William & Mary scandal of 1951

The William & Mary scandal of 1951 was a transcript-altering scandal at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States.[1][2] Prior to World War II, William & Mary tried to become a formidable NCAA Division I athletics power despite its small size (approximately 1,500 students attended the school in the late 1930s).[1] Although the school had always been known as a top tier liberal arts university,[1] pressures to be as equally successful in sports—especially football, men's basketball and baseball—had been mounting for over a decade by the time the scandal was discovered in 1951.

The scandal

In 1946, the William & Mary Board of Visitors announced their goal of achieving more contest wins than losses.[1][2] Rube McCray, the head football coach from 1944–1950, was given a substantial pay raise so that consistently winning teams could be produced. As a side effect of this decision, almost all of the college's scholastic financial aid was given to athletes coming into William & Mary, despite some of them having minimal academic qualifications.[1] The football program was initially successful after World War II with the influx of veterans, but in order to continue the success, members of the athletic department found it necessary to modify players' high school transcripts to get them admitted to the college. Later, football players were given credit and grades for summer school classes they never attended. McCray, who jointly served as the school's athletic director and head football coach, acknowledged that the problems were on "his watch," but said he had nothing to do with altering any players' transcripts. Throughout the entire time of the changes, circa 1947–1950, none of the players knew their grades or transcripts had been changed. An initial investigation in late 1949 by the college's registrar J. Wilfred Lambert, who also was Dean of Students, discovered the transcript altering, but could not determine the culprits. Players, at the time, did not realize there were any problems. After Lambert's report to the college's president, the procedure for handling transcripts of athletes was completely revised. No action was taken against anyone in the athletic department.[1][2]

From 1940 to 1949, the William & Mary Indians football teams were more dominant than any other era in the program's history. The 1942 team, under head coach Carl Voyles (1939–1944), compiled a 9–1–1 overall record and defeated perennial football powerhouse University of Oklahoma, 14–7, in Norman. In several of the seasons after the war they were ranked in the national top 20. They also routinely played the country's top teams, even managing to tie the 3rd-ranked North Carolina in 1948. Twenty-four total players were drafted to the National Football League (NFL), some of whom went on to have highly successful professional careers. The Indians won two Southern Conference championships and played in their first two bowl games on January 1, 1948 and January 1, 1949. Some of the football success in the years after 1946 can be attributed, in part, to gaining some good athletes through false transcripts.

Repercussions

In February 1950, William & Mary joined the NCAA and some faculty believed the school's athletic admissions standards would not be in compliance with the national standards. Nelson Marshall, dean of the college, began an investigation and uncovered a variety of issues including giving grades to football players who had not taken the classes. He reported his findings to William & Mary President John Pomfret in April 1951 and also to the school's board of visitors.[1] Pomfret was reluctant to act swiftly because of promises made to McCray and the men's basketball coach, Barney Wilson. Pomfret had even recommended that McCray become a full-time physical education professor despite the evidence of his wrongdoing.[1]

Information regarding the scandal was leaked to the press, and shortly thereafter it had become a lead story in many national media outlets. There were many discussions among board members, between Pomfret and the board, and between Pomfret and the coaches. Within several days both McCray and Wilson resigned. The public exposure caused a rift between the Board of Visitors and the college faculty.[1] The faculty maintained that their "control of all phases of intercollegiate athletics" was required by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to maintain membership. Pomfret resigned amid the turmoil and was replaced by a non-academic naval officer, Alvin Duke Chandler.[1] In protest to this hiring, because the board of visitors did not allow the faculty any participation in the presidential search, several faculty members and the dean of the college resigned.

As a result the athletic program at William & Mary dramatically changed. From 1951 through 1954 the teams were competitive even though in 1953 there were only 24 players on the team. But the "big time" football years were gone forever because the faculty would never let anyone forget about how the school's academics had been tainted. Starting in 1955, the football team began losing more games than it won. Between 1955 and 1964, the Indians failed to yield a single season with a .500 record or better. The teams turned around under coaches Marv Levy and Lou Holtz from 1964 through the rest of the 1960s, but the scandal had done its damage.

Historical context

The William & Mary scandal of 1951 occurred during a time in American college history that was unique among all other periods. Colleges across the United States were starting to feel pressures to succeed on the field (or court) as well as in the classroom.[3] William & Mary's was not the first academic-athletic scandal to surface; for example, the United States Military Academy (Army) football team had been involved in academic cheating and some of the players, including the coach's son, were forced to leave the school.[3]

The emphasis on athletics over academics had now become a major point of discussion among college and university governing bodies. William & Mary, which was the first college in the nation to establish an honor code, was an especially apt example of the pressures that universities faced when dealing with their athletics programs. These scandals had brought to light the issues at hand, and a refocus on academics, not athletics, had resulted.[3]

gollark: I really should get LDAP working properly.

gollark: I run on entirely Linux, and somehow entirely *Arch* Linux.

gollark: Loud rack servers instead of... also loud tower servers, VMs instead of containers, Windows instead of Linux, bizarrely convoluted nested reverse proxies for some reason, old PHP/ASP applications instead of my shinier Node/Python ones, sort of thing.

gollark: I have a friend who's also into the whole servers-at-home thing, but made basically opposite technical decisions to me.

gollark: VMs do seem to be a major source of RAM wastage.

References

Smith, Ronald A. "The William and Mary Scandal of 1951" (PDF). Penn State University. Retrieved 1 November 2009.
Weill, Daisy (7 October 2009). ""A's" for athletes: the great William and Mary athletics scandal". The Virginia Informer. Retrieved 1 November 2009.
Watterson, John Sayle (2000). College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7114-6. Retrieved 1 November 2009.

College of William & Mary
Academics	Affiliate institutions Richard Bland College Schools Mason School of Business School of Education Law School Virginia Institute of Marine Science Programs Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy Publications Theatre Annual William and Mary Quarterly Other Brigham–Kanner Property Rights Conference / Prize Honor code Institute of Bill of Rights Law Phi Beta Kappa Society Public Ivy Scandal of 1951
Athletics	Sports Football (Capital Cup) Men's basketball Women's basketball Men's soccer Women's soccer Baseball Women's volleyball Facilities Albert–Daly Field Blow Gymnasium Busch Field Jimmye Laycock Football Center Millie West Tennis Facility Kaplan Arena Kingsmill Resort McCormack–Nagelsen Tennis Center Plumeri Park Walter J. Zable Stadium at Cary Field Related Colonial Athletic Association Griffin Pep Band Tribe Fight Song
Campus	Alan B. Miller Hall Alumni House Brafferton Crim Dell bridge Earl Gregg Swem Library Henry C. Wolf Law Library Mason School of Business Library Muscarelle Museum of Art Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall Sunken Garden Wren Building
History	Firsts Colonial colleges Matthew Whaley School Christopher Newport University Old Dominion University The Colleges of William & Mary Priorities of the College
People	Notable alumni Presidents Chancellors King William III & Queen Mary II
Student life	Bus transportation The Gentlemen of the College Greek life Our Alma Mater Publications DoG Street Journal Flat Hat Virginia Informer Secret societies 7 Society Bishop James Madison Society Flat Hat Club Wren Society WCWM 90.9 FM WMTV
Misc.	City of Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg Highland I Am the College Royal Hospital School SS William and Mary Victory
Categories: Wikipedia Commons

William & Mary Tribe football
Venues	Zable Stadium (1935–present) Jimmye Laycock Football Center (practice)
Bowls & rivalries	Delaware James Madison Richmond VMI Ivy Bowl
Culture & lore	Griffin Colonel Ebirt Iron Indians "12th Man Tackle" Scandal of 1951 "Tribe Fight Song" William & Mary Pep Band
People	Head coaches NFL draftees
Seasons	1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

William & Mary Tribe men's basketball
Venues	Blow Gymnasium (1925–1971) Norfolk Municipal Auditorium (alternate; 1952–1965) Kaplan Arena (1971–present)
Culture & lore	Records Retired jerseys Hershberger Award hoax Griffin Colonel Ebirt Scandal of 1951
People	Head coaches
Seasons	1905–06 1906–07 1907–08 1908–09 1909–10 1910–11 1911–12 1912–13 1913–14 1914–15 1915–16 1916–17 1917–18 1918–19 1919–20 1920–21 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 1927–28 1928–29 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1934–35 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 1939–40 1940–41 1941–42 1942–43 1943–44 1944–45 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1949–50 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 1959–60 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17 2017–18 2018–19 2019–20

William & Mary scandal of 1951

The scandal

Repercussions

Historical context

See also

References

Further reading