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 . Prior to World War II , William & Mary tried to become a formidable NCAA Division I athletics powerhouse despite its incredibly tiny size ( fewer than 1 , 000 males attended the school in the late 1930s ) . Although the school had always been known as a top tier liberal arts university , 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 . 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 . 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 , approximately 1947 - 1950 , none of the players knew their grades or transcripts had been changed . An initial invesgitation 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 . 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 record and defeated the 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 game s 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 in 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 . 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 1954 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 . William & Mary 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 . 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 what had gone wrong in collegiate athletics . As a result , action had gotten underway to refocus emphasis on learning .