July 1: Football player Michael McAdoo files a lawsuit against UNC-CH and the NCAA after being kicked off the team because a tutor had provided footnotes and a bibliography for a term paper. The paper turns out to have several plagiarized passages that were missed by university officials and NCAA investigators. The paper identifies Julius Nyang’oro, chairman of the African and Afro-American Studies Department, as class professor. Chancellor Holden Thorp in a subsequent interview tells The News & Observer he is not going to question Nyang’oro about the paper.

Aug. 21: A partial academic transcript for another football player, Marvin Austin, shows he took an upper level African studies class in the summer of 2007 before taking a full slate of introductory courses in the fall that included remedial writing. Austin received a B-plus in the African studies class. UNC-CH records identified Nyang’oro as the professor.

Sept. 1: Nyang’oro resigns as chairman. University officials launch an investigation into “possible irregularities” in the African studies department after The N&O requests data on independent studies and other courses in which no class is held.

Sept. 16: UNC-CH officials confirm the investigation is targeting independent studies in the department. Data released to The N&O shows that football players are accounting for more than one in five of the enrollments in those classes.

May 4: UNC-CH’s investigation finds 54 classes in the department in which there is little or no evidence of instruction. Among them are the classes McAdoo and Austin took. Nyang’oro is directly connected to 45 of the classes. The report also finds evidence of forgery and unauthorized grade changes, but law enforcement officials decline to investigate, saying there is an apparent lack of financial motive. Data later released to The N&O shows 36 percent of the enrollments are football players and another three percent are basketball players. Nyang'oro is allowed to retire.

May 10: Records requested by The N&O show Nyang’oro received $12,000 in additional pay to teach a summer class that the internal probe found to have no classroom instruction.

May 14: Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall announces a criminal investigation in light of the summer pay, but said the probe would also look into forgery and other allegations related to the case.
 
 

CHAPEL HILL — What began in May 2010 with a Marvin Austin tweet about lavish partying on South Beach ended on Monday when the NCAA Committee on Infractions gave its final verdict in a scandal that hung over the University of North Carolina football program for nearly two years.

UNC’s football team will serve a postseason ban in 2012, and first-year head coach Larry Fedora will have to make do with five fewer scholarships in each of the next three seasons. During the same time span, UNC will remain on probation, and anything that runs afoul of NCAA rules during that time would be subject to harsher penalties.

The drama is over, finally, and the case is closed. But the end brings a time for reflection. So here are some final thoughts on a case that seemed would never end – but finally did earlier this week:

It turns out not so many freshmen had taken upper level classes at UNC-Chapel Hill as a spokesman originally told us in our Sunday story about former football player Marvin Austin's academic transcript.

UNC spokesman Mike McFarland originally said 1,033 freshman had taken a 400 level class in the most recently completed academic year. He has now corrected that to 683 freshmen.

The statistic is significant because McFarland cited it to suggest that Austin's first class at the university -- a 400 level African-American studies course during the second summer session of 2007 -- might not be all that unusual. There were 3,846 freshmen in last year's class, so the original number would suggest one in four freshmen took a 400 level class.

The corrected number indicates it was more like one in six.

That statistic does not reflect how many of those freshmen took a 400 level class in their second semester, when they would have a much better lay of the land and might have taken a prerequisite.  It also doesn't show how many freshman got into a 400 level class after demonstrating they had taken advanced placement classes in high school.

Austin got a B plus in the class, according to the partial transcript we obtained. It was the only class he took that semester before taking a full slate of introductory courses in the fall. Those courses included a remedial writing class.

Austin is one of seven players who had to sit out last season as a result of an NCAA investigation into impermissible perks and academic help.

Marvin Austin, the former UNC defensive tackle who missed the 2010 college season when the university dismissed him for his role in prompting an NCAA investigation of the Tar Heels program, played Saturday night for the New York Giants in their 20-10 loss to the Carolina Panthers.

Afterwards, the Giants’ rookie answered questions from a small group of reporters, including The Charlotte Observer’s Scott Fowler.

CHAPEL HILL - North Carolina interim football coach Everett Withers declined to say this morning whether Tar Heels defensive lineman Quinton Coples would be punished by the team for a sign-out policy mistake that eventually led to the All-ACC player being interviewed by the NCAA.

Watch video of Withers' comments about Coples.

“The sign-out sheet policy is an internal policy that we have, so anything that happens will be an internal issue in how we handle it,’’ Withers said today. “As you guys all know, Quinton was cleared by the NCAA, so that issue goes away. No, what we do is handle anything internally in the family.”

Coples said he filed a sign-out sheet in May when he left campus – a policy instituted during the spring semester to track football players' whereabouts whenever they leave campus for 24 hours or more. The team instituted the policy after UNC lost Marvin Austin, Robert Quinn and Greg Little for the entire 2010 season after it was determined they had accepted trips and improper, agent-related benefits.

The problem, Coples said Thursday, was that he did not inform the team that he would be attending Austin’s NFL draft party in Washington, D.C.

NCAA investigators returned to Chapel Hill to interview Coples after a Washington magazine posted pictures from the party on its website. Several of the photos depicted Coples alongside Quinn, Austin and former teammate Michael McAdoo, who was ruled permanently ineligible by the NCAA for academic misconduct.
 
“I signed out, but it was an adjustment that I had to make that I didn’t make, which was to inform them that I was going to the party outside the place I was actually going,’’ Coples said. “ … I told them where I was going, which I did go to, but when I made that adjustment to go to the party, I just didn’t let anyone know. And that’s when the whole situation came up.”

The NCAA eventually told UNC that Coples did not commit any violations, but given that 14 players were held out of at least one game last season because of the NCAA investigation, it made for a stressful situation.

"I didn't think anything was going to happen,’’ Coples said. “I was just going to celebrate with my former teammates that had just gotten drafted. I felt like some people took things into a different perspective and saw something different and tried to make the situation bigger than what it was. At the end of the day, I was cleared, and I thank God for that and we're moving on.

"That was definitely a learning experience for me."
 

Former UNC defensive lineman Marvin Austin's comments on Twitter first drew the attention of NCAA investigators last year as he tweeted about a party in Miami and other good times.

Wednesday, in the aftermath of a Durham Superior Court ruling that denied his former Tar Heels teammate Michael McAdoo an injunction that would have allowed McAdoo to resume playing with the Tar Heels this fall, Austin unleashed a series of tweets on his @anchormanaustin account expressing his frustration and apparently threatening to reveal more about North Carolina's football program and the ongoing NCAA investigation.

North Carolina linebacker Bruce Carter, defensive tackle Marvin Austin and receiver Greg Little were part of an ACC-heavy second round of the NFL draft on Friday night.

Carter was the second UNC player off the board (DE Robert Quinn went in the first to St. Louis) at the 40th overall pick to the Dallas Cowboys. Austin went 12 picks later to another NFC East team, the New York Giants. Little was the 59th overall selection to the Cleveland Browns.

CHAPEL HILL — There they were, all of North Carolina's football stars, together on the same field for one last time.

UNC's group of NFL hopefuls, which hadn't been seen in its entirety since August, put on a show for a swarm of NFL scouts and coaches on Thursday.