If John Feinstein and the NCAA agree, they are both wrong.
Best-selling author John Feinstein weighed in on the UNC academic scandal last week on cbssports.com with another lazy rewrite, which Feinstein has done for years after the self-righteous Dukie got rich and famous for his tell-all book on Bobby Knight, who hasn’t spoken much to him since.
Feinstein obviously didn’t read UNC’s latest response or the NCAA’s latest, which agreed that the nature of the old AFAM courses is irrelevant to the case because there is no way of knowing exactly how much work the courses required and what was done by whom. That is why the offering and teaching of all courses is outside the NCAA’s bylaws.
Feinstein pulled out an old figure that 3100 students took the classes, when that number pertains to enrollments and many of the students took more than one of the classes. Plus, he did not mention UNC’s latest figures that the percentage of athletes in those classes was well below his stated “roughly 50 percent.”
UNC’s position on the case right now is that far fewer athletes who were eligible at the time took the courses and that steering some athletes to them was part of the academic advisors’ jobs to help jocks set their class schedules that would not interfere with practices and game travel. Each athlete having an advisor is an NCAA bylaw, too.
So Feinstein concludes if at least one of Carolina’s national championship banners doesn’t come down, it will leave the NCAA in ridicule and invite similar legal responses from schools charged with any infractions. As expected, Feinstein has been in a Twitter war ever since with dozens of people who have followed and studied the case much more closely than he has and have more learned interpretations.
Yes, if UNC is unfairly penalized, the case will likely wind up in Federal court, which might be the NCAA’s strategy to save its own credibility. Either way, Feinstein’s account is almost all wrong and one tweet may eventually paraphrase the last line in the movie Erin Brockovich. “Do they teach best-selling authors how to apologize? Because you suck at it.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Just another reason to dislike all things Duke
Several years back I was listening to Dan Mullin, Mississippi State Coach, being interviewed on Sirius radio. The subject of the interview was how Mullin was able to get his all-world QB Zack Prescott to come back for his sr. year. In answering the question Mullin allowed that “I was able to get him into on-line classes”. Was this an extra benefit? I don’t think so. Nore was athletic advisors helping players with their curriculum scheduling. I would think that is a big part of their job.