The ongoing academic scandal with the North Carolina Athletic Department has focused on the basketball and football program. It revolves around a lack of oversight with Department of African and Afro-American Studies administrator Deborah Crowder and former chairman Julius Nyang’oro to create so-called “paper classes” which allowed student-athletes and other students to take sham classes.
A report commissioned by North Carolina was released today by former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein which indicates the conspiracy involves the North Carolina baseball program. The 131 page report includes some of the following statements regarding the baseball student athletes. Each of these are excerpts from the full report.
One baseball player explained that he routinely took one paper class a semester to offset the four other demanding classes he took. Another compared taking these classes to “tasting the forbidden fruit” and explained that it was hard to justify taking a difficult class once you realized how easy it was to get a high grade in one of the AFAM paper classes.
The baseball coaches similarly professed little knowledge about the AFAM paper classes, although two baseball players told us that the paper classes were common knowledge among their teammates. Head Baseball Coach Mike Fox explained that he had no knowledge of the paper classes or any other course that was designed to keep student-athletes eligible. Fox knew that Chapel Hill offered independent studies, but he discouraged his players from taking them, preferring that his players physically attend class. Fox stated, and his assistant coaches and former players confirmed, that he places an emphasis on academics and would bench his athletes if he learned that they were not attending class. Assistant Baseball Coach Scott Forbes explained that the team has a strict class attendance policy, and it is well known in the baseball program that if you do not go to class, you do not play. Forbes claimed that he was generally aware of what classes his players were taking, although he did not recall any student-athletes taking AFAM courses.
Coaches Interview Report
Scott Forbes
Associate Head Coach / Pitching Coach Baseball
Forbes is the pitching coach for the baseball team. Forbes said that he follows his athletes’ schedules and is aware of what classes they are taking, but did not recall any student-athletes taking AFAM courses, nor did he recall hearing his athletes talk about AFAM classes or paper classes.
Michael Fox
Head Coach Baseball
Fox has been the baseball coach at Chapel Hill since 1998. Fox stated that he places a great emphasis on academics and requires all his athletes to attend class. When players do not attend class, he said they are benched. Fox explained that everyone was aware of the independent studies that student-athletes frequently took, however he had never heard of the paper classes. Fox explained that he preferred that his students did not take independent studies because it was difficult to monitor the athletes’ progress in the course.
Full Report
As you can see, there was at least one baseball student-athlete taking these “sham” classes. From personal experience, it was very suspicious in 2011 when the NCAA honors the top student-athlete from each squad in the CWS. The UNC representative had a GPA in the high 2.8’s or so while every other squad in the CWS had at least a player over 3.5 GPA.
As this scandal in UNC Athletics continues, we will continue to report the story.
3 comments
There are emails in the report involving Coach Fox that are pretty damning evidence that he was well aware of the academic fraud going on.
I can’t see how coach Fox survives this. They are going to have to fire him. He’s all over those emails in the report supplemental info.
[…] with the paper classes scandal that has affected the basketball and football program in the Waintstein Report. In the report, it is clearly stated that the UNC baseball coaching staff had no knowledge of the […]
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