Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

Of the many high-profile scandals that have besmirched college athletics in recent yearsincluding those involving Heisman trophy recipients, head coaches, and many players at Penn State Universityarguably the one that provoked universal condemnation was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  At one of the nations most respected public universities, players, faculty, and administrators engaged in wholesale academic fraudfake courses, plagiarism, and grade tampering.  InCheated, UNC history professor Jay Smith and former UNC athletic administrator Mary Willingham chronicle the widespread use of, and institutional attempts to cover up, a litany of shameful activities on that campus, all designed to preserve and protect the universitys programs and revenues in football and mens basketball.  In a thorough, chilling, well-documented, step-by-step accountfrom recruitment and admissions to the daily care and feeding to student advising and the complicity of faculty, the athletic department, and coaching staffthe authors meticulously lay out the patterns of systemic corruption and lack of institutional control.  This book should be required reading for everyone, both those on campus and fans in the stands or in front of their flat-screens.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.