Academic Corruption In NCAA Basketball

In a recent Sports Illustrated profile, a so-called "credit fixer" for NCAA athletes told his story. The man, who requested to be referred to as Mr. White, detailed a long career that he had made in compromising the integrity of academics for collegiate athletes. White had dreams of being a division 1 coach, and as a community college teacher, he decided that his in was going to be doing favors for other coaches. The favors that White did involved doing everything possible to keep star players eligible in the eyes of the NCAA. White would travel to various major programs and work with those students in order to help them to earn the credits they needed in the shortest amount of time possible. Unfortunately, this often involved him taking advantage of online tests that many universities had implemented. White would give his students some simple work that they could easily handle, then would take the tests for them and fix the grades. It's the perfect scheme, the students think they have completed the necessary work to catch up, while White easily passes the tests, giving the players eligibility and collecting a major paycheck.

White's story may seem unique, but it is clearly becoming clear that it is not. Allegations for organized academic fraud have been attached to major programs such as the University of North Carolina and Syracuse University, both receiving penalties from the NCAA. As more and more schools are revealed to be involved in academic fraud, it seems to be very likely that these types of practices are more common than originally thought. The competitive nature of college sports creates an environment in which corruption is unavoidable. Division 1 sports are more than often one of the major sources of income that their schools have. Schools are desperate to maintain the eligibility of athletes and to keep their sports programs successful, often times compromising their own integrity to do so.