[S]ure [E]verone [C]heats

by Nestor on Jul 16, 2006 7:46 AM PDT in Football Comment 7 comments

Most of you who are obsessive enough to follow college football during these dog days of summer (hey nothing wrong with that) via the internet tubes, know by now about the unfolding scandal at Auburn University. Yes the ole paper of record decided to run a huge front page story (on a day the skies of the Middle East were being lit up with missiles and rockets) on a subject shocking to all of us - a major football school in the SEC might be doing something shady academically to keep its football scholars eligible. Here is the original article from the New York Times:

For Some Athletes, Courses With No Classes
By PETE THAMEL

A graphic popped up on James Gundlach's television during an Auburn football game in the fall of 2004, and he could not believe his eyes.

One of the university's prominent football players was being honored as a scholar athlete for his work as a sociology major. Professor Gundlach, the director of the Auburn sociology department, had never had the player in class. He asked the two other full-time sociology professors about the player, and they could not recall having had him either.

So Professor Gundlach looked at the player's academic files, which led him to the discovery that many Auburn athletes were receiving high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work.

Eighteen members of the 2004 Auburn football team, which went undefeated and finished No. 2 in the nation, took a combined 97 hours of the courses during their careers. The offerings resemble independent study and include core subjects like statistics, theory and methods, which normally require class instruction.

The professor for those players and many other athletes was Thomas Petee, the sociology department's highest-ranking member. The star running back Carnell (Cadillac) Williams, now playing in the National Football League, said the only two classes he took during the spring semester of his senior year were one-on-one courses with Professor Petee.

At one point, Professor Petee was carrying the workload of more than three and a half professors, an academic schedule that his colleagues said no one could legitimately handle.

I know. Y'all must be really shocked. How can this be happening in yet another SEC "university"? Okay, to be fair, there are some legit institutions of higher learning in that football crazy conference. And, judging by the quality of writing in the Alabama, Florida, and Georgia college football blogosphere, it's not entirely fair to lump them all together. But still, this is pretty bad. Brian from MGoBlog has a breakdown of the whole mess as well as those pesky Florida grads from EDSBS with this honest admission re. their troubled conference:

That's The SEC For You. It would be great to refute this. It really would. You know, we wish we had those secondary abs, too. Like D'Angelo has in the "How Does It Feel" video: the eight-pack with the cuts shooting down off the stomach into the groin? We'd wager that fifty percent of women would actually take their pants off for you on the street if you had those, and since we're married, that's all we'd do: flash secondary ab, take the pants, and walk down the street with our shirt off and a stack of women's pants over the shoulder like the prize kill of a hunter. We don't have them, though, and this is well-documented proof that Still, Everyone's Cheating.

Just one ab. We don't need to borrow the whole set, D'Angelo.

Mike Slive, the head of the mucho-monied SEC, has stated that cleaning up the conference's reputation stands as a priority. An opportunity to demonstrably act on this has just crashed flaming and smoking into your living room. Just saying...

As for Tuberville, we recommend the words of Admiral Painter from Hunt for Red October.

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

Now that is why everyone respects those guys' takes on college football so much. Despite being partisan Gator/SEC fans, they are willing to be intellectually honest and tell it like it is. This is unlike certain Trojan shill pretending to be objective/impartial college football observers who did not waste any time (a few hours) to jump all over the New York Times story. This is from the same guys who tried to stay mum as long as possible on the blockbuster summer college football stories painting a pattern of systematic corruption and scandals on the Southern Cheaters from the left coast. Uh, yeah, the Trojan shills over at CFR did not have any problem not honoring their "longstanding policy of not attending to off-field stories" re the shocking story of off-field issues at Auburn, while staying silent for days while the Reggie Bush scandal was breaking wide open all over the newspapers and blogs coast to coast.

Anyways, back to the New York Times' Auburn story. Again, I find it interesting that the New York Times thought it was important enough to give the shocking subject of academic fraud in the Sure Everyone Cheats conference the front page treatment, while still not writing up anything significant on the biggest scandal factory in the current world of college football. We wonder why, and so should everyone else who follows college football.

UPDATE 11:37 am EST: Speaking of corrupt cheaters ... err ... "troubled" programs ... we have a poll up. Make sure to vote early and vote often.

GO BRUINS.

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Hypocrisy

Academic fraud at Auburn? Shocking to my very core. I wonder who had the "about seven minutes" box on their "When will Auburn screw up next" pool card.

As for the Trojan apologists out there, their treatment of this nicely illustrates the complete lack of intellectual honesty that they bring to the subject. A couple months ago, it was all about waxing poetic about how everyone does it, and feigning surprise that anyone would be surprised or interested in the scandals at USC. Of course, those excuses were just that. And I was right to say that the post-facto justifications ginned up by such folks were just rationalizations, and not genuine beliefs. Of course, now that the shoes on the other foot, they show their true colors. Amusing, to say the least.

by Menelaus on Jul 16, 2006 9:42 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

The failure of the traditional media ...

What troubles me here is the lack of due diligence on the part of sports media in LA in covering the story at SC.

If the NY Times can devote a front page article on what looks like (yet another) typical academic fraud at Auburn, then why hasn't the LA Times, Daily News, or the OC Register run major stories on what is going on over at SC.

They have run separate stories on the countless scandals at USC, but none of them have even bothered to look into the big picture and go beyond the orignal reports?

I mean is it difficult to investigate/find out exactly how Bob Leinart can take care of thousands of dollars of free rent not just for his son but for another athelete in his son's football team? Where did that money come from?

What was SC doing admitting a sexual predator like Frostee Rucker (who had a record of violence against women) admitting into its football program?

These are troubling stories a major media news outlet or sports network should be exploring.

Not to mention I have heard or read nothing from the womens' rights/liberal interest groups from Southern California who should all over at SC. But nothing. Zilch nada.

Going back to Jarrett ... Pom Pom is breathless asserting that Jarrett should not missing any game ... a spin enthusiastically reported (without challenge) by Trojan shills like Scott Wolf (and most Trojan bloggers).

The hypocrisy is mind boggling.

by Nestor on Jul 16, 2006 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Probably doesn't factor into it but...

...it is interesting to note that the NYT owns the Tuscaloosa News.

by Nico on Jul 16, 2006 9:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You guys...

...are so amazingly childish, not to mention intellectually dishonest.

Did you even bother to read what CFR wrote? He didn't 'jump' on the story as you said, and he wasn't bashing Auburn, but rather poo-pooed it as much a-do about nothing.

The whole blogosphere was writing about it, so he kicked his two cents in about a story on the front page of the newspaper of record, the New York Times.

You will not see a bunch of stories in the local media about a culture of corruption at USC because the local media is not a bunch of UCLA honks looking to find something, anything to bring down USC.

There is no 'there' there and no amount of whining on your part is going to bring it about.

by Heismanpundit on Jul 16, 2006 8:42 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Nice job stealing lines from your detractors

Does this post change the fact that you make every excuse possible to cover up the culture of corruption at SUC?

Does it change the fact that you refuse to demand accountability from the coach despite repeated infractions against SUC's own student body?

Does it change the fact that you still hilariously try to mask your pro-SUC bias while claiming impartiality despite paper-thin arguments like the one you just made?

Does it change the fact that even though the national media was all over these violations and arrests, that the lazy, biased, incompetant local media couldn't be bothered to investigate the story right in their backyard?

No, No, No, and No. Might want to check out who's REALLY whining here (and his name rhymes with MANpundit).

And you wonder why the "whole blogosphere" considers you and your blog a joke.

by scittles on Jul 16, 2006 10:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

There goes HP again

sticking up for his little minion.

CFR did jump all over that story. It (he/she? whatever) didn't waste any time to comment (hey jackass note that I didn't specifically write whether or not CFR was commenting negatively or positively on that specific story) on a story even though it made pathetic excuse of not commenting on off-field issues after the Reggie Bush story and other stories broke related to USC.

So if stayed quiet for days following all the SC scandal story, WTF was it doing commenting within hours that story broke on NY Times.

That is called being intellectually incosistent.

And speaking of whining, it is you who is always whining constantly about what we are writing here on BN. So STFU already.

by Nestor on Jul 17, 2006 5:32 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs