By Hank Hinton

On March 25, HBO’s Real Sports aired a story on the higher education of NCAA football and basketball players.  The piece began with a former football player at the University of Memphis who graduated but didn’t know how to read.  The piece then turned to Bernard Goldberg’s interview with Mary Willingham.

Willingham, a University of North Carolina learning specialist, claimed that many student athletes were admitted to UNC with less than a 4 ^th grade reading level.  She said that she worked with football and basketball players on letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make.

Former UNC football players Mike McAdoo and Brian Bishop were interviewed and said that they were told to take certain classes to stay on course for graduation.  They said that the athletic department enrolled them in these classes and they were handed their schedules upon arrival.

Both players took Swahili to satisfy the foreign language requirements and said they were told to do so.  Goldberg asked Bishop if Swahili “comes in handy” and asked McAdoo if he can “speak Swahili a little bit.”  Both players said “no”.

But is that really a valid point?  I took two years of Latin in high school and three semesters of Portuguese in college.  I can’t write or speak any Latin or Portuguese today and neither “come in handy” for me.  How about you?

“I ask myself what did I really get from the school?” said former UNC football player Brian Bishop.  Goldberg points out that “Bishop graduated from UNC and now works a low skill job at a drug treatment facility.”  Willingham said that Bishop did not get a real education at UNC.  It is implied that if Bishop would have received a “real education” at UNC he would have a much better job now.

I would like to ask HBO and Willingham, what kind of job would Bishop have had he not been admitted to college?  Willingham is arguing that these students don’t belong at UNC but she is also saying UNC is not educating them and hundreds of players like Bishop are not getting “a real degree”.

UNC was not the only school featured in the story.  Memphis, Oklahoma and Iowa State were some of the others.  But most of Goldberg’s piece focused on Chapel Hill and the interviews conducted with Willingham, McAdoo and Bishop.

There are two different issues presented:  1) Some of these athletes have no business being admitted into college and can’t keep up with their peers academically and 2) The athletic departments know this and so they place them in easy courses so they can graduate.

I think we can all agree that both issues (1 and 2) go on at UNC, NCSU, ECU, etc.  This is going on with every football and basketball program that wants to compete at the highest level.  And it’s been going on for decades.  Is anyone really surprised by this?

It’s probably the hottest topic of the year in this state because Mary Willingham is writing a book and her PR machine in Chapel Hill keeps fanning the flames.  Of course media outlets like HBO and the Raleigh News and Observer are going to keep it on the front page because this kind of thing gets ratings and sells papers.  The great irony of it all is that Willingham is criticizing UNC for making millions of dollars on these poor uneducated athletes but she is trying to profit from writing a book by using some of those same kids.

Brian Bishop wants to know what he got “from the school”.  I would ask Bishop what would you get if you hadn’t been given the chance to go to “the school”?  HBO’s Real Sports only features two disgruntled former football players and implies that these two guys weren’t given an education and they are now suffering.  I have college friends who were not athletes and did get a “real education”.  Some of them couldn’t find decent jobs after graduating and they are now working “low skill jobs”.  But HBO won’t be featuring them.

I’m not saying that all is peachy keen at UNC.  There is plenty of wrong-doing and more to come from this soap opera in Chapel Hill.  The district attorney of Orange County indicted former African American Studies chair Julius Nyang’oro back in December.  I’m just as curious to see what comes from the testimony of Nyang’oro as anyone.

Most of my peers knew that an AFRI class was a good way to go if you needed to get your grades up while I was student at UNC in the late 90’s.  I recall sitting in the Dean Smith Center before a basketball game 15 years ago and thumbing through a program.  I noticed that half the team was majoring in African-American studies.

In fairness, a lot of universities offer some kind of major that is popular among athletes.  UNC is not the only one with a “safe place” for those football and basketball players that are less than average students.  Go through your program the next time you go to a college football game and look up the majors of the players.  The most popular is usually the easiest degree on campus.

I think if they can go back in time UNC would have made sure the people in charge of their “safe place” for athletes had a few more checks and balances.  It’s obvious UNC was not paying attention and now they are paying the price for carelessness.  Mary Willingham will be signing books here shortly.