Both the Detroit News and the Michigan Daily (featuring quotes from Mary Sue Coleman, the most obvious source in the world for a story like this!) have articles that essentially sate Jim Carty is nothing more than a gossip monger, trying to make a name for himself by making something out of nothing. In the Daily article, even Professor Paris, Carty’s crucial witness, declined an interview because he wanted nothing to do with Carty’s slam piece.

The only point I haven’t seen Carty ridiculed on is his assertion that athletes were allowed to enroll in classes only a month before the semester ends, with professor permission. What Carty fails to mention is that this is the late Drop-Add deadline, during which any student can enroll in a class with prohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffessor permission.

Etc.: Michael Shaw and Brandon Moore excel in Ohio state track finals. Charles Woodson gives back. UM, not PSU may finish runner-up for Pryor.

Later today: Hockey highlights.

Posted under Blog News

Brief summary of Carty’s (again idiotic) points:
1. Athletes want to get their degrees (just like just about everyone else at the University).
2. They want to make getting their degree as easy as possible (just like most other students).
3. They go about getting their degrees in a legal and ethical way by taking an easy major (like about half of other students (I’m looking at you, fellow Comm majors)).
4. When one degree (kinesiology) became to hard to get, a number of athletes switched to a different, completely legal and ethical degree path.

Smoking gun, Carty still seeks. 0 for 2 so far. The main frustration for me is that real life journalists and ESPN journalists are going to take this drivel and run with it, giving Carty some sort of credibility that he is no where close to deserving.

Posted under Blog News

I will not link to it, because it’s mostly really crappy, but Jim Carty’s long-awaited article (written with John Heuser and Nathan Fenno) regarding some sort of academic scandal involving student-athletes at Michigan has finally been published by the Ann Arbor News. The general idea is that a lot of athletes take independent study courses with professor Jon Hagen.

Brief Synopsis of Carty’s Arguments:
1) There are easy classes at the University.
2) Some athletes take these easy classes.
3) Academic advisors help athletes pick their classes.

All of these points so far are like, duh. He is actually trying to criticize advisors for doing their jobs, which… what?

Brief Summary of Carty’s sources:
1) Two disgruntled former University employees.
2) Student athletes, who describe their classes.
3) A guy in the psych department who got passed over by the professor in question for a promotion, and admits he is not an impartial source.
4) Not Mary Sue Coleman, who agreed to answer some questions over e-mail, and was turned down by Carty.

Carty also notes repeatedly that there have been repeated reviews of Hagen’s classes by the psych department and the college of LSA, all of which has proven that his independent study courses are aboveboard. So, what’s the problem? There is no Auburn situation here.

Apparently this is the first in a series of four articles on the topic, but if this is supposed to be the bombshell article, it was certainly a dud. This article proves nothing other than that Jim Carty is trying to make a name for himself, and will take a standard situation, and try to spin it into a controversy.

Posted under Blog News