First-rate dialogue doesn’t hurt either.
So far, one of our main characters – Professor Julius Nyang’oro – has been frustratingly silent, so not even a speech, much less dialogue there. But he apparently will cooperate with authorities – i.e., talk – about his long history generating fake courses for athletes at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Two other dramatis personae – Mary Willingham and Rashad McCants – have had lots to say about UNC’s corrupt academic tutoring system (that would be Willingham, who’s suing UNC ) and its “garbage no-show classes” system (and that would be Rashad, an athlete whose 4.0 GPA at UNC was a piece of cake, and as curious a piece of cake as Alice ever nibbled). But again, not much give and take here.
With the recent extended comments of UNC Professor Jay Smith in response to other UNC athletes trashing McCants and his claims, we do begin to see a little back and forth, a little point counterpoint, a little taking of sides, so that the drama truly begins to look as though it’s about to take off. UNC and the NCAA will of course remain silent – except for mechanically generated platitudes and threats – throughout this drama; but Smith’s beautifully written response signals to UD that The Storming of Chapel Hill is well on its way to being publicly staged, with a script of which GB Shaw might be proud.
Smith’s response (quoted in full with his permission):
I’m struck by the profiles of those attacking Rashad McCants. On the one hand, you have old-timers spouting off about their experiences in the 1960s, ’70s or early ’80s. These people haven’t seen the inside of an academic support program in years, even decades. They don’t have a clue what the program was like in 2005. Yet they hurl their venom at McCants – a player who had the guts to share his transcript on television, and who also had the guts to buck the tide while he was at UNC [an offense against ‘the family’ for which he has never been forgiven].
On the other hand, you have more current players willfully deceiving gullible journalists – while carefully guarding their transcripts – because they don’t want to face reality and deal with the shame that the ‘Carolina way’ was no more than an illusion during their playing days. Antawn Jamison [who played at North Carolina from 1995-98] has the audacity to call McCants a clown? Someone needs to remind Jamison that [UNC-sanctioned special investigator] Ken Wainstein is actually looking at transcripts. Wainstein knows. And he’s going to be issuing a report.
Other people know, too, including some who are writing books. The truth is eventually going to come out. And we’ll see who’s wearing the dunce cap when this story is all said and done.
As for McCants’ refusal thus far to speak to the NCAA or UNC’s compliance officer … I can’t say that I blame him. Look at what UNC has done to him in the wake of his allegations. They slimed him, as they do everyone who dares to utter a critical word about the UNC athletic machine. Why would he want to sit down for a discussion with such people? [I suspect he sees Wainstein as just another agent of the University.] And the NCAA? McCants doesn’t care about doling out punishment or ‘making an example,’ which is all the NCAA ever does.
He wants to see the system change going forward. Neither UNC nor the NCAA has an interest in changing anything. This is why UNC will not acknowledge the truth of what McCants has said and it’s why the NCAA went to court last month to maintain the charade that football and basketball players are ‘students first.’ McCants, it seems to me, just has little interest in wasting his time.
When Roy Williams came here from Kansas, he brought with him the team academic counselor who had served him so well at Kansas: Wayne Walden. He regarded Walden as such a vital contributor to the good fortunes of his teams that he was practically moved to tears when Walden departed in 2009. Walden knew every detail about the academic lives of those players; he had to. He registered them for their courses, for crying out loud. [And that means he got on the phone with the Department of African and Afro-American Studies and he put them in paper classes.] Walden also spoke with Williams every day; he had to. Williams’ claim that he had no earthly idea that his players were floating along on paper classes – and that he never would have guessed that one of his stars was enrolled in four no-show classes in the spring of 2005 – is nothing more than a confidence trick. He’s counting on the customary journalistic favoritism, and journalists’ amazing lack of curiosity, to enable him to tell this whopper and walk away with his aura intact. We’ll see if that works.
Yes, things are heating up. Things are taking shape.