You seem to be confused about this whole ordeal. One of my degrees is from UNC. I am extremely disappointed with the administration, many whom I know or knew personally. I wouldnt say that I am embarrassed or ashamed but I understand the sentiment. Most Carolina people I know were disappointed too. I’ve seen plenty of criticism. But most have moved on.

The NCAA issue is a separate issue. As stated before the ruling and as the ruling stated, the NCAA had no jurisdiction over the matter. This went on for years. The “vindication” is related to the whole ordeal ending and yes, UNC coming out of it with out sanctions....which is a conclusion the NCAA should have reached years ago. I am all for punishing UNC IF the rules were broken. Vacate wins, fire coaches, give back titles. If the punishment fits the crime, so be it. I won’t kick, scream or fuss about it. But that wasn’t the case here.

The NCAA kept trying to find an angle and kept failing. You really should read up on the details and the timelines with the notifications and when UNC could and couldn’t respond. It was an administrative nightmare.

I know the author, he was a year ahead of me... NC State and Chapped Hole NROTC Units shared many active duty staff and co-hosted events. Good dude.

His lamentations about his university's lack of honor are not misplaced, but unfortunately that problem is not unique to UNC and it's athletic program.

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Suffer Well.

There's really no vindication, regardless. Vindication implies that the school was found to have not done anything wrong, which is how some UNC folks are acting. The truth is that the NCAA recognizes that UNC did something very wrong, but just couldn't figure out a way that they would have jurisdiction to do anything about it.

Congrats to UNC! You did something blatantly wrong, and everyone recognizes it, but you're the only entity that can hold yourself responsible, and you're choosing not to really do that.

Vindication!

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Spare me the condescension. I'm not confused at all - I've read up on the subject quite a bit. My issue here is not with the NCAA, as toothless an organization as it is. I understand that the lack of sanctions was based on the fact that the NCAA concluded that it had no jurisdiction. I'm still amazed that UNC fans expect others to feel sorry for the school and for the "administrative nightmare" that the NCAA put them through. Sorry, no.

My issue is with UNC, for the exact reasons stated in the article I posted at the beginning of this thread. I realize my opinion doesn't amount to anything, considering I have no connection to UNC. The author's opinion should matter very much.

I suppose its easy to move on when you get away with murder, and when you still have those national championship banners flying. The author of the posted article hasn't moved on, probably because he doesn't lack integrity and honor.

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Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Nailed it.

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Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

I am pretty sure my school never let student athletes get away with anything, but we were a Div III school with no athletic scholarships. And while I am sure there was some cheating by some of the students in no way did the administration ever look the other way.

And if you think take home finals are better, then you have never had one. Getting everything done in one three hour testing period is way better.

You're right, I never had a take home FINAL EXAM (in college).

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

That is what I was thinking. In law school I had a take home final in a contracts class. It was freaking insane. And if you weren't familiar with the biblical story of Jacob and Esau you were screwed. I probably spent over 20 hours just writing that damn thing, that doesn't scratch the surface on researching it..

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I have had take home exams that I had wished had just been an exam I could just sit and study for. Some take home exams require a sh!t tonne of research and thought to complete. It isn't like they are giving you an exam where you just fill in a one word answer for each question. These take homes are brutal.

Please.....spare me the condescension. UNC got away with murder? And then you link the championship banners. That shows me you don't get it.

3-4 employees out of what...3000? went rogue. One academic program out of 300? caused a problem. The university had and continues to have egg on its face. It fired the professors, fired a football coach, postseason ban, scholarships were limited fired other people involved, a Chancellor stepped down. But I guess all UNC grads and students should have to wear the scarlet letter

I've never said anyone should feel sorry for UNC. They brought all this upon themselves. And why should the op-ed author's opinion matter than anyone elses? I found his argument quite weak. Do you hold yourself to that level of ethics? No one does. It's just a bunch of piling on to act like he did in the article.

Hence the quotes slowguy.

Just curious....what in your opinion should UNC or any school do in that situation? What in your mind is the right punishment?

Did the 2005 and 2009 national championship basketball teams have players who should not have been academically eligible to play?

If the answer is yes, then UNC should take down the damn banners.

That would at least demonstrate that UNC has a shred of integrity.

Until then most outsiders who have any knowledge of this affair will continue to have the same opinion of your school that I have. Deal with it.

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Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Understood. I wasn't suggesting you were one of the ones running around feeling vindicated, but certainly there is a segment of the UNC Alumni/Supporter community who are.


UNC offered sham classes to over 3000 students. Reportedly, roughly half of those students were scholarship athletes. The school apparently carried out these classes over a span of something like 18 years? They were put on probation by their Accrediting organization for one year. The university admitted to the charges and characterized them to the accrediting organization as "academic fraud," and "long standing and egregious academic wrongdoing."

Then, when the NCAA got involved, all of the sudden UNC was defending their actions, and cited "academic autonomy." They essentially went to the NCAA and said, Yeah, we did it, but you can't do anything about it."

They were handed a single year post-season ban and 3 years of probation by the NCAA for a separate and previous set of issues, and only for football. They self imposed vacated wins and scholarship limits, again, only for football, and for the previous impermissible benefits case, not for this case. Even the Chancellor stepping down was back in 2012, and in response to the same football scandal.

As far as I can tell, UNC hasn't suffered or imposed any penalties related to athletics programs, associated with these charges, other than the brief probation period from the accrediting organization.

As for what I think they should do, for one, I think they should heavily penalize the athletics department, especially the programs that seemingly most benefited from the sham course, football and basketball. They've got 3 basketball championships, a runner's up, and 6 or so Final Four appearances during the time frame of the scandal. I'd be heavily tempted to take down the banners for those accomplishments, even if the NCAA doesn't vacate them in the official record books. I'd probably strip any displays of players or coaches who were shown to have been involved. If there is reason to believe Roy Williams was involved or knew about the sham courses, he'd be out on his ass.

More importantly, I'd be making it damn clear from a public relations perspective that the NCAA ruling isn't a good news story, that even if UNC feels the NCAA technically can't impose sanctions, the university itself is poised to take the action the NCAA would have imposed, and that it's cleaning house in the impacted athletics programs.

It may be that UNC is taking these issues seriously, but the impression they're allowing is that they are happily skating by without serious penalty, for one of the most egregious academic/athletic scandals in recent memory (exacerbated by the fact that it came on the heels of another impermissible benefits scandal).

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

First, only 2 championships were ever in question. I'm not sure if the third you mention is 1993 or 2017 but both of those were outside the timeline of the investigation, hence not in jeopardy.

Secondly, what you are suggesting is essentially self-imposing the so called "death penalty". There's no major D1 school (Think: USC, UCLA, Texas, KU, UK, UF, UNC, Duke, etc) that would ever do that. If you think there is, you're clearly delusional.

Lastly, what this boils down to is this: A certain number of student-athletes (and apparently some "regular students") were given some grades (that they probably didn't deserve) in order to remain academically eligible. If you think that the only place that has ever happened is UNC and that it isn't currently happening at some other school and that it will never happen again at any school.......well then you clearly have your head up your ass.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

I never said some other school would do this, nor did I say that I expected UNC to do it, nor did I say that UNC is the only school to have ever had this kind of issue. But you can’t claim to be honorable and dedicated to academics and not beholden to athletics, then do what UNC did, and expect people to take you seriously.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

#firstworldproblems

I think this situation is already being forgotten by much of the population. I bet they don't even give a crap. To prove us both right or wrong, now that the investigation is over, I guess we'll have to see how much UNC's rankings drop (or don't drop) and how much applications for enrollment drop (or don't drop).

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Well, that’s kind of the point. As per the title of the thread.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)