The Reckoning

The Carolina Way has proved to be exactly what every State fan has told you for years it is: a giant, hollow lie.

For every State fan who endured the self-imposed — it’s important to note that, unlike The Flagship, we held ourselves accountable after the NCAA, SBI and Poole Commission found only “minor” infractions in 1989 — indignity of the 90s (and beyond), while Carolina fans scoffed at us with their trademarked, arrogant elitism, this isn’t about ripping down banners.

This is all about the reckoning.

For decades, The Flagship perpetuated the fallacy of its superiority through its precious credo. Pompous Carolina fans — and also alums — adhered to a higher standard, and they were better, more deserving than you. All you had to do was ask one of them, they’d make sure you knew that.

Meanwhile, as they diminished us, for two decades, they were fine-tuning a chronic, institutionalized system of fraud to keep their athletes eligible. What the Wainstein Report revealed — what every bitter State fan has long known — is that “fraud” is just a white collar term for “pretentious, cheating, bastards born and bred.”

Fox Sports:

Most of the athletes involved were football players or members of the school’s cherished basketball program, which won three of its five national titles during the scandal (1993, 2005, 2009).

While the Flagship’s brilliant PR machine, exploiting every semantic in book, has tried for several years to contain this as a football problem, the Wainstein Report confirms the fraud began in 1993, under then-AD John Swofford and, literally, the face of The Carolina Way, Dean Smith. In 1997, Swofford left Carolina to take over the ACC and Smith handed over the reins of The Carolina Way’s Vanguard to his longtime lieutenant, Bill Guthridge.

In 2000, Matt Doherty took over a finely-tuned system (WRAL):

Before Williams’ arrival, former head coach Matt Doherty said that he “inherited the academic support system developed by prior coaches Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge. That system had academic oversight being handled by (Burgess) McSwain, the counselor with close ties to Debby Crowder.”

Doherty was told by Smith and Gutheridge that he should not change the system despite “understanding that AFAM was the easiest major at Chapel Hill.” Under Doherty, 42 basketball players were enrolled in paper classes.

In 2005, current Protector of the Realm, Roy Williams won his first of two national titles with 10 players enrolled in AFAM and at least some who we now know remained eligible because of the fraud.

In basketball, Carolina won three national titles and five conference titles during the 1993-2011 Era of Fraud. Yet, none of the coaches were implicated, mostly because they looked the other way. You know, except for that time in 2007 when Wayne Waldon “doesn’t recall” telling Roy Williams about the fraud, but he started pushing his players away from AFAM anyway, which reminds me of a saying: I believe in coincidence like I believe in God; I know they both exist but I’ve never seen either.

Sports Illustrated:

The Wainstein Report fingers no coaches. Chancellor Folt said that shows that none of them were involved. In fact, it fails to show that any were. And the probe brought no clarity to the charges of former Tar Heel basketball player Rashad McCants, who told ESPN that academic advisors wrote papers for himself and others and that head coach Roy Williams knew it, charges Williams has adamantly denied and which Wainstein said he found no evidence of. “We would have been very interested to talk to him,” Wainstein said of McCants. “He didn’t speak to us. He didn’t give us evidence, so there’s no evidence.”

For two decades Carolina rewarded itself by making up its own rules and championed itself as a model of moral authority. So yeah, State fans are ready for the reckoning, the public, final deconstruction of The Carolina Way.

For now, it’s just a good feeling to know that the rest of the world sees that we were right all along.

Pat Forde (Yahoo!):

For years, as the revelations accumulated and no fewer than six other reports were filed, North Carolina refused to look honestly at itself and acknowledge what it saw.

Today, the school can squirm away from the truth no more. Wainstein’s report provided a devastating house of mirrors for UNC to gaze into. The loud-and-proud claims to being a special place, capable of both athletic and academic success without cutting corners, are now hollow.

North Carolina spent many years operating like a lowest-common-denominator football/basketball factory. Regardless of whatever else comes from this thorough and painstaking investigation, that label sticks.

The report finds it believable that neither basketball coach Roy Williams nor then-football coach Butch Davis knew the extent of the AFAM scam – specifically, that players were getting gift grades…

But the deniability of Williams and Davis is largely immaterial. Their programs thrived thanks to athletes who couldn’t or wouldn’t do the work of most normal students. If those Tar Heels who were winning national titles in basketball and going to bowl games in football took anything educational away from their time in Chapel Hill, chances are decent that it was an “A” in a Swahili class that never met. That’s something to be proud of.

As UNC wallows in the shame of this scandal, the next question is whether Wainstein has given the NCAA enough ammunition to aim and fire at the school.

We can wait and see what results come from Indianapolis, but don’t hold your breath in anticipation of a deathblow for Carolina – especially Carolina basketball.

If anything, the school should react on its own to this report. Don’t wait for the NCAA to step in, do something yourself.

Now that UNC knows the independently reported facts, it can act. For years, its championship basketball teams were populated by players who benefitted from academic fraud – the 2005 national title team alone had 10 AFAM majors. If those titles were won with players who wouldn’t have been eligible without sham grades, take down the banners yourself. Take the hardware out of the trophy cases. Wear your shame.

For a school that long proclaimed to be a special place, that would be a start on restoring its integrity.

Pat Forde is naive. If he was a local, he’d know that The Carolina Way suffers neither accountability nor shame.

About LRM

Charter member of the Lunatic Fringe and a fan, loyal to a fault.

UNC Scandal

Home Forums The Reckoning

Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)
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  • #59674
    LRM
    Keymaster

    The Carolina Way has proved to be exactly what every State fan has told you for years it is: a giant, hollow lie. For every State fan who endured the
    [See the full post at: The Reckoning]

    #59678
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    Great write-up and fantastic closing line.

    God, I hope this is The Reckoning for them. None in the collegiate sports world deserve it more.

    (Cue all the Vitales out there with their violins singing about ‘don’t punish the kids there now!!!’)

    #59679
    Hungwolf
    Participant

    Each report uncovers more and more scandal and fraud, wonder what the next investigation will find? Public records requests are still pending, lawsuit pending with more likely to come, Newspapers still digging, NCAA still on campus, and no one with any common sense will believe that poor Ol Roy didn’t know. His trusted adviser he brought from Kansas already admitted wrong doing (NCAA violation) along with a memory lapse as to what he told Roy, although he talked to the coach on a daily basis and the other head academic adviser to bball for many years now at Cornell and she refused to talk! One thing is clear from the report, people have been scared to talk or come forward in the past. We can only wonder if this report will give others the confidence and security to come forward, lets hope so!

    #59686
    Wufpacker
    Participant

    I must be getting old. I remember a time when coaches and administrators tossing out the Sgt. Schultz style mea culpa would be looked at as LOIC. Now they’re lauded on drive time talk radio as being really smart.

    #59689
    Prowling Woofie
    Participant

    Absolutely LOVING that this fraud was tied to King Schnoz himself, the Deity of the Carolina Way. But very disappointed (not surprised, mind you) that the obvious dots didn’t hammer Ole Roy. He played for him, he coached under him, he modeled the fraudulent system at Kansas after him, and came home to inherit the well-oiled machine and benefit from it.

    Take the sheets down…. It’s about time !

    #59691
    Wulfpack
    Participant

    Seems from the report Roy tried to stop it. Shows he knew, though.

    #59695
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Ya’ll know… the guys over at the Scott building have been right the whole time….

    The chickens always come home to roost….

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #59697
    Gowolves
    Participant

    Yeah our friendly 99.9 was commending Roy for being the smartest person in Chapel Hill. I guess that’s like being the tallest midget. I do think he was trolling though.

    #59701
    JohnGalt78
    Participant

    ^ Oh yes, Ovary was trolling. He’s paid to troll and he’s damned good at it. Or is he? Hmmmmm, it ain’t good trolling if everyone knows it’s trolling.

    #59703
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    well done

    #59708
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    In the land of the “blind” … the “one-eyed-man” is King….

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #59709
    44rules
    Participant

    Morally, ethically and theologically, I oppose schadenfreude. But since I was at State during the V persecution, I shall make an exception. Plus, I hate everything University of No Class.

    Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Zedong

    #59713
    ncsu1987
    Participant

    The air was a little more crisp this morning on my walk, the stars twinkled just a little brighter, the coffee tastes a little better…

    Another aspect of this I don’t get. Part of UNC’s spin is to position themselves as reform leaders, paving the way for everyone to follow. In the wake of everything that has been revealed over the last four years, and in recognition of the vast mountain of circumstantially suspect but unproven shenanigans, why on Earth doesn’t the media laugh them off the stage when they start spouting that crap?

    #59716
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    If you’re already nauseated over the media, then you better avoid Dick Vitale’s inane mutterings this winter. (Is that like saying, “Don’t spit into the wind” or “Don’t eat yellow snow”?)

    #59717
    ncsu1987
    Participant

    LOL, yeah Vitale’s been a real disappointment to me. I love the work he does behind the scenes. Over the years his shtick devolved from the original wacky, colorful, occasionally insightful commenter to the ESPN/UNC/Duke shameless promoter, and it just got to be too much. Haven’t suffered through one of his games in years (usually turn the volume down and turn on the radio, or just play some music). Used to follow him on Twitter (again, mainly because of his charity/event updates) but unfollowed him after his insufferable position during the PJ Hairston “unpleasantness”.

    #59724
    44rules
    Participant

    Hey 87, having never followed anybody on Twitter or paid much attention to ESPN talking heads, I’m curious as to what Dookie V’s take was on Thug Hairston.

    Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Zedong

    #59732
    packof81
    Participant

    Roy “tried to stop it” because even he could see that sooner or later someone would let the cat out of the bag. He was just trying to cover his butt. But the whole thing had already gone too far for too long and he was benefiting from it. Doing the right thing would have meant fessing up and Roy wasn’t about to do that. His feeble attempts at dissembling ain’t fooling nobody.

    Willingham is spot on about the culture preventing UNC from doing the right thing.

    #59754
    Prowling Woofie
    Participant

    Willingham and Jay Smith’s book, coming out in March (I think), should make for interesting reading !

    #59761
    PackerInRussia
    Participant

    As a form of self-punishment, UNC has announced it will unretire Tyler Hansbrough’s number. “Given the unimaginable level of self-awe and love we have for ourselves, you can imagine this hurts us in a deep way and we feel that any additional punishment from the NCAA will be unnecessary,” Bubba Cunningham said without a trace of irony.

    #59766
    Rick
    Keymaster

    I am not sure why you guys get worked up. Just as Lucy pulls the football from CB so will the NCAA not punish the cheats

    #59770
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    I am not sure why you guys get worked up. Just as Lucy pulls the football from CB so will the NCAA not punish the cheats

    ^Haha very apt. Charlie Brown :: Nc State is pretty good.

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