3518techie, I understood your point, just wanted to be clear that there is the wrong way for coaches to be involved in academics. And FWIW, I worked a number of years at another ACC school and had almost daily contact with the athletic assoc. I don't for a minute believe the changes to the advising process were GTAA driven. That's not how universities work in my experience. Not saying Braine didn't go along, he may very well have supported the changes. But by all reports that's not how it's done at VT so he didn't bring that idea with him. My money's on Clough and the senior academic officers - no way that kind of change occurs without them wanting it. Like I said, I don't have any evidence, but from years of working with both that's the most likely scenario in my mind.
And to your point about academic fraud, I would never claim that had occured. Although I do have to admit it's kind of strange to read some of the comments on the boards about flunkgate. Many have said WTTE "we flunked those kids out". The question no one has evered answered for me is this. Other than providing advising on classes to take, tutoring and making sure they attend class, what else is required of the Institute? I assume 1 and 2 were done and that 3 was allowed to slip. So if the reason they flunked is that they didn't go to class, then I don't have too much sympathy. Now we should have been all over them and that might have solved the problem for some, but when I am told that a jr had a 1.9 GPA going into spring semester, it seems like he helped us flunk him out. Others have claimed O'Leary would have kept Joe Burns eligible. I want to know how? Did he not flunk his classes? So what would George have done?
I totally agree we screwed up royally in making the academic changes. Moore didn't seem to care one way or the other about the athletes. But when you get to the details it becomes much less clear to me.
