Not entirely accurate. Ted Kennedy was afraid his grades would be so low that he would be ineligible to play football. He hired a classmate to take a Spanish exam. He was caught. The standard punishment was to be suspended with the option of being admitted after a year or two. Kennedy enlisted in the US army and served as an enlisted man for almost two years. He then returned to Harvard and graduated. His grades were too low to get into Harvard Law, so he followed his older brother Bobby to UVa Law.