UPDATE (6:37 p.m.) — The Boston Herald is reporting that Harvard basketball co-captain Brandyn Curry is also expected to withdraw from the university today and miss the upcoming basketball season.
8:39 a.m. — News broke early this morning that Harvard basketball captain Kyle Casey is set to withdraw from Harvard this year. He is implicated in a cheating case with about 130 other students from a Government class last semester. A student told The Crimson more than half of the 279-person class played a varsity sport, though not all of them are necessarily being investigated.
Investigations began by Harvard's Ad Board in late August, when it was determined that students had collaborated on the Government 1310 take-home exam.
While the investigations could take until November, athletes involved have been advised to withdraw from the university for the term or year in order to save eligibility. Multiple sources have told SI.com that Casey is choosing to withdraw, and additionally Brandyn Curry and another unnamed basketball player are involved in the case and under review.
The football team is "preparing for the worst," an unnamed player told The Crimson.
The deadline to withdraw is today, so stay tuned for more updates as we will surely see some recognizable names save themselves a year of eligibility. Those who do not withdraw and are later found to be guilty -- no matter at what point during the season -- will lose a year of eligibility. Wins could be vacated from a team if a player is later deemed ineligible.
On the surface, while its easy to want to nail Harvard BB and Coach Amaker.. this scandal is more academic and less athletic in nature. The impact is on athletics but this is clearly not an athletic scandal
I expect to see something by JONOTHON TANNENWALT on his PRETZEL LOGIC BLOG about this. Hopefully it will be a better piece than some of his latest contributions. The Not Penn State to Penn item was one of the most incoherent and poorly written thing to grace his blog in some time. I like JONOTHON, but he often spreads himself too thin with all of his hats he wears.
He needs to step up HIS game for Fall College Season
No one should gloat over this cheating scandal at Fair Hahvad. It can happen anywhere and anytime. No college or university is immune. That said, I would like to repeat what I stated last year that Harvard's Basketball Team has gotten too good too fast. We are all told how great a recruiter Harvard Basketball Coach Tommy Amaker is BUT the question remains what is he recruiting. Another nagging question remains. How long has the Harvard Administration known of this scandal? It became public today and the Harvrd student/athletes involved had already been told to forgo the 2012-2013 athletic season to save a year of eligibilty rather than risk playing and facing the chance of forfeits down the line.
The deadline for their decisions was today..
Talk about a cover-up. Move over Nittany Lions.
Penn Grad
Thank you for the contributions.
I dont know if we can make the association (MTA) between the Harvard cheating scandal and any alleged/purported recruiting issues by Coach Amaker
FYI Penn Grad, here's an article from The Crimson on August 30th discussing the situation, but it has no mention of athletes. I don't think any national news was made on this front until Casey decided to withdraw. I think if Harvard were trying to cover it up, there wouldn't be quotes from deans in the article.
I too would love to be able to pin this on Amaker, especially after how he's treated some other players forced out of their program, but it seems that this indeed is limited to academics. I don't think this can be blamed on recruiting either, especially since there were 125 students involved, most of whom aren't athletes.
Jay -- Welcome Back! And thank YOU for YOUR contribution. I concur with your assessment about this NOT being about Coach Amaker.
Also, lets not kid anybody here. This happens more than what gets reported. Has been occuring for years on all campuses. In this case, they got caught.
Dont think that Penn is NOT immune to this. After all, people (especially college kids) will do ANYTHING for the grade in our uber-competitive cut-throat dog-eat-dog world of landing internships, jobs on Wall Street, MBA and Law School admissions. Nothing new here folks.
Would love to hear what some of the others have to say here. Mr Becker? Ernie? Etc.
Or JONOTHON TANNENWALD, who appears to be holed up doing 4523 things for Philly.com and on his twitter. Oy.
FOJL
I agree that Penn isn't immune to this, but I also think that the best professors are the ones ENCOURAGING collaboration on projects/papers/assignments and then using other means to ensure that everyone's learning. Would be good for instructors to reach folks who, in the vein of Mark Twain, "never let [their] schooling interfere with [their] education."
I agree with the above comments that this recently discovered cheating scandal has NOTHING to do with Harvard's Basketball recruitment under Tommy Amaker but as the old adage goes " WHERE THERE IS SMOKE THERE IS FIRE". TIME WILL TELL !
Almost half of the class involved seems to have been involved. The Professor of the class suspected something amiss back in May. Seems to me that delay of the public finding out took much to long, TO MY CHAGRIN THE IVY LEAGUE WEBSITE HAS STILL NOT ACKNOWLEDGED ANYTHING WRONG ALONG THE CHARLES RIVER.
HAD IT OCCURRED ALONG THE SCHUYLKILL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PRINTED IMMEDIATELY..
I don't know anything about how the Ivy website works, but I'd imagine they'd rather not publicize this if they don't have to. As well, it doesn't sound like all is known about the situation and it's not resolved.
In light of the more recent posting above about what exactly led the professor to suspect cheating, I should clarify that plagiarism is NOT the type of collaboration I had in mind when I said above that it should be encouraged. Especially if the student submitting it isn't going to read over it, know what's in it, and make sure there aren't any errors, but this is all beside the point. Good thing it wasn't an editing class.
@Penn Grad - Totally agree with your Ivy website observations. The bias is lamentable, and their reluctance to ever take Harvard and Princeton to task, even when caught red-handed, is deplorable. Unfortunately their often weak explanations and excuses invariably get accepted without challenge.
This is great. Everyone is participating in the dialogue here
Always a good day when we see a contribution by the one-and-only (1AO) Ernie! Good to see you, friend!
FOJL
Ernie, the Ivy League office had one very bad misstep when it cleared Tommy Amaker of recruiting violations only to have the NCAA come in afterwards and rule that he and Harvard had in fact committed an infraction. Are there any other examples of H and P being caught red-handed?
@FOJL - Thank you
@Follow-up - Last year a high school athlete in junior year was reported to have informed their local paper of being accepted to and planning to attend Princeton. Recruiting wise I believe this was well prior to the starting date for such recruiting and acceptance.
Then there was Ivy Director Harris speaking on behalf of the League, but with a Princeton backdrop and logo. And now the non-mention of the Casey and Curry situation, with some football players also rumored. Cornell on the other hand had its knuckles rapped immediately for a recruiting infraction.
It is easy to pooh pooh this stuff, and at the end of the day does any of this matter? It is easy to conclude that within the greater Penn family and community there's a great deal of indifference to Penn sports and its fortunes. What's to be will be. (Sorry, FOJL and all, if this is a downer.)
To change the direction slightly I would like to remind my colleagues that the PENN QUAKERS open up their 2012 Football Season at Lafayette tomorrow, Sat., September 15. Kickoff is at 6pm. Hopefully the Red and Blue will get off on the right foot and chalk up a W. The Leopards have been tough the last few years and there is nothing better than winning your first game. Let us hope the team stays injury-free and brings home a victory. The end of last season was very disappointing for all Penn fans when we lost our last three out of four games to finish 5-5.
Wishing the Quakers all the best as they open their 136th football season.
@ Ernie Nounou,
I completely accept your general suspicion that Harvard and Princeton have more sway with the League office than the other Ivy members do. That's practically common sense. However, the specific examples that you cite are pretty weak.
High school recruits routinely announce that they have been "accepted" to an Ivy League university in the fall of their senior years, prior to the official date for schools to notify Early Decision or Single-Choice Early Action applicants. What the recruits mean, of course, is that they have received a "likely letter" and, short of a complete disaster on their fall semester grades, they will enroll at that particular school once their formal notification of acceptance arrives. Recruits from all eight schools speak casually in this fashion. In addition, you mention that you read the information in a local paper which of course may have phrased their story using inexact language even if the recruit had chosen his words precisely.
Robin Harris has already explained that she was invited to make a television appearance on short notice and Princeton University was kind enough to offer its own on-campus television studio for her use. That's why there was a Princeton University logo on the backdrop.
What would you want the League office to say now at this early point in the process of the Harvard scandal? What on earth is the League's role in the situation or, in your opinion, what should it be? In my opinion, none.
I think that you're missing the forest for the trees. The clearest example is far more important than your minor examples. The Ivy League office conducted a formal investigation and affirmatively declared that Amaker and Harvard committed no violations of either League or NCAA rules, only to have the NCAA office reject the conference findings and then issue a report with a completely opposite conclusion, namely, that Amaker had indeed committed recruiting violations.
@ Not Sure Who - Thank you for making my argument better than I could. And if you are accepting of the Ivy office status quo, God Bless.
What you can not persuade me is that there is a significant or critical mass that still cares about Penn sports. If you could come up with hard-hitting examples to the contrary - open to scrutiny - I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.
@Ernie Nounou,
I am curious to see what change in behavior, if any, there will be at the League office after the Amaker incident. If you are a conference headquarters and you have the NCAA reject a formal rules determination of yours, that's bad enough. But for the NCAA to then reach a conclusion 100% contrary to your own publicly announced findings, that's humiliating. We'll see if Harvard gets a free pass next time, although I don't think the current cheating scandal is the "next time." I have a feeling that Amaker will provide another opportunity to judge the League office within a few years.
As far as interest in Penn sports is concerned, I agree with you that interest in sports is lower than it's ever been. But look around the Ivies. It's actually worse elsewhere. I believe that undergraduates at Penn support our sports teams more than they do at any Ivy. It's a pretty meager state of affairs all around the League. Can you name any counter-examples?
@Commentary - A recurring notion in your above post is where you set the bar for accepting the status quo. Re Ivy office you are counting on Amaker to screw up, rather than other Ivies (Penn included) to up their game, develop some backbone, and take principled stands.
BTW - I don't believe Amaker needs to cut recruiting corners anymore, so waiting for his screw ups is a defeatist's game. Also BTW - When does Penn BB's recruiting kick in and PROVE tangibly it is back, and not just via feel-good talk?
As for sports enthusiasm being worse at other Ivies, do you include alumni, and such data as attendance at football games, Homecoming, etc.? And then there's fundraising and direct expenditure for Penn athletics. Unfortunately the data doesn't support it either.
Penn Park will be rolled out by some, perhaps you as well, as evidence of Penn's commitment to Penn sports and a great recruiting tool. I'll posit that it and the Weiss Pavilion are great additions to the campus. But what they've done for recruiting or team results is not even a serious discussion. Remember the other Ivies haven't been standing still either. Reminds me of our decline in USNews rankings; a pattern?
@Ernie Nounou,
You are correct that I'm more willing to accept the status quo than others are, and that simply waiting for Amaker to commit more violations is a very passive approach. But what would you suggest as a proactive move?
I've got one idea: Right now, Amaker gets an unlimited number of low Academic Index recruits (a decision made by his athletic director of course, not the League office) while the rest of us continue to abide by a gentleman's agreement to spread low AI recruits evenly across all our sports. If Harvard continues to take advantage of this loophole in the most fundamental of Ivy League rules, I suggest that we put men's basketball into its own separate AI pool, as is currently done with football.
On your other topic, I've got news for you: Penn is *more* committed to football and men's basketball than almost all other Ivies. Harvard under Amaker of course is one exception. But ask yourself, would any other Ivy AD besides Steve Bilsky fire his coach in December, the middle of the men's basketball season? No, Penn is the only place where that would happen, and even so, it shocked me.
Away from football and mens' basketball, Penn doesn't focus on sports any more or less than most Ivies. Princeton and Harvard dominate this League in most sports, which is obviously why they have more influence in the League office. But P and H don't seem to devote more financial or recruiting resources to sports than anybody else in the conference. Why do they win so much? I'm not sure. Name recognition and a winning tradition, probably.
FYI, Terry Dunn left Dartmouth in the middle of the season that Miller left Penn, though I don't entirely know what the circumstances were that led to that. That said, I agree that an outright firing is pretty noticeable.
As for football, I say forget about it entirely until Ivy schools are eligible for postseason play.
@Commentary - Per yours re what I'd propose for a proactive approach to Penn sports; it may surprise you: I've loved Penn sports and believed most if not all of the Penn family (undergrads, campus community, alums) also cared, albeit to varying degree. It may once have been so, but not now; the Penn family is largely indifferent to Penn sports.
Based on simple arithmetic that Penn's decreasing out-of-pocket financial commitment to Penn's sports budget, which is aimed at being self-funded (underfunded), most Penn teams have regrettably become glorified club sports. So why get agitated at the results? (I can't answer that one either.)
Harvard has FB & BB plus various others, Princeton has an array of winners, and Cornell excels in a few national caliber teams. Please don't dilute this conversation with excuses. Those programs are successful as measured by Ws-Ls, Ivy & National titles, and athletes moving to the pros & Olympics. Our glory is largely historic.
As for the Miller firing in mid-season, my take stated at the time was the AD did so and hired Jerome as a very clever strategic distraction to avoid the calls for his own head.
So what is my suggestion for a pro-active approach? I don't know, and moreover I don't care as much as I used to, if the Penn family - especially at the leadership level - is content with the status quo. BTW - That self-satisfaction with the status quo permeates much of Penn.