Category Archives: Athletics

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Hey UNC Banner-Chasers and Accreditation-Revokers, Sit Down and Shut Up

I fully intended for my post last week to be my only one on the UNC academic scandal.  However, the reactions by the sports media and some within higher education force me to address the issue once again.  The national sports media rushed to call on the university and the NCAA to rip down the championship banners in the Dean Dome.  Pat Forde’s article called on the university to bring down the banners while the Wainstein Report was still warm from the copier.  The calls to punish UNC didn’t stay in the sports section.  Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the well-known trade publication, Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg argued for revoking the university’s accreditation.  For Rosenberg, forget the death penalty for athletics.  Let’s kill the entire university.

Photo credit: Jonathan Stewart

To the Banner-Chasers and the Accreditation-Revokers, I have a plea from all of us who are concerned about the academic fraud:  “Sit down and shut up!”

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UNC Scandal was an Academic and Governance Failing

As a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina, I have watched the unfolding “paper class” scandal with a mixture of dismay, anger, and frustration. As a fan, I have watched the scandal frustrated with the media coverage and the oft-acknowledged failings of the NCAA enforcement process. In this way, I suspect I’m no different than many alumni. However, I am a little different in many alums in that I’m a scholar of higher education. Specifically, I study organizational and policy issues of colleges and universities. For this reason, as a researcher, I’ve felt that I have a special obligation when commenting on this scandal. Even with the prior investigations, it never seemed we had the full story and I didn’t want to comment on incomplete facts. With the release of the Wainstein investigation, I finally feel comfortable in the facts of what occurred to comment.

Photo credit: Flickr _zhang
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College Football is Broken

This weekend should have been a glorious one for college football. There were amazing upsets with the #2, #3, #4, #6, #8, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, and #19 ranked teams losing. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that college football is broken. In what should be a celebration of the sport, I find myself disillusioned and increasingly disinterested in the results. There are three events that crystalize for me the problems of college football.

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Power Conference Autonomy Will Cause More Problems

In a widely anticipated outcome, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors is expected today to approve additional autonomy measures for the Power 5 athletic conferences: ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC (update: The vote passed 16-2).  The new governance measures will enable these institutions to set more of their own rules and governance.  The spin during the lead up to the vote has been about including student athletes in decisions and providing better athlete benefits.  The Power 5 have touted better health benefits and covering the full cost of attendance.  These would be welcomed changes.  However, let me be clear.  This legislation is nothing more than a power grab by the Power 5.  It will only continue the damaging trend of escalating athletics expenses.

Photo credit: Jay Denney

The changes will continue the recent NCAA trend of protecting the few dozen major athletic programs.  At the end of the day, the NCAA couldn’t risk the possibility of those universities leaving and taking much of the revenue with them.