Students witness preference to athletes in class
 As University officials continue to investigate alleged academic misconduct involving athletes, the exact identity of a professor who made allegations against the Athletic Department through her attorney Jill Craft remains unknown.
     However, while the public does not know who the specific professor cited by Craft is, several students say they know at least one kinesiology professor who sometimes struggled with athletes who took her classes.
  Several students said this professor made comments to her classes
about the pressures she felt to help athletes receive passing grades and
remain eligible according to NCAA rules.
    Christine Vega, a secondary education junior, said she took one of the professor’s courses in Fall 2001.
During that time, Vega said the professor made numerous comments about her concerns over teaching athletes to the other students in the class.
    Vega said the professor described a specific instance when two athletes
turned in the same essay.
     “[The professor] said she caught athletes cheating, but she couldn’t
turn them in,” Vega said. “[The professor] told us the University said they just cited [sources] wrong.”
     According to Vega, the professor also said she had accumulated enough
stories dealing with pressures to pass athletes that she could write a
book.
     David Diket, a kinesiology senior, said he recalled a similar reaction
by the same professor in another course.
     Diket said the class was discussing whether athletes should get paid to play college athletics, and football players in the class said other students don’t know what players face.
     Diket said this statement angered the professor.
“[The professor] came back and said football players don’t even go to
class,” Diket said. “[She] kept yelling at a certain player about how she
had enough information to write a book to ruin the Athletic Department.”
     Freshman Shane Saacks said he signed up to take the professor’s class, but the section was too full and the class was split into three different classes. Saacks was placed into another professor’s class, but he said he observed something different about the three sections.
  “We hardly had any athletes in our class, and most of them were placed in [the professor’s] class,” Saacks said.
     The professor taught two lower level kinesiology courses in Fall 2001, but she is not teaching any courses this semester.
     University Administrative Specialist Ellen Albarado said the professor was on leave this semester and did not know when she would be back at the University.
     The professor is scheduled to teach the same two classes in Fall 2002, according to the course offerings on PAWS.
Larry Holder