Plantation Education: The Exploitation of the Modern-Day Athlete-Student

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-68261-828-8

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-829-5

Plantation Education:

The Exploitation of the Modern-Day Athlete-Student

© 2018 by Rashad McCants

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Aaron A. McCants, Aaron’s Artwork

Cover design by Cody Corcoran

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press, LLC

New York • Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Prologue

Introduction

1st Quarter

The Origins of Plantation Education 

1

2

3

4

5

2nd Quarter

The Problem with Plantation Education

Part I

6

Photo Gallery

3rd Quarter

The Problem with Plantation Education

Part II

7

4th Quarter

Solutions for Plantation Education

8

Epilogue

A Final Word

Appendix A

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the nonbelievers. All of those who closed their minds to the possibility of real truth. To all my teammates, who stood against me in the one true moment of need. The one moment where brothers were needed to fight the good fight. I dedicate this book to you all. After these many years you all knew this was coming sooner or later. You all have great knowledge of the way I was treated while attending the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill(UNC-CH). You all knew we were at war. You all made it very clear

whose side you were on. Now we must also share it with the world.

To all the coaches and administrators who stood by and said nothing after not only being a part of such an historic scandal, but also knowing the long-term damage and effect of academic misappropriation on athletes, students, and young black males in America. You should be ashamed. It should be hard to sleep at night and very difficult to live with the truth. Yet here we are.

To the media, who so desperately needed to cover up the truth about the American education system and the exploitation of college athletes simply because you profit and benefit from the stories and pain of athletes after we have fallen off our pedestal, where you so righteously placed us. You all will have an opportunity to shine your dim light on my book and pick apart all that’s wrong with it, yet one fact remains forever. You all played a part in the biggest cover-up/scandal in college sports history, and no one is even speaking about it.

To the NCAA. The secret Cartel. The overseers. The Masters. The Owners. To those who openly possess college athletes as America’s greatest workers on the new plantation of universities across the country. Who hide behind the shield of a logo. Who manipulate and dictate the lives of millions and millions of young kids annually with your mantra: No compensation. Free education.

To history, for allowing me to stand before you and present this masterpiece of information to the next generation of youth. Whether it’s accepted or not, my writings are constructed from pure, positive intentions. To help His-Story become Our-Story. We should never want to change history; we should aspire to create a new story.

To my immediate family for your undeniable support. It’s been a long, long road. Many of my relatives (you know who you are) criticize me secretly and smile in my face, the same as my peers. Mama, Daddy, Sade, Shanda, I love you all so much. This is for you. My first book.

I did this for all of you. So you can never forget my name. No matter the dirt, no matter the shine, when you hear my name, you know that it is only me.

To all the black athletes who will never read my book, due to the lack of ability to actually read it, I will make audiobooks available for you all. It is not your fault that the American education system failed you. Or, maybe it is. It’s just too bad that no one will take accountability on either side of the coin, since not one of you stood next to, in front of, or behind me.

Trust me, I get it. You don’t wanna piss off the fans. You don’t wanna get your former coach fired. You just wanna do your thing and live your life. Trust me, I get it. In this book, you will also get it. I will attack your fears in the hopes of easing them so you can see that this never started with me. Best believe I will be the guy who fights alone. While you all watch from the windows.

Foreword

It was an honor and a true joy to work with college athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I was consistently impressed with the persistence and resilience of talented young athletes who were dedicated to their sport and hopeful to use it as an avenue to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

I am very proud to have worked with Rashanda McCants and grateful to her for connecting me to her brother, Rashad. His willingness to go public with his athletic and academic journey at UNC was a game-changer. Rashad’s act of kindness to support the future generation of college athletes was and continues to be both selfless and honorable. These are the same values that were once touted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as the Carolina Way. The 2014 ESPN interview with Rashad’s teammates, Coach Roy Williams, and basketball analyst Jay Bilas, made it crystal clear that these values were something of the past. The silence of Rashad’s teammates defined this turning point in Carolina’s history, as they were summoned to go on camera to support their school after Rashad spoke out about rampant academic fraud. No one, except Rashad, dared to share their transcript. The players sat silently and obediently, in agreement with their coach, following the narration of his friend, the sports commentator. ESPN delivered us fake news.

The NCAA is a cartel. Its member institutions are making money off the backs of vulnerable young people who are forbidden to speak out against a corrupt system. Following this obviously painful act of dishonesty, displayed for all to see, Rashanda, in her infinite wisdom, said, The truth will always be the truth. The decisionmakers at Carolina chose to lie and cover up, and together with the NCAA, failed many athletes who were promised an education in exchange for their talent. Even the women’s basketball advisor, and director of the UNC Center for Ethics, Doctor Jan Boxill, could not admit to a system that perpetuated social injustice through the promotion of educational fraud.

Without the athletes, however, the NCAA is nothing. College sport would cease to exist. The McCants’ voices, along with those of other college athletes, are critical to impact change, both in the world of amateur athletics and in the education system. They are on the correct side of history. As I learned from my whistle-blowing experience, this is not easy. We need more voices. Rashad and Rashanda have paid, and continue to pay a high price, for speaking out against a system that perpetuates fraud.

As a reading and learning specialist, I know that the academic disparities that undermine the integrity of college athletics will continue to exist until we address the real issue. The underlying problem is the lack of literacy skills that some of our university-admitted students bring to the classroom. After working in the UNC athletic department for seven years, primarily focused on teaching basic literacy skills, I realized that the athletic program was jeopardizing the mission of education. Big wins, which bring vastly increased revenue, had become far more important than student learning. The students I was privileged to work with during my tenure in athletics at Carolina had real dreams of how they could contribute after their career in sports. I’m hopeful that this book will give people the courage to support current and future college athletes so that they receive the education they are promised, and deserve.

—Mary Willingham

Regional Literacy Director

KIPP Delta Public Schools

Prologue

Originally created as an extension of higher education institutions, college athletics has become a multibillion-dollar business known for corruption and excess. One university that has illustrated this devolution is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where, for over two decades, students took hundreds of courses in African and Afro-American studies and independent studies that never met in a classroom setting. Nonathletes and student-athletes alike enrolled in these courses, and the majority of the athletes involved were football and basketball players. An internal audit into academic issues also showed evidence of unauthorized grade changes and forged faculty signatures.

African-American student-athletes who make up a higher proportion of UNC players, are disproportionately affected by the university’s academic malpractice. Many have been led to believe that they can use college as a springboard for a professional sports career with minimal classroom engagement. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is under scrutiny and involved in several major lawsuits regarding compensation for athletes based on their commercial marketability and revenue generation for the universities. The NCAA has long advanced the argument that these players are paid in terms of scholarships and valuable education, but, to their dismay, the athletes often receive a less-than-adequate education that could even be described as fraudulent.

The NCAA has revised academic policies that encourage colleges to show that athletes are improving their academic performance while lowering their eligibility entrance requirements. Based on current NCAA academic policy, the institutions that fail to report an athlete’s progress toward a degree each term will face penalties. These rulings were put in place in 2006, in response to a significant drop in the graduation rates of collegiate football and basketball players. In the years since the changes, many have expressed concern that the combination of heightened academic expectations and lowered entrance regulations would create an impossible situation for the campus employees responsible for providing academic support to athletes.

These support staff are asked to help a growing number of marginal students—potentially at all costs. Collegiate athletics, given its intersection with the educational and life outcomes of black male athlete-students, is indeed in turmoil. It’s evident in the classic picture of a black male professional athlete with no degree, few post-career job opportunities, and used-up collegiate eligibility. The issue is also illustrated in the low graduation rates for African-American basketball players. Only about 55 percent of black players graduated in 2013, 25 percent lower than the graduation rates of white basketball student-athletes. Our United States educational system, and indeed our American society, has failed our youth.

Many African-American men’s basketball players are leaving college without the proper educational degree or requisite skills to pursue a professional career outside of sports, a deficiency they often only understand years after they graduate. These issues are usually not caused by conspiratorial athletic directors, coaches, or faculty; instead, they are the unfortunate result of a system of fraudulent pathways that too often do not include a respectable college degree for student-athletes.

Within the football programs at the top 20 BCS (Bowl Championship Series) institutions, African-American student-athletes represent 5 percent of their student bodies, but 70 percent of the roster. The data clearly shows the limitations that U.S. colleges place on African-American and student-athlete academic achievement. Apparently, African-American students are good enough for the playing fields, but not for the scientific laboratories. It seems that, if colleges can build up African-American football players, they can also develop African-American historians, scientists, and teachers. If universities trained, recruited, and competed for African-American students in chemistry like they do in football, they could display Nobel Prizes alongside their Bowl Championship Series trophies.

Dr. Andre Perry, a contributing writer for The Hechinger Report and a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution, wrote in his 2014 article Black Athletes Must Pick Up the Ball on Graduation Rates:¹

Across four quadrants, 55.3 percent of black male athlete-students graduated within six years, compared to 69.2 percent of student/athletes overall, 74.5 percent of undergraduate students overall, and 52.7 percent of black undergraduate men overall.

96.1 percent of these NCAA Division I colleges and universities graduated black male athlete-students at rates lower than athlete-students overall.

97.4 percent of these institutions graduated black male athlete-students at rates lower than undergraduate students overall.

Indeed, academic irregularities related to athlete eligibility have haunted several U.S. colleges:

Stanford (2011): Easy, convenient classes were withdrawn by academic advisors after years of being offered. Florida State (2009): Basketball and football players benefited from academic advisors taking their tests and writing their papers.

Florida (2008): Current Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton left Florida after facing possible dismissal for cheating.

Memphis (2008): The NCAA exposed Derrick Rose’s SAT scores as invalid, causing the basketball team to abruptly end their run to the NCAA Tournament finals.

Michigan (2008): One university professor gave more than 250 student-athletes high grades from 2004-2007 in independent study classes.

Auburn (2006): Academic advisors helped football players pad their GPAs in focused reading classes.

Fresno State (2003): The men’s basketball statistician and an academic adviser were caught in scheme wherein papers were written for athletes.

Georgia (2003): Basketball players received inflated grades in a coaching class, which caused the university to withdraw from postseason play.

USC (2001): The football and women’s swim teams were sanctioned by the NCAA when it was discovered that tutors had been writing papers for athletes.

Minnesota (1999): Tournament victories were erased for the basketball team after it was discovered that players had hundreds of assignments completed for them.

The roadblocks that constrain black male athletes as they seek specialized education for their chosen career path come from cultural forces and institutional structures that have unintended consequences. The first of these structural forces is the reality that many black athlete-students come to campus with a poor academic background and preparation. This disparity is often linked to the poor quality of urban public schooling in our nation, and it is amplified by recruiting practices and priorities that prioritize athletics over academics. Many of these black athlete-students come from high-poverty neighborhoods, and their transitions to college life are complicated by struggles like inadequate family support, personal expenses, and financial restrictions.

Basketball fans can’t be trusted to demand better outcomes for black collegiate players, as their cheers for their favorite college team’s quest for a Final Four, or a national title, drown out deeper ideals of student equity and education. Academic leaders can’t be trusted either, as college faculty often view black athletes as unwitting accomplices of those who promote a runaway athletic agenda. Academic departments also often see themselves in competition with athletics for resources and attention. African-American athletes are generally not seen as worthy members of the academic institution, nor are they taken seriously in their pursuit of academic goals beyond athletics.

African-American athlete-students are categorized as merely athletes-on-campus to serve as entertainers for the rest of the university community. Black athletes and their nonathlete brothers and sisters have little leverage to change the situation because they lack natural political allies, on or off campus. But they actually hold some of the most powerful cards for changing conditions and creating more favorable outcomes for themselves and their teammates. The system, as it is now, provides tremendous incentives for high-profile college athletes to focus on sports rather than academics. Students from poor families face significant pressure to go pro early in order to better support their families. These financial pressures are pressing and urgent for black male athletes, who deal with the daily effects of