For those who have been following the UNC academic scandal and the Notice of Allegations the school received from the NCAA, it’s interesting to note that Tar Heels head men’s basketball coach Roy Williams nor any of his staff were named as anything other than interviewees.
Though both the men’s team and football team will face punishment of some sort, it appears that the women’s basketball team will take most of the heat once the dust has settled and if you ask former Tar Heel women’s basketball player Meghan Austin, that’s not right.
In an editorial for the Raleigh News & Observer, Austin said the following:
With the NCAA allegations, I am trying to wrap my head around how the women’s basketball team has been made the scapegoat in all of this. Our program was not the only team in the report, yet we are the ones being talked about the most. Roy Williams and his program were in the report, and he got a contract extension. The football program was in the report, and its coaching staff was confident enough to tell recruits that they will not receive any repercussions from the NCAA investigation.
That leaves the female sport as the one program negatively affected by these allegations. It’s really hard to work for a boss who doesn’t support you and have your back, and that is what Hatchell and her staff are forced to do at this point. It is hard to believe that in the year 2015, we still have people of power who do not support female teams as well as they do their male counterparts.
I am proud to be a member of the UNC women’s basketball program, but I cannot say I am proud to represented by an administration that will throw a legendary coach to the wolves to protect men’s athletic teams.
Austin definitely has a point, as Williams was rewarded with an extension despite the allegations, while women’s coach Sylvia Hatchell has yet to receive a new deal. Considering how Hatchell has been in her position since 1986 and won a national championship in 1994, along with a total of seven ACC women’s championships, something definitely doesn’t seem right about this.
Then again, the men’s basketball team is the university’s flagship program and there’s always money in football, so perhaps targeting the women’s team is just the administration’s means of self-preservation. If you ask this writer, that is blatantly wrong.
Campus Sports will update UNC’s case as more details become available.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
