For years, UNC protected its athletic dominance wth fake classes to keep athletes eligible. In 2011, the secret exploded into public view, threatening to shatter the university’s athletic standing. Read Andy’s book: https://press.umich.edu/Books/D/Discredited2 Read Dan Kane’s reporting: https://www.newsobserver.com/profile/218713930/dan-kane For a transcript of this episode: https://bit.ly/campusfiles-transcripts To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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previously on Campus Files.
And that is it! North Carolina takes the title! And the leaders of the university wanted to do everything they could to sustain and promote future athletic success. I'm in the academic support program and I'm working with athletes who, they're just so far behind. How on earth are we going to keep these players eligible? You know, I learned about the paper class system pretty quickly.
There was a Potemkin village of a curriculum here. The courses had titles, they had course numbers, it seemed that they had instructors, and none of that was real. That's the biggest academic scandal in the history of college sports and probably in the history of academia. We were all complicit because we enjoyed game day so much. Shame on us.
In 2008, Debbie Crowder announced her retirement from UNC. She'd spent two decades as the office administrator in the African and Afro-American Studies Department, or AFAM. During this time, she'd used her position to offer fake courses that helped student-athletes stay academically eligible. So for the athletic department, her retirement wasn't exactly welcome news.
Almost immediately, academic advisors sounded the alarm in a meeting with football coaches. They presented a PowerPoint that made one thing clear. These fake courses had been a lifeline for many football players' eligibility. One PowerPoint slide bluntly stated, "...we put them in classes that met degree requirements in which they didn't go to class." these no longer exist.
And these academic advisors were right to be worried. Because the very semester after Debbie retired, the football team earned its worst grade point average in more than a decade, a GPA of 2.1. I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files, the decades-long scheme at UNC finally comes to light.
I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and as anybody who's from North Carolina will tell you, I think college basketball in particular is a humongous deal here.
This is Andy. He's an editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education and author of Discredited, The UNC Scandal and College Athletics Amateur Ideal. But perhaps most importantly, he went to UNC when the scandal first broke.
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