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2005, the University of

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North Carolina men's basketball.

1:04

Mark Carolina takes the

1:06

title. In 2005, the

1:08

University of North Carolina

1:10

men's basketball team won

1:13

the national championship. Rashad

1:15

McCants was a standout

1:17

player on the championship

1:19

team. Rashad McCants was

1:21

a standout player on

1:23

the championship team. A

1:25

star forward and the

1:27

second leading scorer. Remarkably,

1:32

McCants didn't just thrive on

1:34

the court that season. He got

1:36

straight A's and made the

1:39

Dean's list. But there was

1:41

a secret to McCants' academic

1:43

success. He didn't do much

1:45

academic work that semester. In

1:47

fact, he says he didn't

1:49

complete a single assignment. Here's

1:51

how he later explained it in

1:53

an interview with ESPN. I

1:55

didn't write any papers. It was

1:58

very simple. When it was... It

2:00

was time to turn in

2:02

our papers. We would get

2:04

a call from our tutors.

2:06

We would all pack up

2:08

in one big car or

2:10

two or three cars, pull

2:12

over to the tutor's house

2:14

and basically get our papers

2:17

and go about our business.

2:19

McCamp says that not only

2:21

did he not write a

2:23

single paper that semester, but

2:25

the lecture courses he was

2:27

enrolled in never actually met.

2:29

No assignments, no professor, no

2:31

class. It's absurd, but it

2:33

actually makes sense because it

2:35

kept me eligible to play.

2:37

You're not there to get

2:39

an education. You're there to

2:41

make revenue for the college.

2:43

I'm Margo Gray. This week

2:46

on Campus Files. UNC's decades-long

2:48

scheme to keep Rashad McCants

2:50

and hundreds of other athletes

2:52

eligible to play. Wow,

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least make sure it doesn't happen again. happen

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a game? This isn't the first time I've done

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this, I've done and I'd really like it to stop.

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it to stop. Well,

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curse of the modern age, especially for us side

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hustlers and small business owners, anybody who pays for

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lots of different services and tools over time. of It's

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things I've been doing, I might have mentioned, By

20:00

the end of the decade, the

20:03

AFAM department was offering 100

20:05

independent studies in a single

20:07

school year, and that didn't

20:09

even include the summer term.

20:11

The independent studies themselves also

20:13

grew in size, with dozens

20:15

of students filling what was

20:17

meant to be a one-on-one

20:19

course. It's no exaggeration to

20:21

say that these independent studies

20:23

played a crucial role in

20:26

keeping student athletes afloat. But

20:28

Debbie was about to take things even

20:30

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Scott is... your

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podcasts. The

21:38

bogus independent study courses were

21:40

a huge help to athletes.

21:42

They provided a valuable, sometimes

21:44

critical, GPA boost, but they

21:47

couldn't do everything. UNC required

21:49

students to take courses

21:51

across several different curriculum

21:53

areas, also known as

21:55

perspectives. Independent studies didn't

21:57

count towards these requirements.

21:59

Only regular lecture classes could

22:02

fulfill them. It wouldn't have

22:04

taken much for a resourceful

22:06

person like Debbie, who was

22:08

aware of the needs of

22:10

the athletic program, for her

22:12

to realize that if Julius

22:14

is going to help out

22:17

by offering independent studies and

22:19

collecting papers that I will

22:21

basically evaluate, it would not

22:23

be hard to also schedule regular

22:25

courses with course numbers, which also

22:28

will not meet. but will allow

22:30

them to satisfy their major requirements,

22:32

their minor requirements. That's a whole

22:35

new ballgame. Unlike the independent studies,

22:37

these courses appeared on the schedule

22:39

as regular lectures. Well, it was

22:41

ingeniously designed, if I do say

22:44

so myself, I want to compliment

22:46

them on this. They took established

22:48

courses that were part of the

22:51

regular curriculum that had gone through

22:53

all of the normal approval processes

22:55

and that were in the catalog

22:58

and that had often appeared on

23:00

the teaching schedule in prior years.

23:02

They took those classes and they

23:05

put them on the schedule, but

23:07

they opened them up to no

23:09

students except those who had permission.

23:12

In other words, the transcript of

23:14

a student who took these fake

23:16

classes appeared identical to that of

23:19

someone who completed regular lecture courses.

23:21

There was a Potemkin Village of

23:23

a curriculum here. The courses had

23:25

titles, they had course numbers, it

23:28

seemed that they had instructors, and

23:30

none of that was real. The

23:32

courses required no work except for

23:35

a single paper due at the

23:37

end of the semester, which is

23:39

why they became known as paper

23:42

classes. The first documented paper class

23:44

was offered in the fall of

23:46

1997 and over the next two

23:49

decades Debbie and Julius would offer

23:51

nearly 200 paper classes that demanded

23:53

nothing more than the submission of

23:56

one paper I Think we can

23:58

safely assume that most of the

24:00

papers were fully or partially plagiarized

24:03

and that they represented next to

24:05

no meaningful work on the part

24:07

of the student who turned them

24:09

in. Debbie freely gave out A's

24:12

and A minus's. It's worth taking

24:14

a moment to highlight just how

24:16

unusual it was for an office

24:19

administrator to be assigning essay prompts

24:21

and grading papers. But Debbie was

24:23

effectively running the show. She scheduled

24:26

the classes and decided who could

24:28

enroll. And these were predominantly athletes,

24:30

though eventually other students get in

24:33

to enjoy the party too. Debbie

24:35

did have to admit some non-athletes

24:37

into the courses to maintain her

24:40

cover, and plenty of fraternity guys

24:42

eventually found their way in. But

24:44

it was clear that the paper

24:47

classes were primarily designed to benefit

24:49

athletes. In fact, Debbie kept in

24:51

close contact with the athletes' academic

24:53

advisors to ensure her courses were

24:56

meeting their needs. In a now

24:58

infamous email exchange, Debbie wrote to

25:00

a woman's basketball advisor about a

25:03

player's paper that she was grading.

25:05

Did you say a D will

25:07

do? I'm only asking, because there

25:10

are no sources, it has absolutely

25:12

nothing to do with the assignment

25:14

for that class, and it seems

25:17

to be a recycled paper. The

25:19

advisor replied, yes. A D will

25:21

be fine. That's all she needs.

25:24

They rigged a system that not

25:26

only kept athletes eligible, but allowed

25:28

UNC Chapel Hill to continue the

25:31

masquerade, that we do things above

25:33

board, we do things right here,

25:35

we keep everybody on path to

25:37

graduation. Meanwhile, if you peeled the

25:40

veneer off the system, you would

25:42

see that one reason for that

25:44

continued stellar reputation on the part

25:47

of UNC Chapel Hill was that

25:49

there were these fake classes that

25:51

students were able to take advantage

25:54

of. When I asked Jay, how

25:56

many people saw through this veneer?

25:58

and truly understood what was happening.

26:01

He said the number was far

26:03

more than the university would care

26:05

to admit. Still to this day,

26:08

there are a lot of people

26:10

who want to claim that nobody

26:12

knew, that nobody knew about this,

26:15

except for Debbie and Julius, but

26:17

there was wide knowledge of what

26:19

was going on. There was one

26:21

academic year in which Julius Neongoro

26:24

taught over 300 independent studies. 300.

26:26

Give me a break. that should

26:28

have left some Dean speechless somewhere

26:31

that makes no sense unless all

26:33

of the higher-ups were completely negligent

26:35

and incompetent or decided to look

26:38

the other way because he understood

26:40

that something was not right but

26:42

didn't want to go poking around.

26:45

We were all complicit because we

26:47

didn't want to confront the reality

26:49

that college athletics forces really difficult

26:52

in morally compromising choices all the

26:54

time. Few people understand these kinds

26:56

of choices, better than Mary and

26:59

her colleagues in the academic support

27:01

program. I do remember a few

27:03

cases where I myself would say

27:05

we've got to keep this player

27:08

eligible, like how are we going

27:10

to put this together so that

27:12

this student will have this 2.0.

27:15

Well, switching a major would be

27:17

one of my ways that I

27:19

used to keep a player on

27:22

the field. You need a certain

27:24

GPA in your major. So if

27:26

your major is, I don't know,

27:29

exercise sports science, but you just

27:31

dropped below a 2.0, but you've

27:33

taken all these African-American studies paper

27:36

classes, enough to claim that's your

27:38

major, and guess what? You have

27:40

a 3.2 in that major. It's

27:43

just this game. Looking back, Mary

27:45

says she's not proud of how

27:47

she helped players cut corners, but

27:49

she cared about her student athletes

27:52

and wanted them to succeed. These

27:54

are humans and you want them

27:56

to follow their dream. Amazing young

27:59

people. who have been through a

28:01

lot in their lives too already

28:03

and are trying so hard to

28:06

make it big and to make

28:08

it for their family. Mary reassured

28:10

herself that it was okay because

28:13

these players were getting the chance

28:15

to be at a prestigious institution

28:17

like UNC. You justify it because

28:20

you think this is better than

28:22

where they would be. But

28:25

over time, what Mary

28:27

had initially justified as

28:29

helping students achieve their

28:31

dreams began to feel

28:33

more and more like

28:35

ripping them off. A

28:37

lot of these players

28:39

come from lower socioeconomic

28:41

groups where this education

28:43

would mean so much

28:45

to them to lift

28:47

them out of poverty

28:49

because so few are

28:51

going to make it

28:53

big in the NBA

28:55

or the NFL. We

28:57

know that less than

28:59

1% make it big

29:01

in their sport. And

29:03

you know, the problem

29:05

is that we just

29:07

send them back home

29:09

without making it big

29:11

in their sport and

29:13

without a college degree.

29:15

And any chance at

29:17

a good job. Like

29:19

why do we think

29:21

that's okay? Shame on

29:23

us, right? For a

29:25

long time, Mary kept

29:27

these reservations to herself.

29:29

She didn't want to

29:31

rock the boat. We

29:33

were all complicit because

29:35

we enjoyed Game Day

29:37

so much and we

29:39

cheered for them and

29:41

we don't want to

29:43

be the snitch. So

29:45

we just looked the

29:47

other way. But Mary

29:49

couldn't remain silent forever.

29:51

She soon became determined

29:53

to blow the lid

29:55

off the system. this

29:57

was just absolutely mind-blowing.

29:59

I said get the

30:01

roster for that class

30:03

and every name she

30:05

read off my soul

30:08

just got crushed because

30:10

I knew we were

30:12

in big trouble. I

30:14

immediately saw that University

30:16

was hiding stuff left

30:18

and right. They weren't

30:20

telling us the truth.

30:22

I was clearly the

30:24

biggest story of my

30:26

career, kind of a

30:28

big explosion. The University

30:30

of North Carolina today

30:32

reeling from a blow,

30:34

a really big blow,

30:36

to its reputation, especially

30:38

the integrity of its

30:40

legendary sports program. I

30:42

honestly thought. campus files

30:44

is an Odyssey original

30:46

podcast. This episode was

30:48

written and reported at

30:50

this institution. That never

30:52

happened. Campus Files is

30:54

produced by Ian Mont,

30:56

Elliot Adler, and me,

30:58

Margo Gray. Our executive

31:00

producers and story editors

31:02

are Maddie Spunkheiser and

31:04

Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files

31:06

is edited, mixed, and

31:08

mastered by Chris Basel

31:10

and Andy Jaskowitz. Special

31:12

thanks to Jenna Weiss

31:14

Berman, J.D. Crowley, Lea

31:16

Reese Dennis, Mora Curran,

31:18

Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney,

31:20

Hillary Shuff, Sean Cherry,

31:22

Laura Berman, and Hillary

31:24

Van Ornam. Original theme

31:26

music by James Waterman

31:28

and Davy Sumner. If

31:30

you have tips or

31:32

story ideas, write to

31:34

us at Campus Files

31:36

pod@gmail.com. Whether

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you're a true crime junkie or just getting

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