This story appears in the Nov. 5, 2018, issue of Sports Illustrated. For more great storytelling and in-depth analysis, subscribe to the magazine—and get up to 94% off the cover price. Click here for more.
MGTO 30120 begins promptly at 11 a.m. on the second floor of DeBartolo Hall. Students pull notebooks out of backpacks as a bespectacled professor opens a PowerPoint presentation and reminds the class of next Tuesday’s exam. There are groans. An attendance sheet makes its way to the back row, where AO is signed on the list of alphabetized names, one of 36.