Many people may have heard or used the term "dumb jock" once or twice in their lives, but according to a report published by Sports Illustrated, at Oklahoma State, the term was more the rule than the exception.

While the first part of SI's report detailed illicit cash payments made by OSU boosters to players, the second part recounted how players received academic assistance way above the limits prescribed by the NCAA.

To retain their eligibility, players would often let tutors do assignments, received answers to exams in advance, and were put in courses with professors who had reputations for being lenient, especially towards athletes. At least 13 former Oklahoma State players revealed that they were involved in one form of academic cheating or another, and another 16 had coursework done for them.

Former Cowboy Fath' Carter was one of them. When interviewed by News9 in the aftermath of the Sports Illustrated expose, he said he stood by his story.

"We just didn't ask questions. It was known [some] professors would give you preferential treatment," Carter said. That preferential treatment resulted in Carter getting grades that he felt didn't deserve, only because he was getting substantial playing time on the Cowboys lineup.

Another Cowboys alumnus, Ricky Coxeff, told a story where a player cannot spell the word "house", and said that at least one of his teammates was functionally illiterate.

Even Dez Bryant, an all-Big 12 Academic awardee in 2008, was supposed to have benefited from the scandal -- coursework was done for him by tutors and university staff, and had to be taken to and from classes by athletic staff. "He just wasn't supposed to be there. There's no way he could do the college work," one assistant coach told Sports Illustrated.

As expected, the Oklahoma State faculty and staff were up in arms about the latest reports. Dr. John H. Curry was one of them.

"I was never pressured to pass them. I never heard of another faculty member being pressured to pass an athlete. In fact, it was the exact opposite," Curry told News9.

"I was completely shocked at what I read in Sports Illustrated this morning," Dr. Marilyn Middlebrooke told News9. Middlebrooke is the associate athletic director and academic advisor at Oklahoma State. "The building in which the students, the student-athletes study is very open, it has lots of glass. It has a full-time staff member in every room. They are constantly watched."

This is not the first time that Oklahoma State has been implicated in an academic scandal. In 1989, Dexter Manley, who played four years for the Cowboys, admitted that he wasn't able to read above a Grade 2 level.