Just in case this has slipped anyone's mind.
- Thread starter skysdad
- Start date
I don’t think he’s gonna do that Sky. I think he’s much more interested in coming on here and riling up and being a smart ass towards Duke fans.
UNC students took advantage of a loophole. It happened. I don’t care. My brother was an All-American baseball player at UNC and took some of those same courses. Took some others too that never came out. I don’t think any less of him.
Personally, and I’ll freely admit bias, very few major athletes are what we would call traditional students. You can’t comprehend how much their lives differ from those of regular students.
And yes, I do love my Heels and I’m not afraid to say it @hart2chesson
Thanks for the mention and apparently the truth hurts. Hey did your brother know the UNC baseball player who flunked out several years ago (pitcher, first name Hobbs) who flunked out and mysteriously got 4 A's in summer school to get reinstated for the next academic year????
Yeah Mike Fox was in the charade big-time, and emails in the book "Cheated" prove it. I just love it, Fox keeps making the NCAA playoffs and choking.
#Karma
#RoyKnew
#FoxKnewToo
OFC
Well, I've got to give it to 'em...the Heels stick together.
OFC
OFC
Well, I've got to give it to 'em...the Heels stick together.
OFC
Oh how they do dirt!!!! Awesome and OH SO TIMELY POST...Of course the football team is now making $$ in the shoe business!
#LarryKnew
OFC
I’ve thought about this and put the shoe on the other foot, and thought about how I would feel if it were Duke that cheated and got away with it. My blood runs as Royal blue as it comes. However, if we got caught cheating, as did unx, I would be embarrassed, angry, disappointed.....you name it. I would never stop rooting for my Dukies, but it wouldn’t feel the same knowing in the back of my mind that we cheated to win.
Yeah, I will always remain a loyal Blue Devil, QC, but it sure would leave a bad taste in my mouth if our program did anything close to what the UNC program did. How could anyone not feel remorse?
OFC
Dirt, like you said its "The Carolina Way." When its their hand in the cookie jar (very frequent) its "everybody does it!" OFC
Why would a UNC fan who had nothing to do with what went on feel any remorse?
Fans brag on how good their team is doing, right? We are nothing but fans, yet when our team beats yours, we are excited, and vice versa. This is still college we're talking about, not the pros, so some form of rules must be in place. None of us are expecting these kids to make straight A's, but real effort needs to be applied.
So many of the Tar Heel fans for years have acted like they're better than other programs, tried to sell the image of clean and professional. They pulled a slick one, and got away with it. It's that simple.
I would honestly be ashamed of my Blue Devils if K, or who ever is their coach, does something as shady as what Dean Smith and Roy Williams did.
Last edited:
Any UNC fan who acknowledges the cheating for what it was and demands accountability from the university and athletics department has no need to be remorseful. That person is neither a participant nor enabler. Any fan that deflects, denies, or minimizes the situation so that he/she can feel better about him/herself and UNC should be ashamed. Perhaps you are in the former group?
That’s fair. You have every right to feel that way. But other fans may not fan that way. Meaning, maybe their fandom of a college sports team isn’t all that important to them. Maybe a fan just likes the style of play, the kids’ personalities, the coach, the uniform colors, I don’t know. But I do know that not everybody takes college sports that seriously and maybe they just want to watch some good basketball without worrying about anything heavier such as academic misconduct, recruiting violations, etc. I’m thinking specifically of non alum fans that have no ties to the school other than liking a sports team.
What does demanding accountability look like to you? In other words, what would a UNC fan have to do to be categorized by you as someone in the former group?
You said you wouldn’t stop rooting for Duke. How am I different?
Well you didn't exactly come out and say "yes we cheated " but that's was expected .Good spin on it though. Really got more than I expected and I understand you loving the heels because I love Duke and if Duke had done the same thing I would still love them but I wouldn't dodge it. OFC
That’s an unhealthy level of fandom.
Perhaps what you see as a dodge isn’t to me. And if the shoe were on the other foot, my guess would be your stance would be much like mine.
Let me make this clear. If Duke did what unc did I would call them out on it and say SHAME ON YOU. SHAME ON YOU COACH K. SHAME ON ALL THOSE WHO ARE A PART OF THIS. And then I would say I love Duke and it's athletic program but I am embarrassed. Now of course you are not going to believe me and that's ok. I don't expect anything else. No matter how you look at it unc cheated and if the same thing happened at Duke, NCSU, UVA, UK , KU, or anywhere else you ticket would call it what it is. CHEATING. But I will give you credit ticket you did reply . OFC
Last edited:
EXACTLY Sky, and the IN-STATE media would have been much TOUGHER on the Devils than their favorite son in Chapel Hole!
#RoyKnew
OFC
Last edited:
You asked two questions - I'll answer both and ask that you answer the same questions yourself.
Accountability, to me, is those responsible, all of them, for the situation should be fired. That's how these things work. Look at Penn State, Louisville, Baylor, and the list goes on. When, under a coach's watch a program becomes an embarrassment at a national level, the coach is forced out. The leadership at UNC should have forced Roy to resign (under pressure from fans) or should have been replaced with leadership that would. That is what accountability looks like in these situations. Roy skated because the UNC fan base refuses to demand accountability. What does accountability look like to you?
As for what a UNC fan has to do in order to be categorized (by me) to fit in the former category of someone who is embarrassed, acknowledges the cheating for what it was, and demands accountability: That fan should probably start by not coming to a rival team's message board and defending the situation. I don't see a bunch of MSU people hopping on message boards claiming the Nassar situation was no big deal or that it happens at other schools. Or that he exploited some loophole in the system. No, I think most of them are at a minimum supportive (in real life and on message boards) of efforts to remove anyone and everyone who was in the slightest bit involved in the situation. They may say that Izzo had no knowledge of the situation and he should then be off the hook. Those same people though, if this had happened in basketball instead of gymnastics, would demand Izzo be removed even if there was no proof he knew what was happening. His program, his responsibility. That's what accountability looks like to me. What would a UNC fan have to do to be categorized by you as someone who demands accountability?
Solid post. And I appreciate the reply. What does accountability look like to me? Well it’s not always the same. For example, things that are important in my life like personal relationships, my occupation, my government, etc. will demand a higher level of accountability from me than things that I don’t consider to be an important part of my life such as a college athletic program at a school in which I didn’t attend. That’s not to say that I support fake classes or grade changing or anything like that. But it’s to put some perspective to it. So in that light, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask what specifically should have occurred st UNC after all of the transgressions were uncovered. You mention those responsible being fired, that happened. At least to some degree. I’m unaware of rock solid proof that puts Roy in the crosshairs and I understand that my bias prevents me from searching for it whereas your bias makes it easy for you to assume things or jump to conclusions. Have I personally called for Roy’s firing? No. Because as I stated, I don’t know him to have done anything wrong. And also because, I don’t have enough invested in the situation to care that much. It didn’t personally effect me, my family or anyone I know. I’m sorry for any student that feels they were cheated out of an education but I would guess that the great majority of those roughly 3000 students that were enrolled in the AFAM program during the time in which all of this occurred have realized no ill effects from having been a part of it. So Maybe there’s a little bit of “is it a crime if there is no victim?” mentality with me as well. Which brings me to my last point: I think it’s irresponsible to compare the UNC situation to either MSU or PSU where lives were irreparably damaged. Again, that doesn’t mean that I support sham classes. Just that sexual assault and child molestation are not in the same universe as giving undeserved grades to college students in an effort to keep them eligible to play sports that in the grand scheme, don’t really matter. You weren’t so much comparing the transgressions but you were comparing fan reaction. And because most people feel like I do (I would imagine that you too feel sexual assault and child molestation is far worse than academic misconduct) it stands to reason that MSU fans and PSU fans have been more condemning than UNC fans. At worst, a student left UNC unprepared for the workforce. At those other two institutions, the worst is far, far worse.
I appreciate your response and see where you are coming from. I think we can boil our respective accountability issues down to should the head coach be responsible for things happening concerning his program. The issue was serious enough at UNC that the NCAA tried to go after them. It was deemed out of the jurisdiction of the enforcement on the part of the NCAA. The NCAA saw it as cheating (but couldn't punish because of basically jurisdictional technicalities) and SACS saw it as cheating (and put UNC on probation - no small matter at a supposed top-tier educational institution). It was cheating. And it was done for athletics. Any alternative claim is simply refusing to accept facts.
That said, the basketball program was heavily involved in the cheating. Did Roy know? To me, it doesn't matter. He has a responsibility to know. Head coaches are supposed to know what is going on within their program. If one kid had been participating, I could see where it could slip through the cracks. It was rampant, over a long period of time. It is negligence at best, and more likely a decision to ignore the situation.
You are correct that I don't see those offenses (sexual assault) at all similar to what happened at UNC. I don't think Roy should go to jail. Put I do think that part of the territory that goes with making millions of dollars a year and being the high-profile leader of an organization means that when "crimes" are committed, you need to be held accountable. As fans, of the team in question and of opposing teams, we should agree on that. And so for the obvious cheating that happened at UNC for the length of time it happened and at the scale that it happened at, at a minimum Roy should be shown the door. He may have had no knowledge of the situation - but that is on him.
Fair post. You make some good points. A better comparison for what Carolina did is to compare their situation to the University of Minnesota's academic scandal of the 90's.
Yeah, Carolina found a loophole, but did they get away because of who they are and how big they are?
I’ll add to both of what you are saying. Based on my understanding, Roy did know something was amiss when he arrived in Chapel Hill in 2004. On the 2005 National Championship team, I think 11/13 players majored in AFAM. By 2009, only one player majored in AFAM. Roy quietly steered his players away from what he found to be suspect classes at best. Now one could make the argument Roy could have done more or been a whistle blower, but he certainly didn’t just sit back and do nothing. Roy has had a few knuckleheads over the years, but by and large, most of the guys he’s had have been really good human beings.
I think things really spiraled out of control when Doherty took over. He had no clue how to manage a big time program. Same as Dick Baddour. By all accounts, Baddour is a marvelous human being but utterly incompetent as a big time AD.
If that's true, then I would be tempted to give Roy some slack. That is, until it comes out in the news and Roy denies, deflects, and blames others for the situation or the "junk" as he like to call it. If he was truly trying to quietly clean things up, and then gets caught after the fact, a responsible person would have said, "you know, here was how things were and we cleaned it up. We acknowledge, by our behavior then, and our words now, that what was happening was wrong. We are willing to accept the consequences. I'm angry with the stain that coaches, administrators, and faculty before me left on my program and my school" That Roy would get a pass from me.
But what you said, and what Roy has said, don't mesh. Roy claims he had no knowledge. Yet he went about cleaning things up? 11/13 majored in AFAM and Roy changed that because he didn't like the job prospects or because he caught wind people were onto them?
Isn't Dean one of the folks that initiated the afam classes? If so, then there's no way in hell Roy will bad mouth the folks that left him to clean it up. Dean is to him what Knight is to K. From that angle, and factoring in loyalty, I understand why Roy acted the way he did publicly.
It’s not that simple. To be brutally honest, as you suggest, would literally destroy people’s lives and certainly the program. That would be a heavy burden for any alumnus who happens to be heavily involved with his school. I’d also imagine that he didn’t really grasp the depth of what was happening with the AFAM program. He was concerned about the clustering, but I don’t think anyone really knew until all the information came out. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’d expect K to handle it in a similar fashion. His rhetoric might be different, but the message would largely be the same. I’ll handle my program.
Again, no one has to believe me. But my brother played baseball for UNC. Was an all-American. Has NCAA records. Was drafted and is still getting paid to play. He took 3 AFAM courses. A coach never directed him to take them. Other players just told him to. He did all the work required but he knew it was an easy class. He’s always said he was pissed because had he known the grades were so easy, he wouldn’t have done the work. I’m not the biggest Mike Fox fan, but he was pretty clueless about what classes his guys were taking. You’d be surprised how insulated some of these coaches are from the players. Some of it is plausible deniability, but some of it is just letting a young man figure out his own path. I couldn’t imagine trying to monitor a football team.
Similar threads
