Cheated

Jay M. Smith is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has served in a variety of administrative capacities involving the management of undergraduate education.Mary Willingham worked in the Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling at UNC–Chapel Hill until 2014. Both she (in 2013) and Smith (in 2014) received the Robert Maynard Hutchins Award from the Drake Group for integrity in the face of college sports corruption. Willingham now works as a middle school reading teacher for Kipp Public Charter Schools in Chicago.

"Cheated sounds an important call for reform."-Gregg Easterbrook, Wall Street Journal "Those who care about the soul-and economics-of the $16 billion-a-year college sports industry should clear their reading calendar for Cheated."-Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business "[Cheated] offers a stinging critique of UNC-Chapel Hill’s handling of the academic and athletic wrongdoing that kept student athletes eligible to compete and persisted for nearly two decades."-Jane Stancill, News & Observer "All readers interested in education, public affairs, and college athletics will find this book essential."-John Maxymuk, Library Journal "This excellent book is a canary in the coalmine for those who love athletics at the collegiate level."-Jorge Iber, Sport in American History “The underlying fraud in big-time college athletics is academics. With the most comprehensive accounting, Smith and Willlingham paint an absolutely devastating picture of how so-called student-athletes are shamelessly exploited. . . . Cheated is nothing less than an American tragedy.”-Frank Deford, author of The Entitled and senior contributing writer for Sports Illustrated “This book informed me that, as a black athlete and a student, more awareness and information about the universities you attend must be thoroughly analyzed before making a decision about your future. The details of fraudulent education and unprepared black athletes in this book should shame our society. I am a living testimony that this book is the Pandora’s box of university secrets and black athlete exploitation. It is a must-read.”-Rashad McCants, former NBA player and UNC NCAA Champion “Smith and Willingham’s exposÉ of the corruption at the University of North Carolina reads like a suspense thriller but unfortunately is nonfiction. The authors offer concrete recommendations for college sports reform that should serve as a blueprint for all American universities.”-Gerald Gurney, president of the Drake Group and assistant professor of adult and higher education at the University of Oklahoma

• List of Figures    List of Tables    Acknowledgments    Introduction: The Scandal beneath the Scandals    Abbreviations    1. Paper-Class Central    2. A Fraud in Full    3. The Making of a Cover-up    4. Lost Opportunities    5. The University Doubles Down    6. On a Collision Course    7. “No one ever asked me to write anything before”    8. Tricks of the Trade    9. Echoes across the Land    Conclusion: Looking to the Future    Epilogue    Notes    Index