That includes Sean May of the Sacramento Kings, the Bloomington prep star and son of former IU star Scott May. Sean May entered the NBA after three years in college, capped by an NCAA title in 2005. He graduated last summer.
May said he started as a double major with communications, but dropped it so he could graduate faster after leaving for the NBA. Afro-American and African studies, May said, offered “more independent electives, independent study. I could take a lot of classes during the season. Communications, I had to be there in the actual classroom. We just made sure all the classes I had to take, I could take during the summer.”
Interesting quote from May, especially since he didn’t
graduate until 2009, years after leaving Chapel Hill.
For the conspiracy theorists: it appears May changed his major after coach Matt Doherty was fired and Roy Williams arrived.
Walden was with Roy Williams at Kansas. He was the basketball team’s academic adviser for 15 years. Then, when Williams left for UNC in 2003,
Walden went with him and filled the same role – academic support for men’s basketball, overseeing
scheduling, registration, structured study halls, tutorial services, etc.
So in 2009, a year before the scandal went public, the academic adviser to the basketball team – a team which had a history of players who majored in African and Afro-American Studies – left UNC, as did a longtime administrator in that department.
Since the departures of Walden and Crowder, records obtained by the News & Observer (click here for the UNC academic info PDF) show a dramatic drop in athletes majoring in African and Afro-American Studies. We specifically looked at the basketball team’s numbers in that major from when Roy Williams took over in 2003-2004, and here are the numbers we found (African & Afro-American majors/players who had chosen a major)