Michael McAdoo was a star player on the North Carolina football team that had his whole life to look forward to ahead of him. He had no idea that 2014 was going to be a rough year to face the truth.
McAdoo told ESPN that he was supposed to be guaranteed a good education while being recruited by coaches. He was guided to African-American Studies, which is now the center of many other cases. He was offered help from a tutor that basically did all his work for his non-existent classes.
The cherry on top was when the Tar Heels head coach Larry Fedora, in an obvious attempt to avoid blame and liability told ESPN that the school’s actions relating to player academics was out of his and the other coaches’ reach and that they did not know anything was going on.
The thing that people that are just hearing about the case do not realize is that extravagant benefits and class shams may be more the norm in the NCAA. It may be turning into a corrupt system, or has been but just no one came forward and made it this much of an issue until now.
Coaches and administration that want to keep their school’s sports reputation alive know full well the punishments that will happen to their players if grades and expectations are not met and thus, would probably do many things to make sure things go their way. This is still not an excuse to completely ignore classes and give them a free ride. If they are a student, they should be in actual classes doing the work just like anyone else.
This is obviously not the only case of this happening in colleges. Former UNC graduate and star basketball scorer, Rashad McCants, has spent the last three years trying to bring light to his sham classes situation and that it is happening to more players than anyone even thinks. During his college days, he never went to class and had tutors write up his papers for him and he still somehow, even to his confusion, managed to stay fully eligible to play.
Other players should start speaking up because it will make schools quit playing favorites and start sticking to the books. College prepares people for life outside of football and if they are all given a free ride in academics while others worked day and night, what makes them qualified to make million dollar life decisions?
The parents are expecting their kids to get a full education and grow up to be great people, then maybe if they are lucky a professional sports star. Doing work and actually going to class and being exhausted during games is reality. What schools also do not realize is that yes, a trophy makes their school look good but they are doing the majority of students no favors later in life.