USC Athletes Led to ‘Easy A’ Class

A USC academic advisor responsible for student-athletes allegedly stacked an education class with football and baseball players who were neither required to attend nor complete any course work by the professor to get a passing grade, a Times investigation has found.

Records show that of the 40 students enrolled in the class, 30 were athletes, including 14 members of the 1996 Rose Bowl team and eight members of the USC baseball team that finished second in the College World Series last year. Three other students worked for the athletic department.

Among the prominent players in the class were football stars Keyshawn Johnson, Delon Washington and Kyle Wachholtz and basketball player Stais Boseman, all of whom received a grade of A.

A random check of 25 students by The Times showed that 24 received an A and one a B-minus. USC confirmed that nearly every student in the class received an A.

The class, held last spring and designed to teach tutoring methods, was investigated by a university committee last summer. Although the investigation found problems, it was dropped because the committee believed the instructor, professor Vernon Broussard, had retired and the class was no longer being taught, said Richard Ide, USC vice provost of undergraduate studies.

Broussard, however, is still teaching the class, which will not be taught after this semester, though it is unclear when that decision was made.

The advisor, Janice Henry, who counsels football and baseball players, was found in last summer’s investigation to have committed no wrongdoing, Ide said.

However, in response to questions from The Times concerning allegations of academic impropriety involving Henry by two student-athletes, a USC official said Wednesday that the investigation was reopened and reported to the Pacific 10 Conference. The Pac-10 confirmed it had been contacted Wednesday by USC.

“In light of the new information uncovered by The Times we feel it is right and proper to reopen the investigation,” said Ide, who said he was speaking on behalf of all departments in the university regarding this issue.

Henry, who works in the athletic department, did not return phone calls from The Times. Broussard, a tenured professor who teaches the two-unit undergraduate class called Tutoring Elementary, Secondary or University Students, cataloged as CTSE-301, said he has never shown preferential treatment toward anyone and didn’t even know if there were athletes in his class.

“I announce to the students the first day of class that attendance is not mandatory and that everyone in the class can earn an A,” said Broussard, whose class involves mostly group projects. “. . . It is virtually impossible to fail my class.”

Letonia Lee, one of the few non-athletes in the class, said that Broussard had an organized schedule of assignments that included collaborative work with other students.

But two student-athletes in the class, who were in danger after the fall 1994 semester of losing their athletic eligibility, told The Times that it was Henry who enrolled them in the class and told them it was an “easy A,” they said. The students said Henry, who had taken some classes from Broussard at USC, told them they would not have to attend.

The two students were Derek Baker, a former USC baseball player who started 40 games at third base for the Trojans last year, and another athlete who asked to remain anonymous. They said they never completed any course work but received A’s.

According to Baker, Henry told him he had to take the class because of his poor academic performance the semester before, his first at USC. Henry showed him the classes she picked out for him and told him the class would help his grade-point average. Baker said he never attended a class meeting, completed an assignment or participated in the final exam.

“She told me I didn’t need to show up, so I didn’t show up,” Baker said. “She said all I needed to do was go on a field trip to Marcus Garvey elementary school, write a paper about it and then turn it in at the end of the year. I went, but I never turned the paper in.”

Records reviewed by The Times show that Baker received an A in the class. Baker also received an A in physical education but said he failed his other three classes that semester. He was ruled academically ineligible last summer and is currently at Rancho Santiago College.

The other student, who also received an A, never attended the class but was told by Henry to show up at the final. The student said: “I went to the class and it was full of athletes. There were only four or five who weren’t athletes. I was handed a paper that was already completed, then told to hand it back in. The paper had my name typed on it and it was some sort of essay question. Then I was asked to sign my name on another paper that was apparently some sort of group project, but I had never participated in it.

“I don’t even know what the subjects of these papers were. The person who handed me these things to sign was apparently the group leader in charge of about six or seven students. I had been introduced to her previously in the athletic department by Janice Henry.”

The student did not know the group leader’s full name.

After the paperwork was completed, the student said Broussard walked in and addressed the class.

“He was wearing clothes that had cardinal and gold [the school colors] on them and had some USC pins on and stuff, and I remember thinking, ‘Gee, this guy really likes it here,’ ” the student said. “It was the first time I had seen the instructor. He talked to the class for about five minutes and then that was it. We all left.”

In addition, the parent of a student-athlete claims that she told assistant athletic director Daryl Gross that her child was concerned that no work was required of her. Gross told the parent that a full investigation would be conducted, the parent said. But neither the parent nor the student was contacted by USC about the matter. Gross did not return a phone call from The Times.

If the allegations made by these students are found to be true, and any member of the 1996 Rose Bowl team received improper credit from the class, the 1995-96 football season and Rose Bowl victory could be jeopardized. Under Pac-10 rules, if individuals competed while ineligible, the outcome of any game in question would be reviewed by a special panel to determine if the victory can stand. It could also be a violation of NCAA rules.

David Price, associate commissioner of the Pac-10, would not comment on the allegations but said the conference would be concerned if an “athletic department was involved or an athlete was given grades they haven’t earned,” he said.

Other students, though, have a different version of what occurred in the class. Geoff Jenkins, former USC star baseball player who is now in the Milwaukee Brewer organization, said he went to class and did the required work.

“I have never seen a class where athletes are favored,” Jenkins said. “I worked in all my classes.”

Lee, the non-athlete who has high praise for Broussard, said she attended class regularly and there was an average of 10 students at each meeting. Lee said some of the athletes would come one week and some of them another.

She said Broussard required seven assignments during the semester containing seven to 14 essay questions. An assignment was due every three weeks. Lee also said the class was divided into about four groups of 10 to work on the assignments.

Lee said Henry came to the class regularly and was at the final, presumably to check on the athletes.

“It’s sad to think that a student could attend classes at a university for four years and not be able to evaluate prose,” Lee said. “But these athletes make a lot of money for the university and I don’t blame them, I blame the administrators. . . . The athlete’s needs need to be met. More need to walk away educated.”

Ide confirmed that the class came under suspicion last May by a committee that oversees academic progress of athletes. The investigation was conducted by school administrators who said they interviewed a sample of students in the class.

The committee was formed as a check-and-balance system for the athletic department, Ide said. Along with about three other classes, CTSE-301 was flagged during a study for having a high number of athletes enrolled. All the classes were eventually cleared except for CTSE-301, according to sources close to the committee.

But in the fall of 1995, Noel Ragsdale, the faculty athletic representative, informed the oversight committee that the investigation had turned up problems with CTSE-301, but that the issues were moot because the instructor, Broussard, had retired.

Broussard had taken early retirement, but he says with no intention to quit teaching, merely to withdraw his annuities. The communication breakdown, Ide says, fell somewhere between the education department and the provost’s office. This is not the first time that Broussard’s grading methods had been questioned, Ide and sources in the education department said.

“We dropped the ball [on the investigation] and there is no way we can have administrative incompetence like this,” Ide said.

The committee was also told there was no wrongdoing on the part of Henry or the athletic department, though Ide said he told them that there were some “serious mistakes” made.

“I said don’t get yourself so closely tied with a class that a non-student-athlete could think you are a teaching assistant,” Ide said he told Henry. “In this case 75% of the students in the class were athletes, and we don’t care if it is by word of mouth or how, we need to monitor these things.”

Student-athletes should fall within no more than 10% of a class roster, according to industry standards. Currently, Broussard’s CTSE-301 class is 33% athletes.

Ide said the committee interviewed some athletes in the class, but did not get the “horror stories” told to The Times. “When we interviewed, all we said is that obviously this is a system of grading by the professor that opens itself up to all sorts of abuse,” Ide said. “That’s why we would have followed up if we would have known Broussard was still teaching.”

These allegations come a month after USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett said in a Times article that academics were more important to his school than winning. Garrett was responding to questions surrounding the firing of basketball Coach Charlie Parker.

In the early 1980s, USC’s football and track programs were put on a one-year probation by the Pac-10 for academic irregularities. The infractions included an athlete receiving 28 academic credits from four junior colleges during one semester, and 34 athletes, most of whom were members of the 1980 Rose Bowl team, enrolled in speech classes they had not attended.

Then, in 1982, the football program was put on three years’ probation by the NCAA after it found that for eight years an assistant football coach had been selling complimentary tickets given by the school to USC football players, then giving the money to the players.

These embarrassing incidents--which led to the football team being banned from postseason play for three years--forced a change in focus for USC, administrators have said. Under the guidance of a new athletic director, Mike McGee, a $3-million academic resource center was built and the academic support services budget more than doubled. Mandatory study table was implemented and more tutors were made available.

Since then, graduation rates of athletes have risen dramatically, a factor that has brought praise for Garrett, who took over for McGee in January of 1993. The 1996 graduation rate of student-athletes is 71%, up from 53% in 1994 and higher than the general student body rate of 65%. There has been a significant increase among football players, 75%, up from 42% in 1994.

Nevertheless, in the last three years, Garrett has had to deal with several academic issues involving athletes. Four football players were accused of cheating on their college entrance examinations--three within one year. One player was disqualified before he enrolled, and two of the other three were cleared. But no other Division I-A football school was known to have so many recruits’ entrance exam scores challenged.

More recently, six scholarship basketball players were labeled “at risk” academically at the end of the fall semester, which means they have a grade-point average below 2.5 or C. Two of them are in jeopardy of losing their playing eligibility because they have failed two or more subjects. But all six students were admitted to the university as “at risk” students, a decision made by Garrett.

Several athletic department employees, as well as USC President Steven Sample, say that Garrett unequivocally stresses academics over winning, and point to the fact that athletes are constantly in his office.

“If even one of our students sails through a class without doing the work, we want to know about it and want to keep it from happening again,” Garrett said.

But Cynthia Cardosi, a former academic advisor in USC’s athletic department for seven years, said that she resigned last February largely because of “ethical concerns.” She said there were many policy changes regarding academics that distressed her.

“The coaches didn’t make the players go to study hall or meet with their mentors after John [Robinson] took over,” said Cardosi, who resigned from USC last February and is now at the University of Virginia.

“Without the support of the coaches, you can’t have an effective program. They were always on [former basketball coach George] Raveling’s case about academics but not Robinson’s. George made his kids go to study table.”

Robinson could not be reached Wednesday night. But in the past, Garrett has said there is no double standard and that all student-athletes are required to do the necessary course work.

Cardosi said she was aware of potential problems with CTSE-301 and grew more concerned about the class shortly before leaving.

When she looked at athletes’ class schedules, she said the class kept showing up. She said she worried about why some athletes performed better in that class than they had in others.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Class Breakdown

Of the 40 students enrolled in in CTSE-301, 30 were athletes. A breakdown by sport:

*--*

Football 15 Baseball 8 Basketball 2 Tennis 2 Track 1 Golf 1 Soccer 1

*--*