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Maryland president ‘would think’ UNC academic scandal earns ‘death penalty’

Maryland Basketball Coach Gary Williams Announces Retirement

COLLEGE PARK, MD - MAY 6: President of the University of Maryland Wallace D. Loh speaks speaks during announcement of the retirement of basketball coach Gary WIlliams on May 6, 2011 at the Comcast Center in College Park, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

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University of Maryland president Wallace Loh said that he expects that the academic scandal that has enveloped North Carolina’s athletic department over the course of the last six years would earn the school the “death penalty.”

“As president, I sit over a number of dormant volcanoes,” Loh said during a University of Maryland senate meeting Thursday, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “One of them is an athletic scandal. It blows up, it blows up the university, its reputation, it blows up the president.”

“For the things that happened in North Carolina, it’s abysmal. I would think that this would lead to the implementation of the death penalty by the NCAA. But I’m not in charge of that.”

Earlier this month, North Carolina won the national title in men’s basketball under the shadow of an NCAA investigation into academic fraud that allegedly dates back to 1993. Among the allegations are that the athletic department took advantage of what amounted to fake classes in the African-American studies department in order to help keep players eligible. One of the charges leveled against UNC is a lack of institutional control.

The investigation began in 2010 and was reopened in 2014. The first Notice of Allegations was delivered in May of 2015, and since then, two more amended versions of the NOA have been sent to UNC. The investigation is currently delayed as the NCAA is awaiting a response from North Carolina on the third version of the NOA that they received in December.