This weekend will mark the best and worst of college athletics.
The NCAA Final Four is one of the premiere athletic events in the country, capping the March Madness run that draws millions of viewers and makes even casual fans committed bracketologists.
Yet the thought of North Carolina and Syracuse playing each other in one semifinal for a chance at the title is sobering, if you are willing to look behind the gilded curtain of the big stage.
An independent investigation of the University of North Carolina determined that between 1993 and 2011, the university’s Department of African and Afro-American Studies ran a “shadow curriculum,” mostly for athletes, where students were guaranteed high grades to help keep them eligible while doing little or no work.
Over 3,100 students—about half of them athletes—took one or more of the faux classes. Several academic counselors depended on the bogus classes to keep players eligible. According to the report, “Several administrators were aware of the red flags about the irregularities, but took little or no action to inquire about them.”
The NCAA is investigating, but interestingly UNC self-reported additional violations last year (in women’s basketball and men’s soccer). That pushed back the timetable of the probe and, as a result, delayed a possible prohibition of postseason play of Coach Roy Williams’ championship-caliber team until after the tournament.
Meanwhile, Syracuse sycophants have embraced the Cinderella label for the 10th-seeded Orange, while the ugly stepsister characterization is more fitting. After an eight-year investigation into the football and basketball programs, the NCAA found a decade of academic misconduct, extra benefits for athletes, failure to follow its drug testing policy and impermissible booster activity.
“The other violations found included impermissible academic assistance and services, the head basketball coach’s failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff, and the school’s lack of control over its athletics program,” the NCAA found.
The basketball program self-imposed a postseason ban last year—conveniently, considering the Orange weren’t viewed as NCAA contenders anyway—and Coach Jim Boeheim served a nine-game suspension early this season. But they’re back this year, the darling of bracket-busting lovers everywhere.
Dave Ridpath, who famously blew the whistle on Marshall’s cheating scandal in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is now an associate professor at Ohio University and an expert on academic integrity and college athletics. He says we should not be naïve about what’s happening.
“It’s amazing to see that you have two programs that have been involved… in some of the worst academic indiscretions that have been uncovered and yet they are playing in the Final Four,” Ridpath told me on MetroNews “Talkline” Wednesday. “I think that it does show that our system is pretty broken.”
What’s flawed, among other things, is that the rewards of big-time college athletics outweigh the risks. Coaches are heralded for their team’s success, while often maintaining plausible deniability when cheating is uncovered.
Still, we will watch Saturday night. Why not? As Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde describes it, this could be a great game between “On Probation vs. Under Investigation.”
But you may want to take a shower afterward.