The Impact Of News Coverage On The Athletic Department

News coverage of athletic departments can have one of three impacts on the athletic department. They can positively impact the department, have no impact on the department, or negatively impact the department. We are currently seeing an example of a story having a positive impact on an athletic department at a school that is no stranger to the Blue Devils. As the madness of March comes to an end and we prepare for the final four action, there is only one potential Cinderella remaining, even though they do not seem much like one. The North Carolina State Wolfpack have been surging since the ACC tournament, going on an unbelievable run of 9 straight wins, starting on March 12th. During this run, NC State has beat some of college basketball’s

Competing with the Ivy of the South at Duke, UNC used their school’s good academic standing to try to convince interested recruits that the education received at UNC was just as valuable as the one down the interstate at Duke. However, this claim lost all validity after the reports came out that UNC had high-level classes giving free grades to freshman athletes, particularly football and likely basketball players. UNC was so careless with this that in the summer of 2007, an upcoming freshman, likely weeks fresh from his high school graduation, was able to achieve a B+ in a 400-level course in the Department of African and Afro-American studies. This was unbelievable, as the student completed the upper-level course without ever taking a lower 100 or 200-level course, or likely any other course at all. To make the matter even worse, throughout the investigation, a single syllabus for the course did not

Since the 2017 conclusion of this investigation, UNC has supposedly done a better job of ensuring that something like this never happens again. However, the appeal to student athletes of UNC being a place to get a good education and good athletic programs is nowhere near as strong as it once was. Another important aspect is the broken trust that now exists between the university and its student athletes and their parents. These student athletes now must consider whether their school truly cares about what is best for their future, and the parents now live with the fear that their child might leave the university with a meaningless degree. Trying to take advantage of the system, UNC suffered from the double-edged sword of caring so much about athletic performance that they ignored academic performance by their student athletes. When asked whether they were aware of these paper classes, former UNC head football coaches, John Bunting and Butch Davis both admitted to knowing what was going on. However, former UNC head basketball coach, Roy Williams, denied knowing