Scandals, lawsuits and more scandals have too often been associated with the North Carolina athletic department in recent years.
The latest, a report by The News & Observer, chronicles the the athletic department pressuring the university’s graduate programs to accept athletes with no merits.
Documents from 2003 show John Blanchard, then a senior associate athletic director, made a request on Sept. 5, after classes had started, to UNC’s graduate school to admit football player Michael Waddell in order to make him eligible for the team’s upcoming game against Syracuse.
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The problem was the Waddell had a low grade point average and no entrance exam scores.
However, as a favor to the athletic department, graduate school dean Lynda Dykstra admitted Waddell, who played every regular season game that year for the Tar Heels. In his final year of eligibility, Waddell played defensive back and returned kicks. He was then drafted in the fourth round by the Titans. He also flunked out of the graduate program with four F’s.
Cheryl Thomas, the graduate school’s admissions director from 2002-10, supplied documentation of Waddell’s graduate journey. Thomas reportedly fought Waddell’s admission to the program.
“They know he has not applied and would not meet the minimum requirements for admission, yet the (Exercise and Sports Science Department) is willing to accept him as a non-degree seeking, one semester only, graduate student so his football eligibility will continue, if the (graduate school) will allow it,” Thomas wrote to her superiors in 2003.
Kevin Guskiewicz, a professor and director of the Exercise and Sports Science’s graduate studies program in 2003, wrote a pointed letter to Blanchard in Jan. 21, 2004, that said:
“As you know, (department chairman) Fred Mueller and I ‘went out on a limb’ to try and help an unfortunate situation — whereby Michael was evidently misinformed by your office that he could enroll in the Sport Administration Graduate Program so that he could be enrolled as a student-athlete at UNC-CH. He was about to be declared ineligible the day before the Syracuse game when you approached me about how we might help.
“After several discussions with you, the Dean’s office, and faculty in our department, we sent the letter requesting a special admit (something we have never done before) with the understanding that Michael would live up to his end of the bargain — attending classes regularly, handing in all assignments, and making every effort possible to succeed in the classes…
“We were willing to accept Michael Waddell and his very marginal undergraduate GPA because we believed that helping a student, and a group of colleagues in the Athletic Department was the right thing to do at the time. Four months later, we now look foolish.”
Thomas said in an interview similar situations happened at least once every year as she recalled the case of Justin Knox, a basketball player who graduated from Alabama in 2010 but still had one more season of eligibility. Such cases led Thomas to resign in 2010 after working at UNC for 22 years.
“You can’t turn down thousands of people and say yes to one just so he can play basketball,” she said.