Impressions from Wainstein Wednesday
DURHAM, NC (WTVD) -- The totality of UNC's academic embarrassment was laid bare Wednesday afternoon as Kenneth Wainstein unveiled the details of his meticulous report.
Page after page and slide after Power Point slide, years of bald faced deception in virtual plain sight were documented. In some cases almost laughably so. Jan Boxill (more on her in a bit) using her university email to explicitly request grades for what she assumed to be plagiarized papers? Beth Bridger giving a Power Point to football coaches about jumping on the Crowder-class train before it left the station for the last time? Both alarming indicators of just how little attention anyone was paying to what was happening. Not to mention how little anyone cared. As Butch Davis described it - an 'Easter Egg' of academic integrity. Shiny and pretty on the outside, but empty in reality. (A line that surely makes opposing fans gleeful.)
As Wainstein made abundantly clear, Crowder and her cadre of willful academic support staffers were the main operators here. I have a hard time thinking of her as a villain per se. This wasn't an evil scheme, just a woefully misguided vision of helping ill prepared students. In the end - I'm supposed to say that she shortchanged the very people she was trying to help - and she absolutely did (not to mention aiding at least 2 generations of frat boys). I just don't know that they'd all say that. Even if you understandably choose to dismiss most of what Rashad McCants is claiming, his notion that many players are just passing through en route to the pros rings true.
For me, it was Boxill's longstanding manipulation that jumped out the most. Universally respected and accorded high faculty office, there she was, mucking clumsily around in the most plainly stupid dirt of academic fraud. Her early brazen attempts to have Crowder's name scrubbed from the initial inquiries was a now nakedly transparent effort at CYA. I mean, for hell's sake - Boxill was the 'Head Coach' of UNC's 'Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl' team. I'm not sure irony's a strong enough word. Perhaps there's a gruntier German version to convey the severity. Though I doubt we'll get it, her version of how she went so far off the rails is one I'd love to hear. As recently as late last month she was being lauded, now her reputation is ruined.
As for the culpability of Roy Williams, I'll take Wainstein at his word about taking Roy at his. The evidence suggests that Roy was suspicious of the mass AFAM groupings of his players, and he took action to change that. The numbers of enrollments in the following years tell that story. Could you argue that Roy waited to win a title before becoming REAL concerned? Perhaps - but for me, Roy's greatest shortcoming on that front was his total trust in Wayne Walden. We know that Walden knew the classes were bogus. We don't know that Roy did.
So where do we go from here? Guessing at how the NCAA will handle any given circumstance is the quickest route to being wrong. I will not attempt to speculate on what possible punishments await North Carolina in the wake of Wednesday's release of the Wainstein report. Do I think there'll be an additional price to pay? Yes. Do I think it's warranted? Yes.
The biggest reason for trepidation if I'm a UNC fan is the possibility that Mark Emmert sees this as an opportunity to retake the moral high ground that has crumbled under the NCAA in recent years. He tried with Penn State. That obviously became a mess. There are none of the complicating issues in Chapel Hill. Just 2 decades of thoroughly documented chicanery involving countless athletes and teams. Of course, the other option would be that Power 5 autonomy has rendered the NCAA toothless and no real punishment is forthcoming. Basically, what I'm saying is that I have no idea. And that seems a good place to stop.
