Jose Canseco was interviewed on "60 Minutes'' on Feb. 13, 2005. He laid out his case for the existence of rampant steroids use in major league baseball that was contained in his book, "Juiced.''

Canseco's reputation was as a nut case, and there were feeble attempts —mostly from players — to label his story as wildly exaggerated. Then, a Congressional hearing was held, the charade was over, and nearly a decade later, Canseco stands as the No. 1 whistleblower on baseball's Steroids Era.

Rashad McCants has a Canseco-like reputation. He was a standout on North Carolina's 2005 title team and then a failed Timberwolves' first-round pick.

In June of this year, McCants told ESPN that he took many no-show classes at UNC that allowed him to stay eligible. He also said that everyone in the basketball department knew of these classes, including coach Roy Williams.

McCants' contention was denied by Williams and former teammates. As the denials were being made, the Raleigh News-Observer was reporting data that showed five members of the '05 team benefited from "no-show classes."

On Wednesday, UNC released its third report on this massive academic fraud, and lead investigator Kenneth Wainstein finally made it clear that this bogus class system was set up primarily to keep important athletes eligible.

Wainstein didn't get around to throwing the final shovel of mulch on North Carolina athletics, supporting the idea that Williams and other coaches didn't know what was taking place. I'm going with McCants on this.

The inattention toward what was taking place in the African and Afro-American [AFAM] Studies department to hand high grades to basketball and football players was astounding.

UNC's academic scam started in 1992, six years before we became aware of Jan Gangelhoff's paper-writing assistance for a number of Clem Haskins' basketball players.

Everything considered, we wasted much righteous indignation over Gangelhoff's often-used paper on the menstrual cycle that received high marks for numerous Gophers in U of M health classes.