Synopses & Reviews
In 2010 allegations of an utterly corrupt academic system for student-athletes emerged from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus, home of the legendary Tar Heels. As the alma mater of Michael Jordan, Larry Brown, Marion Jones, Lawrence Taylor, Rashad McCants, and many others; winner of forty national championships in six different sports; and a partner in one of the best rivalries in sports, UNCand#8211;Chapel Hill is a world-famous colossus of college athletics. In the wake of the Wainstein report, however, the fallout from this scandaland#8212;and the continuing spotlight on the failings of college athleticsand#8212;has made the school ground zero in the debate about how the $16 billion college sports industry operates.
and#160;Written by UNC professor of history Jay Smith and UNC athletics department whistleblower Mary Willingham, Cheated exposes the fraudulent inner workings of this famous university. For decades these internal systems have allowed woefully underprepared basketball and football players to take fake courses and earn devalued degrees from one of the nationand#8217;s top universities while faculty and administrators looked the other way. In unbiased and carefully sourced detail, Cheated recounts the academic fraud in UNCand#8217;s athletics department, even as university leaders focused on minimizing the damage in order to keep the billion-dollar college sports revenue machine functioning. Smith and Willingham make an impassioned argument that the and#8220;student-athletesand#8221; in these programs are being cheated out of what, after all, is promised them in the first place: a college education.and#160;
Review
andldquo;The underlying fraud in big-time college athletics is academics. With the most comprehensive accounting, Smith and Willlingham paint an absolutely devastating picture of how so-called student-athletes are shamelessly exploited. . . . Cheated is nothing less than an American tragedy.andrdquo;andmdash;Frank Deford, author of The Entitled and senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated
Review
andldquo;This book informed me that, as a black athlete and a student, more awareness and information about the universities you attend must be thoroughly analyzed before making a decision about your future. The details of fraudulent education and unprepared black athletes in this book should shame our society. I am a living testimony that this book is the Pandoraandrsquo;s box of university secrets and black athlete exploitation. It is a must-read.andrdquo;andmdash;Rashad McCants, former NBA player and UNC NCAA Champion
Review
andldquo;Smith and Willinghamandrsquo;s exposandeacute; of the corruption at the University of North Carolina reads like a suspense thriller but unfortunately is nonfiction. The authors offer concrete recommendations for college sports reform that should serve as a blueprint for all American universities.andrdquo;andmdash;Gerald Gurney, president of the Drake Group and assistant professor of adult and higher education at the University of Oklahoma
Review
andquot;[Cheated] offers a stinging critique of UNC-Chapel Hillandrsquo;s handling of the academic and athletic wrongdoing that kept student athletes eligible to compete and persisted for nearly two decades.andquot;andmdash;Jane Stancill, News and Observer
Review
andquot;Those who care about the soulandmdash;and economicsandmdash;of the $16 billion-a-year college sports industry should clear their reading calendar for Cheated.andquot;andmdash;Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business
Review
andquot;Cheated sounds an important call for reform.andquot;andmdash;Gregg Easterbrook, Wall Street Journal
Review
andquot;All readers interested in education, public affairs, and college athletics will find this book essential.andquot;andmdash;John Maxymuk, Library Journal
Synopsis
For twelve years the women's basketball rivalry between UConn and Tennessee was the most iconic matchup in women's sports. Even now, twenty years since the annual series started, the competition between these two storied programs still provokes heated argument and bitter resentment. Led by Hall of Fame coaches Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt, UConn and Tennessee combined for nine national championships, with the UConn Huskies winning five-including four against the Tennessee Lady Vols. In all, UConn won thirteen of twenty-two matchups during the rivalry, and along the way the two coaches-with distinctive and brash personalities and a shared determination to rule their sport-clashed privately and publicly, generating enough heat to make women's basketball relevant in the national sports landscape as never before. On the court, the two teams produced a series of memorable games, from overtime thrillers to timeless classics that defined the sport. Off the court, the coaches' encounters were often marked by their seemingly genuine dislike for each other, until the conflict reached a breaking point in 2007 and Summitt stunned the basketball world by canceling the series for reasons neither side has ever revealed. Now, eight years after the last game, Unrivaled uncovers the on-court and behind-the-scenes story of this intensely personal rivalry between coaches, players, and the two most passionate fan bases women's sports has ever known. Jeff Goldberg was the UConn women's basketball writer for the Hartford Courant from 2001 to 2006 and is the author of Bird at the Buzzer: UConn, Notre Dame, and a Women's Basketball Classic (Nebraska, 2011). Rebecca Lobo played for coach Auriemma at UConn and on three teams in the WNBA. She is now a television basketball analyst for ESPN.
Synopsis
\n 2010 allegations of an utterly corrupt academic system for student-athletes emerged at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of the legendary Tar Heels. Written by UNC professor of history Jay Smith and UNC athletics department whistleblower Mary Willingham, Cheated recounts the story of academic fraud in UNC's athletics department, even as university leaders focused on minimizing the damage in order to keep the billion-dollar college sports revenue machine functioning. Smith and Willingham make an impassioned argument that the "student-athletes" in these programs are being cheated out of what, after all, they are promised in the first place: a college education.
Updated with a new epilogue, the paperback edition of Cheated carries the narrative through the defining events of 2017, including the landmark Wainstein report, the findings of which UNC leaders initially embraced only to push aside in an audacious strategy of denial with the NCAA, ultimately even escaping punishment for offering sham coursework. The ongoing fallout from this scandal--and the continuing spotlight on the failings of college athletics, which are hardly unique to UNC--has continued to inform the debate about how the $16 billion college sports industry operates and influences colleges and universities nationwide.
About the Author
Jay M. Smith is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has servedand#12288;in a variety of administrative capacities involving the management of undergraduate education.
Mary Willingham worked in the Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling at UNCand#8211;Chapel Hill until 2014. Both she (in 2013) and Smith (in 2014) received the Robert Maynard Hutchins Award from the Drake Group for integrity in the face of college sport corruption, making UNC the only institution with two Hutchins award winners. Willingham is the founder of Paper Class, Inc. (paperclassinc.com), an organization dedicated to fighting on behalf of student-athletes for a fair and proper education.
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