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Ex-North Carolina player: Women's basketball being made a 'scapegoat'
Even though North Carolina likely won't respond to the NCAA's Notice of Allegations for another few weeks, one of the school's former women's basketball players fears she knows what's coming.
Meghan Austin expects the Tar Heels athletic department to sacrifice its tradition-rich women's basketball program in hopes of avoiding serious punishment for its two biggest revenue producers, football and men's basketball.
Austin, a 2008 North Carolina graduate currently coaching at Montreat College, penned an editorial for the Raleigh News & Observer on Monday accusing the Tar Heels athletic department of already showing signs of making its women's basketball program "the scapegoat." Austin noted that men's coach Roy Williams got a contract extension earlier this summer but women's coach Sylvia Hatchell has thus far not received the same show of support.
"Our program was not the only team in the report, yet we are the ones being talked about the most. Roy Williams and his program were in the report, and he got a contract extension. The football program was in the report, and its coaching staff was confident enough to tell recruits that they will not receive any repercussions from the NCAA investigation.
"That leaves the female sport as the one program negatively affected by these allegations. It’s really hard to work for a boss who doesn’t support you and have your back, and that is what Hatchell and her staff are forced to do at this point. It is hard to believe that in the year 2015, we still have people of power who do not support female teams as well as they do their male counterparts.
"I am proud to be a member of the UNC women’s basketball program, but I cannot say I am proud to represented by an administration that will throw a legendary coach to the wolves to protect men’s athletic teams."
The Notice of Allegations hit the Tar Heels with five potentially serious violations in the wake of the NCAA's lengthy investigation into the academic fraud that took place at the school.
The first two allegations state that North Carolina athletes received impermissible benefits unavailable to the rest of the student body when their academic counselors obtained special assistance and privileges for them. The next two allegations target African American Studies department officials Deborah Crowder and Dr. Julius Nyang’oro for their failure to cooperate in the NCAA's investigation.
The charge of lack of institutional control is the most serious one. It asserts that the athletic department failed to properly monitor the actions of members of its academic support staff and cast a blind eye to why so many athletes were enrolled in African American Studies courses.
We'll have to wait until North Carolina responds to the Notice of Allegations to find out whether Austin is correct that the school's strategy is to sacrifice women's basketball, however, that is certainly a reasonable prediction. Women's basketball is the sport most frequently mentioned in the notice. That's because of allegations that counselor Jan Boxill committed major violations in the form of improper academic assistance and special arrangements to women’s basketball players.
Whether the NCAA's committee on infractions would accept such a strategy is another question. There is ample evidence in the Notice of Allegations that athletes from the football and men's basketball programs also benefited from taking paper classes.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
