Let’s Give Back the Victories

And so we wait.

What action will the NCAA take against UNC for its athletic/academic wrongdoings?

Personally, I do not understand why the NCAA has any moral authority in these matters in any case. It is, after all, the enabler of the Big Time Sports schemes. I am much more concerned about the deliberations of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools from which a stern sentence could literally cost the university billions of dollars.

What troubles me now about the scandal is the narrow, legalistic framing. Does this email confirm corrupt behavior or exonerate the sender? What is the definition of “behavior?” What is the definition of “sender?” Will an NCAA verdict and sentence bring a close to the scandal and its horrific costs to the moral core and the reputation of the University?

In my view, this narrow framing will not bring an end. The University, does, however, have it within its own power to do the right thing, regardless of the legal contortions. This we know. Hundreds of presumed students participated in games as athletes, while getting credit for fraudulent courses. It matters not whether Roy Williams or Sylvia Hatchell or the entire Faculty Council were active collaborators or ignorant souls about these indisputable misdeeds, each individual has to live with their own conscience. We know that University procedures and officials made it possible for UNC teams to win by encouraging and enabling dishonesty at the vital core of any university–integrity in the classroom.

The University can own this responsibility by forfeiting the games, returning the tainted championship banners, acknowledging simply and clearly, “we violated the basic trust placed in us as a university and we take responsibility for making amends.” In Dostoyevsky’s monumental psychological drama, Crime and Punishment, the very first we hear from Raskolnikov, the tormented protagonist, is “all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom.

It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most…”

If victories are what define athletics, let’s not be afraid to give them back.

— Lew Margolis

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Let’s Give Back the Victories

On Air Now: 97.9 FM