The famous athletics scandal at the University of North Carolina occurred because the school let the Athletics Department run the place, specifically with its “advising” of the players. That opened the door to fraud.

In today’s Martin Center article, Anthony Hennen writes about a developing situation at his alma mater, Ohio University. The school has been pursuing the foolish idea that sporting success will elevate its national profile and it has set up a center for academic advising of student-athletes. The problem is that this center is under the control of the Athletics Department. The university’s chapter of the AAUP has thrown a penalty flag on that and argues that letting the AD control academic advising is just asking for trouble.

Hennen writes, “Without supervision from the academic side of the university lower academic standards for student-athletes and, in some cases, perpetuate academic misconduct. Include the great pressure to keep student-athletes eligible by any means to win games, and a temptation develops for programs to ‘go rogue.’”

That is indeed the temptation. At UNC, many of the star players had their academic work largely done by others. If adults are in charge at Ohio U. and not the sports boosters, they will insist that their student-athlete academic center have true academic oversight.