Ya bring up an interesting point. She's whining about how Duke plays defense as if it were an affront to the game itself. Meanwhile , she's spearheading the worst scam in NCAA history. How many of those tarhole players would've never been subjected to Duke's "bumping and hand-checking" had she not played a huge role in keeping those morons academically eligible? If unx had played the game with true student athletes , hey , maybe Duke wouldn't have had to resort to all that physicality?! LMAO! Yet another example of how unx'ers are THE least self-aware fans on the planet. Anyway...
unc-CH’s fake-classes have cost $10 million, and counting
Legal and public relations costs high
University could have saved most of the money
And a scandal probe hasn’t really ended
The legal and public relations bills related to the academic and athletics scandal over fake classes at unc-Chapel Hill read more like the tabs for some corporate scheme unearthed than for bills for a public university.
The costs to the university for dealing with a scandal wherein athletes were guided to fake classes through an academic advising system run amok are astounding and ought to provoke disgust among alums and taxpayers who support the university. So far, reports The News & Observer’s Dan Kane, the tab for public relations consultants and lawyers has topped $10 million. And there may be more expense to come related to an investigation by and expected sanctions from the NCAA. That organization is on the hot seat. Other schools that have been penalized for lesser offenses are awaiting the punishment for unc-Chapel Hill, which may have the distinction of being the biggest abuse of academics and athletics in the history of college sports.
The university could have saved itself and its supporters lots of money and lots of embarrassment if it had just complied with the records requests that Kane and The News & Observer made early on. The $10 million-plus for lawyers to fight requests, to answer charges and to investigate the scandal represents the cost of a lack of transparency.
Because after all was said and done, Kenneth Wainstein, the Washington attorney hired to conduct a $3.1 million investigation (his firm has been paid another $2.7 million), found that Kane’s reports were right: There were fake classes, athletes were disproportionately enrolled in them, and university officials from the bottom to the top were either oblivious or didn’t take problems seriously.
The university could have played it straight from the beginning. Instead, with a public relations operation of its own that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it went to high-priced outside firms to “manage” the story, to keep a lid on things, to “spin” the university’s position.
The university is careful to note that the millions spent for all this don’t come from student fees or public appropriations, but from a private foundation. This is a trusted public institution that has been seriously wounded. It doesn’t matter where the money came from, as it still belongs to that public institution.
The best and cheapest response would have been not to circle the wagons and to try to defend the indefensible, but to conduct a straightforward, intense investigation, release all the findings and offer in detail a response not designed to spin the story in the best light but to expose the situation to the brightest light.
Instead, the university first – through neglect, a lack of attention, a desire for athletics success and the lackadaisical attitude of administrators – allowed the scandal to happen and, second, wasted years and millions of dollars trying to pretend it didn’t really happen the way the facts show that it did.
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article41995485.html
uncaa.unc.edu>
