The Carolina Way - Part 1

Summary

Podcast Summary: Campus Files – "The Carolina Way - Part 1"

Episode Title: The Carolina Way - Part 1
Release Date: January 29, 2025
Host/Author: Audacy
Produced By: Margo Gray, Ian Mont Eliot Adler
Transcript Coverage: [01:01] to [29:32]
Summary by: [Your Name]

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Introduction

In "The Carolina Way - Part 1," Campus Files delves deep into the longstanding academic scandal at the University of North Carolina (UNC). This episode uncovers how UNC manipulated academic standards to maintain the eligibility of its student-athletes, primarily in men's basketball and football, thereby safeguarding the university's athletic prestige and financial interests.

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Overview of the UNC Academic Scandal

The UNC scandal revolves around the systematic creation and utilization of fake courses to inflate the Grade Point Averages (GPAs) of student-athletes, ensuring their eligibility to compete under NCAA regulations. This manipulation compromised the integrity of UNC's academic programs and the educational prospects of the athletes involved.

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Key Figures Involved

• Mary Willingham: Faculty member overseeing academic support for student-athletes.
• Jay Smith: UNC history professor and co-author of a book on the scandal.
• Debbie Crowder: Office administrator for the African and Afro American Studies Department (AfAM), instrumental in creating bogus classes.
• Julius Nyongaro: Professor in the AfAM department who collaborated with Crowder to design the fraudulent academic support system.

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Operation of the Fake Classes System

Creation of Independent Study Courses: Debbie Crowder and Professor Julius Nyongaro initiated the scheme by offering independent study courses to struggling athletes. These courses required minimal effort—typically just submitting a single paper, which was often plagiarized or recycled.

Jay Smith [05:44]: "The bulk of her role was helping student athletes succeed in their classes. This proved to be a lot harder than she'd anticipated."

Expansion and Integration: By 1993, the AfAM department was offering nearly 200 independent study courses annually, primarily benefiting athletes from high-revenue sports. These courses were indistinguishable from legitimate classes, complete with course numbers and titles, but lacked genuine instructional content.

Mary Willingham [16:32]: "We don't have any records from that independent study, so we can't say for sure what happened. But considering everything that followed, it's reasonable to assume that the players likely had to do little, if any, actual work."

Paper Classes: Starting in 1997, these "paper classes" required only a single paper submission per semester. Grades were freely given, often based on pre-existing or plagiarized work, enabling athletes to maintain the necessary GPA without academic merit.

Mary Willingham [22:10]: "The courses required no work except for a single paper at the end of the semester, which is why they became known as paper classes."

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Impact on Student Athletes

The manipulation of academic standards had profound implications for student-athletes:

• Academic Preparedness: Many athletes had significant gaps in fundamental skills, such as reading and writing, which were never adequately addressed.
• Future Prospects: By inflating GPAs without genuine academic achievement, athletes were ill-prepared for post-college careers, especially those who did not make it professionally in sports.

Jay Smith [25:55]: "We were all complicit because we enjoyed game day so much and we cheered for them and we don't want to be the snitch, so we just looked the other way."

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University Culture and Complicity

UNC's administration prioritized athletic success due to its substantial financial returns from ticket sales, sponsorships, and national visibility. This focus led to a culture where academic integrity was compromised to support the athletic departments.

Jay Smith [02:23]: "Because it kept me eligible to play. You're not there to get an education. You're there to make revenue for the college."

Margo Gray [24:14]: "They rigged a system that not only kept athletes eligible, but allowed UNC Chapel Hill to continue the masquerade that we do things above board."

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Mary Willingham's Role and Internal Conflict

Initially motivated by a genuine desire to support student-athletes, Mary Willingham became increasingly aware of the systemic issues within UNC's academic support programs. Her discovery of plagiarized papers and the pervasive nature of the fake classes led to a moral dilemma.

Mary Willingham [26:33]: "Looking back, Mary says she's not proud of how she helped players cut corners, but she cared about her student athletes and wanted them to succeed."

Despite initial justifications, Mary grew disillusioned as she recognized the long-term harm inflicted on the athletes and the broader academic community.

Mary Willingham [27:13]: "But over time, what Mary had initially justified as helping students achieve their dreams began to feel more and more like ripping them off."

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The Unraveling and Exposure of the System

Mary Willingham's persistent investigation into the fraudulent academic practices eventually led her to expose the scandal. The revelation in 2011 shattered UNC's reputation and highlighted the deep-seated issues within college athletics programs nationwide.

Mary Willingham [28:14]: "When I asked Jay how many people saw through this veneer and truly understood what was happening, he said the number was far more than the university would care to admit."

The exposure not only tarnished UNC's legacy but also sparked broader conversations about the ethical responsibilities of universities in balancing athletics and academics.

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Conclusions and Reflections

"The Carolina Way - Part 1" serves as a cautionary tale about the lengths institutions may go to preserve athletic success at the expense of academic integrity. It underscores the need for systemic reforms to ensure that student-athletes receive the education they deserve and are adequately prepared for life beyond sports.

Jay Smith [26:56]: "We know that less than 1% make it big in their sport. And, you know, the problem is that we just send them back home without making it big in their sport and without a college degree and any chance at a good job. Like, why do we think that's okay? Shame on us, right?"

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Notable Quotes

• Jay Smith [02:23]: "Because it kept me eligible to play. You're not there to get an education. You're there to make revenue for the college."
• Mary Willingham [05:11]: "And I'm working with athletes who. They're just so far behind. And a lot of these guys come from lower socioeconomic groups..."
• Jay Smith [07:14]: "To remain eligible to play, student athletes have to meet certain academic standards, like maintaining a minimum 2.0 GPA."
• Mary Willingham [22:10]: "The courses required no work except for a single paper at the end of the semester, which is why they became known as paper classes."
• Jay Smith [24:55]: "We were all complicit because we enjoyed game day so much and we cheered for them and we don't want to be the snitch, so we just looked the other way."

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Conclusion

This episode of Campus Files meticulously uncovers the intricate web of deceit that allowed UNC to maintain its athletic dominance while neglecting the academic and personal growth of its student-athletes. Through firsthand accounts and investigative reporting, it paints a vivid picture of the challenges and ethical compromises within collegiate sports programs.

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For Additional Episodes and Stories:

• Explore Seasons 1-3 of Gangster Capitalism for more on institutional scandals.
• Share tips or story ideas at [e-mail].

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Transcript

[Margo Gray]

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[Mary Willingham]

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[Margo Gray]

Rebound Carolina with one second and that is it.

[Mary Willingham]

There is a new dean in college basketball.

[Margo Gray]

North Carolina takes the title.

[Mary Willingham]

In 2005, the University of North Carolina men's basketball team won the national championship. Rashad McCants was a standout player on the championship team. A star forward and the second leading scorer. McCants high above the rim. Remarkably, McCants didn't just thrive on the court that season. He got straight A's and made the dean's list. But there was a secret to McCants academic success. He didn't do much academic work that semester. In fact, he says he didn't complete a single assignment. Here's how he later explained it in an interview with ESPN.

[Jay Smith]

I didn't write any papers.

[Margo Gray]

It was very simple. When it was time to turn in our papers, we would get a call from our tutors.

[Mary Willingham]

We would all pack up in one.

[Margo Gray]

Big car or two or three cars.

[Jay Smith]

Car, pull over to the tutor's house and basically get our papers and go about our business.

[Mary Willingham]

McCants says that not only did he not write a single paper that semester, but the lecture courses he was enrolled in never actually met. No assignments, no professor, no class.

[Margo Gray]

It's absurd, but it actually makes sense.

[Jay Smith]

Because it kept me eligible to play. You're not there to get an education. You're there to make revenue for the college.

[Mary Willingham]

I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files UNC's decades long scheme to keep Rashad McCants and hundreds of other athletes eligible to play.

[Jay Smith]

Carolina is a place where students go because of the academics, but also because of the athletic entertainment.

[Mary Willingham]

This is Mary Willingham. When she joined the University of North Carolina faculty in 2003, the School Spirit was immediately apparent.

[Jay Smith]

You can travel all over the world and you will see people with Carolina shirts and Carolina hats and you're like, how on earth is this fan? All the Way over here and, you know, Okinawa, Japan, for example, or somewhere. But that's just the nature of it. And it's that big brand, that Carolina brand.

[Mary Willingham]

You're probably familiar with the Carolina brand, at least visually, it's pretty distinct. The overlapping North Carolina, the signature baby blue outlined in navy, and the outline of a foot with a dark spot on the heel, a nod to the university's mascot, the Tar Heel. There's no doubt this brand largely owes its widespread recognition to UNC's athletic programs, especially basketball and football.

[Margo Gray]

Made for the win. North Carolina.

[Jay Smith]

When I got to Carolina, the very first week there was a football game when we moved into our house and I saw all these people driving in their cars with the flags flying. And I'm from the south side of Chicago where people do that for funerals. And I looked at my husband and I was like, wow, that is a huge funeral. Holy cow. And he's like, no, Mary, that's a football game today.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary's new job was in the academic support program for student athletes. The bulk of her role was helping student athletes succeed in their classes. This proved to be a lot harder than she'd anticipated.

[Jay Smith]

I knew that athletes weren't going to be necessarily at the same level as many other students, but with tutoring and with some support, I figured it wouldn't be that difficult. But I was super naive.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary discovered that many athletes, particularly men's basketball and football players, had significant gaps in their reading and writing skills.

[Jay Smith]

And I'm working with athletes who. They're just so far behind. And a lot of these guys come from lower socioeconomic groups, or it's because they've come from a bad public school, or it's because they've been playing their sport, multiple sports, and they've just been passed through the system.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary looked into getting these players enrolled in remedial classes, focused on essential skills like reading and math.

[Margo Gray]

Math.

[Mary Willingham]

But she learned UNC didn't offer any.

[Jay Smith]

UNC said, well, you know, we, we don't admit anyone like that. They would have to admit and be transparent about the fact that they were taking students who were lower than, you know, more than two standard deviations below, you know, the average admissions.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary quickly recognized UNC's dilemma. Admitting students who needed remedial classes would hurt the university's academic standing. But rejecting them would hurt its athletic standing. In other words, UNC wanted to have its cake and eat it too, leaving Mary with a group of student athletes woefully unprepared for college level courses.

[Jay Smith]

But if you're reading at a fourth grade level. If you're reading at a fifth grade level and you're trying to do college work somewhere like unc, that gap is just too wide.

[Mary Willingham]

And even if it were a closable gap, most of UNC's players didn't have time for supplemental tutoring anyways.

[Jay Smith]

I mean, they're watching film, they're traveling, they're working out. That's a full time job.

[Mary Willingham]

Needless to say, this dynamic did not set athletes up for success in the classroom.

[Jay Smith]

How on earth are you going to be able to do any of the required courses? Courses? And what major are you going to pick and how are you going to get through that? So, you know, it was just, how on earth are we going to keep these athletes eligible?

[Mary Willingham]

To remain eligible to play, student athletes have to meet certain academic standards, like maintaining a minimum 2.0 GPA. These rules are set by the NCAA and apply to all Division 1 athletes.

[Jay Smith]

We reported every Friday to the team, all the teams we reported statistics on, you know, what their students were doing, Were they going to class? Because we paid more attention to them from an eligibility standpoint, especially the players who the team needed.

[Mary Willingham]

Universities have a strong incentive to keep top players eligible, particularly athletes in the so called revenue sports, primarily men's basketball and football. These athletes bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to the school through things like ticket sales, brand sponsorships, and TV contracts. Plus, a winning football or basketball program can boost the school's national visibility and strengthen its brand.

[Jay Smith]

I think the pressure definitely came from the coaches, came from our director. It was always hanging over your head.

[Mary Willingham]

So how were Mary and her colleagues supposed to keep players eligible? She quickly discovered there was an entire system in place to help. But it wasn't what she expected. Not long after starting her job, she reviewed an essay from a woman's basketball player. After just a few lines, it was clear that the paper was heavily, if not entirely, plagiarized. Mary decided to confront the player about it.

[Jay Smith]

I remember like it was yesterday. The student told me, you know, don't worry about it, Mary. I don't even know why you're looking at this, because they just always give us a grade. No one was reading them.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary learned the paper was for a class in the African and Afro American studies department, also known as afam. According to this player, the class never met. There were no assignments and no interaction with the professor. The only requirement for the entire semester was submitting a single paper, and even the legitimacy of that paper was questionable.

[Jay Smith]

They just had to put something down on the paper or grab one from someone else or from a hard drive or whatever.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary learned that the football team kept a hard drive filled with essays for players to pull from.

[Jay Smith]

They saved papers on the hard drive and they were just recycling them and putting their name on them if they were smart enough to remember to change the name out. I went to the head advisor at the time and asked what she knew about it. She said, yeah, I know all about it. Just stay away from it. Stay in your lane. That whole kind of speech.

[Mary Willingham]

The message was clear. Don't ask too many questions. Just do your job. But as Mary did her job, she began to realize that what she'd heard was only the tip of a massive iceberg.

[Jay Smith]

I don't think I realized for a long time how, like, it was just part of the system, like it was a systemic issue in the university that so many people knew about.

[Mary Willingham]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Mary Willingham]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jay Smith]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jay Smith]

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[Mary Willingham]

Listen to Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts.

[Margo Gray]

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[Jay Smith]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Jay Smith]

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[Margo Gray]

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[Mary Willingham]

Of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] the University of North Carolina didn't always offer fake courses to its athletes. To understand how this scheme began, we need to rewind to the 1980s, a transformative era for UNC athletics. During this time, the women's soccer team emerged as an unstoppable force and the football team rose from mediocrity to become a formidable ACC contender. But the cornerstone of UNC's athletic glory was undoubtedly men's basketball under the legendary coach Dean Smith. In 1982, with none other than Michael Jordan on the roster, Smith secured his first national championship, cementing UNC basketball's reputation as a powerhouse.

[Margo Gray]

North Carolina has won the 1982 NCAA championship. Already in the 80s, I think the leaders of UNC had come to understand that athletic success was really important to the University of North Carolina.

[Mary Willingham]

This is Jay Smith, a history professor at UNC who teaches a course on the rights of student athletes. After the decades long UNC scandal finally came To Light in 2011, he co authored a book with Mary Willingham titled the UNC Scandal, the Education of Athletes and the Future of Big Time College Sports.

[Margo Gray]

The pressure to remain competitive was great and growing and the leaders of the university wanted to do everything they could to sustain and promote future athletic success.

[Mary Willingham]

University leaders were in luck. Two people were about to take it upon themselves to lighten the academic load for student athletes. The first was Debbie Crowder, the office administrator for the African and Afro American Studies Department, or afam. Debbie had gone to UNC for undergrad and was a die hard Carolina fan. She hung the men's basketball calendar on her office wall and sometimes had to stay home from work if the team lost. Early on she looked for ways to help out these players, but as an Office administrator, not a professor. There was only so much she could do. That changed when Julius Nyongaro joined the department as a professor. His academic work centered on Africa's politics and economics.

[Margo Gray]

Now, Julius is an interesting case. He was a serious scholar, but he too was a big sports fan.

[Mary Willingham]

Julius and Debbie's scheme first surfaced in the fall of 1988. Two basketball players were struggling to keep up their GPAs. Julius and Debbie had a solution. Julius would offer an independent study course to these players.

[Margo Gray]

There are many reasons why that was unusual and should have raised some red flags among administrators. First of all, independent studies are rare. An independent study course is offered when there is an unusual meeting of the minds between a faculty member and a student who have shared interests, and when those interests can't be developed or nurtured, structured properly in a regular university course.

[Mary Willingham]

For a sense of just how rare it is. Jay Smith has offered no more than three independent study courses in his 34 years at UNC.

[Margo Gray]

And let me add that most students who pursue independent studies are highly motivated students, students who have done well in their other classes. In short, they're very good students.

[Mary Willingham]

We don't have any records from that independent study, so we can't say for sure what happened. But considering everything that followed, it's reasonable to assume that the players likely had to do little, if any, actual work.

[Margo Gray]

But in any case, in 1988, those two players got very helpful grades from this independent studies class. And a light must have gone off in Debbie Crowder's head. She realized how helpful these independent study grades could be for students who were in deep trouble.

[Mary Willingham]

And that summer, Julius offered another independent study to the same struggling basketball player.

[Margo Gray]

I can't underscore enough how weird that is. Speaking for myself and I know most of my colleagues, we regard the summer as a sort of sacrosanct free time away from teaching so that we can focus on our research. An independent study, if it's done properly, is an investment of real time. And so taking on independent studies, why would anyone do that?

[Mary Willingham]

The answer was clear. This independent study was designed to give a struggling basketball player the GPA boost he desperately needed. And Debbie was about to have the opportunity to help out a lot more struggling players. Because in 1992, Julius was promoted to Dean of the AFAM department.

[Margo Gray]

The floodgates opened, and Debbie knew she had a friend she could count on. And they had a kind of perfect administrative marriage. You got the chair of the department and his administrative assistant, and they made all the decisions.

[Mary Willingham]

Debbie began offering independent studies to student athletes who needed a GPA boost. She listed Julius as the instructor, but there was no real teaching involved. Academic advisors quickly caught wind of the friendly setup over in AFAM and began sending more and more players there. By 1993, four of the five starting players on the men's basketball team majored in AFAM compared to just two who'd majored in AFAM in the entire previous decade. And the demand for these bogus independent study courses wasn't limited to the basketball team. Fans across the state and country have come to love Carolina football. As UNC's football team broke into the national top 10 during the 90s, top football recruits kept arriving, all needing the same rule bending the basketball team was receiving. The football team's academic advisors knew exactly where to send these players straight to Debbie and Julius. By the end of the decade, the AFAM department was offering 100 independent studies in a single school year. And that didn't even include the summer term. The independent studies themselves also grew in size, with dozens of students filling what was meant to be a one on one course. It's no exaggeration to say that these independent studies played a crucial role in keeping student athletes afloat. But Debbie was about to take things even further. This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a Snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech which cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back guaranteed. Get an expert [e-mail] only available with TurboTax Live full service. Seek guaranteed [e-mail] guarantees the bogus independent study courses were a huge help to athletes. They provided a valuable, sometimes critical GPA boost. But they couldn't do everything. UNC required students to take courses across several different curriculum areas, also known as perspectives. Independent studies didn't count towards these requirements. Only regular lecture classes could fulfill them.

[Margo Gray]

It wouldn't have taken much for a resourceful person like Debbie who's aware of the needs of the athletic program, for her to realize that if Julius is going to help out by offering independent studies and collecting papers that I will basically evaluate, it would not be hard to also schedule regular courses with course numbers which also will not meet, but will allow them to satisfy their major requirements, their minor requirements. That's a whole new ball game.

[Mary Willingham]

Unlike the independent studies, these courses appeared on the schedule as regular lectures.

[Margo Gray]

Well, it was ingeniously designed, if I do say so myself. I want to compliment them on this. They took established courses that were part of the regular curriculum, that had gone through all of the normal approval processes and that were in the catalog and that had often appeared on the teaching schedule in prior years. They took those classes and they put them on the schedule, but they opened them up to no students except those who had permission.

[Mary Willingham]

In other words, the transcript of a student who took these fake classes Appeared identical to that of someone who who completed regular lecture courses.

[Margo Gray]

There was a Potemkin village of a curriculum here. The courses had titles, they had course numbers. It seemed that they had instructors, and none of that was real.

[Mary Willingham]

The courses required no work except for a single paper due at the end of the semester, which is why they became known as paper classes. The first documented paper class was offered in the fall of 1997. And over the next two decades, Debbie and Julius would offer nearly 200 paper classes that demanded nothing more than the submission of one paper.

[Margo Gray]

I think we can safely assume that most of the papers were fully or partially plagiarized and that they represented next to no meaningful work on the part of the student who turned them in. Debbie freely gave out A's and A minuses.

[Mary Willingham]

It's worth taking a moment to highlight just how unusual it was for an office administrator to be assigning essay prompts and grading papers. But Debbie was effectively running the show. She scheduled the classes and decided who could enroll.

[Margo Gray]

And these were predominantly athletes, Though eventually other students get in to enjoy the party too.

[Mary Willingham]

Debbie did have to admit some non athletes into the courses to maintain her coverage, and plenty of fraternity guys eventually found their way in. But it was clear that the paper classes were primarily designed to benefit athletes. In fact, Debbie kept in close contact with the athletes academic advisors to ensure her courses were meeting their needs. In a now infamous email exchange, Debbie wrote to a woman's basketball advisor about a player's paper that she was grading. Did you say a D will do? I'm only asking because there are no sources. It has absolutely nothing to do with the assignment for that class. And it seems to be a recycled paper. The advisor replied, yes, a D will be fine. That's all she needs.

[Margo Gray]

They rigged a system that not only kept athletes eligible, but allowed UNC Chapel Hill to continue the masquerade that we do things above board. We do things right here. We keep everybody on path to graduation. Meanwhile, if you peeled the veneer off the system, you would see that one reason for that continued stellar reputation on the part of UNC Chapel Hill was that there were these fake classes that students were able to take advantage of.

[Mary Willingham]

When I asked Jay how many people saw through this veneer and truly understood what was happening, he said the number was far more than the university would care to admit.

[Margo Gray]

Still to this day, there are a lot of people who want to claim that nobody knew, that nobody knew about this except for Debbie and Julius. But there was wide knowledge of what was going on. There was one academic year in which Julius Nyong'oro taught over 300 independent studies. 300. Give me a break. That should have left some dean speechless somewhere. It makes no sense unless all of the higher ups were completely negligent and incompetent or decided to look the other way because he understood that something was not right, but didn't want to go poking around. We were all complicit because we didn't want to confront the reality that college athletics forces really difficult and morally compromising choices all the time.

[Mary Willingham]

Few people understand these kinds of choices better than Mary and her colleagues in the academic support program.

[Jay Smith]

I do remember a few cases where I myself would say, we've got to keep this player eligible. Like, how are we going to put this together so that this student will have this 2.0? Well, switching a major would be one of my ways that I used to keep a player on the field. You need a certain GPA in your major. So if your major is, I don't know, exercise, sports, science, but you just dropped below a 2.0, but you've taken all these African American studies paper classes enough to claim that's your major, and guess what? You have a 3.2 in that major. It's just this game.

[Mary Willingham]

Looking back, Mary says she's not proud of how she helped players cut corners, but she cared about her student athletes and wanted them to succeed.

[Jay Smith]

These are humans and you want them to follow their dream. Amazing young people who have been through a lot in their lives too already and are trying so hard to make it big and to make it for their family.

[Mary Willingham]

Mary reassured herself that it was okay because these players were getting the chance to be at a prestigious institution like UNCLE.

[Jay Smith]

You justify it because you think you know this is better than where they would be.

[Mary Willingham]

But over time, what Mary had initially justified as helping students achieve their dreams began to feel more and more like ripping them off.

[Jay Smith]

A lot of these players come from lower socioeconomic groups where this education would mean so much to them to lift them out of poverty because so few are going to make it big in the NBA or the NFL. We know that less than 1% make it big in their sport. And, you know, the problem is that we just send them back home without making it big in their sport and without a college degree and any chance at a good job. Like, why do we think that's okay? Shame on us, right?

[Mary Willingham]

For a long time, Mary kept these reservations to herself. She didn't want to rock the boat.

[Jay Smith]

We were all complicit because we enjoyed game day so much and we cheered for them and we don't want to be the snitch, so we just looked the other way.

[Mary Willingham]

But Mary couldn't remain silent forever. She soon became determined to blow the lid off the system.

[Margo Gray]

I come across on UNC's website a transcript for these Affam classes. This was just absolutely mind blowing. I said, get the roster for that class. And every name she read off. My soul just got crushed because I.

[Mary Willingham]

Knew we were in big trouble.

[Margo Gray]

I immediately saw that the university was hiding stuff left and right. They weren't telling us the truth. I mean, it's clearly the biggest story of my career. Kind of a big explosion.

[Mary Willingham]

The University of North Carolina today reeling from a blow, a really big blow to its reputation, especially the integrity of its legendary sports program.

[Margo Gray]

I honestly thought, ah, well, this is going to force a reckoning about how this, this egregious, long lasting, inexcusable scandal happened at this institution that never happened.

[Mary Willingham]

Campus Files is an Odyssey original podcast. This episode was written and reported by Margo Gray. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont Eliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowitz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis Maura, Kirk Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davey Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to [e-mail] I'm Joyn Robinson, host of the new podcast, the Women's Hoop Show. Each episode I'll be joined by a RA rotating group of women's basketball experts to talk wnba, college hoops, the new unrivaled league and the shifting landscape of the sport. The game is growing, and so are we. Listen to and follow the Women's Hoop show and Odyssey podcast, available now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.