R ashad McCants’ appearance on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” Friday sparked a new round of conversations about the ongoing athletics scandal at UNC.
Unfortunately, the conversations McCants’ allegations have started have been characterized by pettiness more than a discussion of the central reality of the situation — academics are secondary to athletes competing in the industry of college sports.
In the interview, McCants said he took sham independent study courses in the former African and Afro-American Studies department to remain eligible to play, and tutors wrote papers for him. He also said he believed the entire athletic department, including head men’s basketball coach Roy Williams, was complicit in the way athletic success trumped academic achievement.
A pattern of character assassination has affected almost every major figure involved in the scandal. After McCants’ interview went public, many, including former UNC players, attacked him personally, accusing him of being selfish, disreputable and crazy.
But McCants is not the first person in this scandal to have his character questioned. Mary Willingham, who revealed the existence of the suspect classes to the (Raleigh) News & Observer, has been accused of violating federal law and misrepresenting her motives.
Julius Nyang’oro, the head of the AFAM department during the era of suspect classes, has been made into a scapegoat for the entire scandal. The University’s official version of the story is that Nyang’oro was largely responsible for the substandard classes on his own — without the knowledge or involvement of the athletics department.
Dan Kane, a News & Observer journalist who unearthed key parts of the story, has been attacked as a fame-seeking fraud more concerned with chasing a Pulitzer than exposing any truth.
Even Roy Williams has been painted by some as a shadowy Nixon-like figure trying to exploit athletes for riches and cover up his own wrongdoings to avoid accountability.
All of these defamatory characterizations are superfluous to the issue at the heart of the scandal. Whatever else McCants said, one thing he argued cannot be credibly disputed: he was not brought to UNC to be a scholar. He was brought to UNC to play basketball, and his academic performance was clearly immaterial to himself and the school beyond how it affected his eligibility to compete.
