Nov 10, 2014
Westhead: Former CFL player sues school for pressuring players to take ‘sham’ course
A former Canadian Football League player is suing his former American university, alleging the school for years pressured football players to take “bogus” exercise, communications or African-American studies courses that were meant to inflate their marks and maintain their eligibility.
A former Canadian Football League player is suing his former American university, alleging the school for years pressured football players to take “bogus” exercise, communications or African-American studies courses that were meant to inflate their marks and maintain their eligibility.
Michael McAdoo, a defensive end who played in 2013 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, is suing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In court papers obtained by TSN, McAdoo has asked a U.S. federal court in North Carolina to grant his case class action status so that all players who received football scholarships at the school between 1993 and 2011 might receive a court-awarded judgment.
The school has not responded to the case and McAdoo’s claims have not been proven.
The University of North Carolina, once referred to as a New Ivy by Newsweek magazine, has been investigating claims of academic corruption for at least several years.
In 2011, the school fired football coach Butch Davis days before preseason practice and an investigation found that the chairman of the African and Afro-American Studies Department had been allowing student athletes for years to take so-called no-show classes.
The school also sacked its athletic director and received a wave of penalties from the NCAA, including scholarship losses and probation for three years.
McAdoo says the school should pay damages to student athletes who were caught up in the scandal.
An education at UNC, he wrote in legal papers, is “widely regarded as one of the best public university educations available in the United States. UNC, however, did not provide the promised legitimate education. Instead, UNC systematically funnelled its football student-athletes into a ‘shadow curriculum’ of bogus courses which never met and which were designed for the sole purpose of providing enrolees high grades.”
“UNC maximized the number of football student-athletes who remained eligible to engage in intercollegiate athletics, thus improving the chances of athletic success and falsely increasing the university’s revenue and reputation.”
McAdoo played at UNC in 2008, 2009, and 2010 after he was recruited by Davis, who met with his mother and grandparents.
McAdoo says he remembers the coach telling his family: “I can’t guarantee that Michael will play in the NFL, but one thing I can guarantee is that he will get a good education at the University of North Carolina.”
Although he expressed interest in criminal justice when being recruited, once on campus he was told that football student-athletes were urged to consider only three options for a major: exercise sport science, communications, or African-American studies.
McAdoo’s statement of claim details how the scandal worked.
“At the beginning of the semester, students were given a topic on which to write a paper,” he wrote. “The football student-athletes in any given course were generally given the same topic.
“Throughout the semester, there were no class meetings, there was no supervision, no drafts of papers were reviewed, and no faculty feedback was given.
“On some occasions, academic counsellors told their African American Studies Department contacts the particular grades the football student-athletes would have to receive in order to remain athletically eligible. Even the weakest papers and papers featuring long passages of unoriginal text received passing, and often outstanding, grades.”
McAdoo was signed by Winnipeg on Oct. 18, 2013, and was released on May 12 this year.