Dan Kane continues to do great work, uncovering evidence that the NCAA would prefer he not find while they ignore the situation in Chapel Hill. This time, he has a whistleblower who has gone public. Mary Willingham, a reading advisor at UNC-Chapel Hill, has gone on record with details of the knowledge about academic fraud.

Willingham said that she lodged complaints at least two years before the academic fraud became public, including raising concerns about plagiarism and tutors doing work for the athletes.

According to Willingham:

Members of the men’s basketball team took no-show classes until the fall semester of 2009, when the team was assigned a new academic counselor. The new counselor was appalled to learn of the classes, and wanted no part of them. University records show the enrollments stopped that semester for basketball players, while they continued for football players.

You might recall that Wayne Walden, the academic adviser who followed Roy Williams from Kansas, left the program in 2009.

“Last month, The N&O questioned men’s basketball coach Roy Williams as to why his players stopped enrolling in no-show classes by the fall of 2009. Williams offered no explanation other than a suggestion that players may have decided on their own not to take them.”

Willingham’s statements dispute that characterization by Williams. According to Willingham, the new academic counselor (Jennifer Townsend) assigned to the basketball team told her that she was no longer going to enroll players in those classes, and wanted everything to be on the up and up.
[photo via US Presswire]