UNC reports 2 new findings in academic scandal investigation

Add men’s soccer to the list of UNC teams under investigation by the NCAA.

UNC announced Friday it will delay its response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations because new issues have surfaced with the men’s soccer and women’s basketball teams.

Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham said he expects the delay to take fewer than 60 days. The day before Friday’s announcement, Cunningham had said UNC’s hearing with the NCAA committee on infractions would most likely take place at the end of 2015.

Friday’s news extends that timeline. After UNC turns in its response, probably in October, the NCAA will decide whether to amend its notice of allegations. If it chooses to do so, the University will have another 90 days to respond.

Independent investigator Kenneth Wainstein’s October 2014 report describes a paper class scheme that was used to help keep athletes eligible from 1993 to 2011 — beginning before most undergraduates were born and ending before they arrived on campus.

Though the University continues to release more information about athletic and academic issues, students interviewed on campus Sunday had distant attitudes about the scandal.

“It didn’t really affect me personally,” junior Aravind Subramanian said. “I worked at Duke over the summer, and they brought it up a lot, probably because it’s Duke. But you know, I wasn’t directly affected by it.”

Like several other students, Subramanian said he didn’t feel like he knew enough to talk in detail about the situation.

Senior Laura Belk said she thinks about the scandal most when she talks to people away from campus.

“People I know not from UNC have conceptions of UNC that maybe it’s not as legit as I know it is,” she said.

Freshman Chris Combemale said he saw the scandal as a factor when he was deciding to come to UNC, but it was outweighed by the University’s “more attractive” qualities.

“It seemed like it was a long time ago,” he said. “I felt like the University’s response was adequate but not superb ... I got some sense that they were working to prevent something like that from happening again.”

Combemale said he didn’t think problems were widespread at UNC.

“I’m not an athlete, so it didn’t really bother me too much,” he said.

Cunningham said the women’s basketball issues discussed Friday are “similar” to the second allegation of the NCAA notice, which focuses on Jan Boxill, the former faculty chairwoman and philosophy professor who resigned in February.

The NCAA notice alleges that, from April 2007 to July 2010, Boxill “knowingly provided extra benefits in the form of impermissible academic assistance and special arrangements to women’s basketball student-athletes.”

According to the Wainstein report, Boxill wrote parts of players’ papers and suggested grades to Deborah Crowder, who ran the two-decades-long paper class scheme with former Department of African and Afro-American Studies chairman Julius Nyang’oro.

Men’s soccer, in contrast, is not mentioned in the Wainstein report. Cunningham said the men’s soccer recruiting issues were discovered after a coach failed a question in a routine compliance test.

In a statement, men’s soccer coach Carlos Somoano said the mistake was made “unknowingly” and he reported it immediately.

Boxill, women’s basketball head coach Sylvia Hatchell and several recently transferred basketball players did not respond to requests for comment.

Still, as the long-running scandal projects to extend into 2016, some recently arrived freshmen aren’t concerned.

“I don’t know, like, the sanctions or anything, but it didn’t really affect my decision to come here at all,” freshman Jonathan Bowling said.

“It’s still great academics, (a) great place to come. Still want to be here.”

Freshman Chance Rector said coverage of the scandal didn’t influence his decision.

“Either way, I was coming here,” he said.

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