling the participants in intercollegiate sports “student athletes.”
This is particularly laughable, as well as hypocritical, at news conferences during the highly hyped, immensely popular NCAA men’s basketball tournament — better known as “March Madness.”
You’re crazy if you think the pre-professionals who are spending a semester-and-a-half in college before leaving for that NBA truly are “student athletes.”
Yet, when those stars who are “one-and-done” parade to the podium, an NCAA-appointed-and-approved moderator says: “Are there any questions for the student athletes?”
For years, the question that should have been asked of North Carolina athletes — I’m sorry, “student athletes” — was: “Are you taking any classes in the department of African and Afro-American Studies? And do you actually attend, or hand in any work?”
A report released Wednesday by former high-ranking U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wain-stein revealed that more than 3,100 students — nearly half of them athletes — enrolled in classes in that pseudo-academic UNC department that they didn’t have to show up for, as well as receiving artificially inflated grades in a “shadow curriculum” that lasted nearly two decades.
The revelation was more appalling than shocking.
Because this isn’t the first time, nor is North Carolina the only place, that academic standards have not merely been compromised, but made an utter mockery of, in favor of all-powerful athletics.
Although the extent — and the length — of UNC’s transgressions has to rank as one of the worst on record.
But the reality is that just about everybody cheats — or at least compromises — themselves to some extent, particularly in the admission and retention of athletes in the high-profile, high-revenue sports of football and basketball. University presidents could, of course, put a stop to such shenanigans. But they have shown no inclination to do so because there simply is too much money involved, both in direct revenue and alumni contributions that often rise and fall according to the success of the old alma mater’s football and basketball teams.
There is no more egregious example than the infamous “one-and-done” players in basketball, who enroll with no intention of graduating. Which in theory — a theory to which the NCAA steadfastly pays lip service — is supposed to be the point of going to college. Earning a diploma is the idea — and the ideal — isn’t it?
Tying scholarships to graduation rates is a farce because of the scandalous conduct that has been exposed at North Carolina. So why not, for example, rule that, when an athlete receives a college scholarship, he is counted against the school’s limit for a full, four years? If he leaves after his freshman season, he still counts against the limit for three more years.
But that won’t happen because nobody really wants it to. Almost everybody sells out to some extent because they want the money, they want the recognition. And almost nobody cares. jdonalds@providencejournal.com On Twitter @jdonaldsonprojo
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