By Will Barber

Those of us who have been in academe for a while are quite familiar with the favoritism afforded to university athletes, especially football players.

Early in my teaching career at a major Texas university I began receiving telephone calls at the end of the semester from coaches asking for favors to help their athletes remain eligible to play. After I turned them down a couple of times, they quit calling.

I remember relaying these conversations on to my department head. He said, â€œDonâ€™t worry about it â€“ youâ€™ll probably be receiving more phone calls. They are looking for professors who will cooperate.â€

Twenty-five years later, after retiring from university teaching, it happened again. This time the athletic department and faculty members had become a little more sophisticated, and in one particular case had help from the registrar.

I had received a phone call from a large state university in North Carolina asking me to teach part-time. I accepted the position as an adjunct professor, teaching three popular courses to mostly juniors and seniors.

Most of my students were working while at the same time carrying a full load of courses. They were struggling to balance grades and pay for school. They received no special favors.

At the end of the semester I received the usual grade sheets from the registrarâ€™s office. As I entered the final grades I noticed there were two students on one course sheet whose names were not familiar. I looked at my roll book and their names did not appear. They had never attended class.

I asked my department head for an explanation.

Department head: â€œOh, thatâ€™s OK, Dr. Barber. These are students who are taking your course as an independent study.â€

Me: â€œWhat? Wait a minute. They never attended the class. How can they receive credit for a class they never attended?â€

Department head: â€œOh, they were assigned a paper for their independent study. You can read it if you like.â€

Me: â€œI canâ€™t enter a grade for these students. They never attended class. Besides, a final paper does not equate to a student receiving credit for a course they never attended. There was no instruction at all, only a flimsy paper. Thatâ€™s not quite ethical!â€

Department head: â€œOh, donâ€™t worry, we can take care of that. I will assign a final grade.â€

I left his office steaming mad. It seemed, after talking to the department head, that it was standard practice.

Later in the day a couple of students dropped by my office to wish me a relaxing vacation. A copy of my roll sheet was on my desk. I asked them if they had ever heard of these two students.

â€œYou donâ€™t recognize those names Dr. Barber? Theyâ€™re both football players. Thatâ€™s funny; we never saw them in class. Wish we had.â€

When I delivered my grade sheets to the registrarâ€™s office the next day, I asked about the two mystery entries on my class roll. How did they get there? I told the registrar they had never attended class. They hadnâ€™t dropped the course â€“ if they had, they wouldnâ€™t be on my final grade sheet.

Registrar: â€œOh, donâ€™t worry about that Dr. Barber. That happens sometimes when people canâ€™t attend a class regularly. We do this a lot for our athletes who have to stay eligible.â€

Me [raising my voice a couple of octaves]: â€œThis is making no sense!â€

Registrar: â€œYou must be a new faculty member, Dr. Barber!â€

I left the registrarâ€™s office wondering how many no-show courses were being offered by faculty members at this university â€“ courses where no instruction was offered and the only requirement was to submit a paper at the end of the semester.

So many people were involved: faculty, department heads, athletic departments and in my case, the registrarâ€™s office.

I was not asked to return the next year. And I never found out what grades were entered for the athletes who appeared on my roll sheets, but I can guess.

I still think about the hundreds of students who have been enrolled in my courses over the past 25 years. They graduated without any special favors; nobody was writing their papers for them and none bolted from school to receive million-dollar salaries. They worked very hard to get an education.

The blame in all of this, including the recent scandal in the athletic department at UNC, lies not with the athletes but with faculty members, department heads and athletic departments willing to cheat the system in order to keep athletes academically eligible to play.

As one coach told me at a party once: â€œAthletic departments, and that includes even high schools, will do anything to keep their players eligible. Nothing will change. Unless there are major reforms, the cheating will continue; just donâ€™t get caught.â€

Will Barber is a former professor of psycholinguistics and a resident of Chapel Hill.