The Athletics Incubus: How College Sports Undermine College Education

The Athletics Incubus: How College Sports Undermine College Education
Author: Andrew Hacker
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2011-07-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 142995860X

Previously published as part of HIGHER EDUCATION? A quarter of a million dollars. It's the going tab for four years at most top-tier colleges. But is it worth it? In this provocative work, the renowned sociologist Andrew Hacker and New York Times writer Claudia Dreifus make an incisive case that American college athletics—which originally came into the campus as an innocent form of recreation—have overtaken academic pursuits, compromised the moral authority of educators, and gobbled up resources that should have gone to their basic missions. In other words, that the American way of higher education—now a $420 billion-per-year business—has lost sight of its primary mission: the education of our young people.

Scandals in College Sports

Scandals in College Sports
Author: Shaun R. Harper
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2017-02-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317569423

Scandals in College Sports includes 21 classic and contemporary case studies and ethical dilemmas showcasing challenges that threatened the integrity and credibility of intercollegiate sports programs at a range of institutional types across the country. Cases cover NCAA policy violations and ethical dilemmas involving student-athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders, including scandals of academic misconduct, illegal recruiting practices, sexual assault, inappropriate sexual relationships, hazing, concussions, and point shaving. Each chapter author explores the details of the specific case, presents the dilemma in a broader sociocultural context, and ultimately offers an alternative ending to help guide future practice. This timely book highlights the impact that sports have on institutions of higher education and guides college leaders and educators in informed discussions of policy and practice.

The Miseducation of the Student Athlete

The Miseducation of the Student Athlete
Author: Kenneth L. Shropshire
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 121
Release: 2017-07-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1613630816

2018 DIGITAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST SOCIAL IMPACT BOOK The student-athlete's life: practice, gym, weight room, film review, repeat. Simply put, sports come first. Academics is a distant second. As the revenues generated by big-time college sports continue to skyrocket, virtually all of the debate involves whether (and how much) student-athletes should be paid for play. Kenneth L. Shropshire and Collin D. Williams, Jr., argue that "student" has to come first in student-athlete: the focus should be on prioritizing a meaningful education. In The Miseducation of the Student Athlete: How to Fix College Sports, Shropshire and Williams draw on new research to reveal that it has become increasingly difficult for college athletes to balance school and sports, much less a social life, leading to serious economic, professional, and emotional consequences for young people. Given that fewer than 2% of all college men's basketball and football players will play at the professional level, the other 98% of student-athletes must be prepared to find and perform well in jobs outside of their respective field of play. In this bold call to action, Shropshire and Williams explain how we got here and what can be done about it. They lay out The Student-Athlete Manifesto, a roadmap to increase the likelihood that student-athletes can succeed both on and off the field. They also offer a Meaningful Degree Model, which ensures education pays for everyone, along with stories of success that show it is possible to be both a student and an athlete. A critical read for student-athletes, sports leadership, policy makers, and anyone who loves college sports, The Miseducation of the Student Athlete has the potential to disrupt college sport and create lasting change.

Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University

Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University
Author: James J. Duderstadt
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2009-04-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0472021915

After decades of domination on campus, college sports' supremacy has begun to weaken. "Enough, already!" detractors cry. College is about learning, not chasing a ball around to the whir of TV cameras. In Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University James Duderstadt agrees, taking the view that the increased commercialization of intercollegiate athletics endangers our universities and their primary goal, academics. Calling it a "corrosive example of entertainment culture" during an interview with ESPN's Bob Ley, Duderstadt suggested that college basketball, for example, "imposes on the university an alien set of values, a culture that really is not conducive to the educational mission of university." Duderstadt is part of a growing controversy. Recently, as reported in The New York Times, an alliance between university professors and college boards of trustees formed in reaction to the growth of college sports; it's the first organization with enough clout to challenge the culture of big-time university athletics. This book is certainly part of that challenge, and is sure to influence this debate today and in the years to come. James J. Duderstadt is President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering, University of Michigan.

Unwinding Madness

Unwinding Madness
Author: Gerald S. Gurney
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2016-12-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0815730039

A critical look at the tension between the larger role of the university and the commercialization of college sports Unwinding Madness is the most comprehensive examination to date of how the NCAA has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athletics—and why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic primacy, health and well-being of college athletes and fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis. As long as intercollegiate athletics reside in the higher education environment, these programs must be academically compatible with their larger institutions, subordinate to their educational mission, and defensible from a not-for-profit organizational standpoint. The issue has never been a matter of whether intercollegiate athletics belongs in higher education as an extracurricular offering. Rather, the perennial challenge has been how these programs have been governed and conducted. The authors propose detailed solutions, starting with the creation of a new national governance organization to replace the NCAA. At the college level, these proposals will not diminish the revenue production capacity of sports programs but will restore academic integrity to the enterprise, provide fairer treatment of college athletes with better health protections, and restore the rights and freedoms of athletes, which have been taken away by a professionalized athletics mentality that controls the cost of its athlete labor force and overpays coaches and athletic directors. Unwinding Madness recognizes that there is no easy fix to the problems now facing college athletics. But the book does offer common sense, doable solutions that respect the rights of athletes, protects their health and well-being while delivering on the promise of a bona fide educational degree program.

Reclaiming the Game

Reclaiming the Game
Author: William G. Bowen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2005-04-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0691123144

The authors wade through the sea of anecdotal and ultimately flawed evidence presented in other studies on the subject and offer their own scrupulously researched account of the recruitment process for college athletics, serving up a disturbing portrait of young men and women who are played, and ultimately failed by, the system. (Education)

Cheated

Cheated
Author: Jay M. Smith
Publisher: Potomac Books
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2015
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781612347486

In 2010 allegations of an utterly corrupt academic system for student-athletes emerged from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus, home of the legendary Tar Heels. As the alma mater of Michael Jordan, Larry Brown, Marion Jones, Lawrence Taylor, Rashad McCants, and many others; winner of forty national championships in six different sports; and a partner in one of the best rivalries in sports, UNC–Chapel Hill is a world-famous colossus of college athletics. In the wake of the Wainstein report, however, the fallout from this scandal—and the continuing spotlight on the failings of college athletics—has made the school ground zero in the debate about how the $16 billion college sports industry operates. Written by UNC professor of history Jay Smith and UNC athletics department whistleblower Mary Willingham, Cheated exposes the fraudulent inner workings of this famous university. For decades these internal systems have allowed woefully underprepared basketball and football players to take fake courses and earn devalued degrees from one of the nation’s top universities while faculty and administrators looked the other way. In unbiased and carefully sourced detail, Cheated recounts the academic fraud in UNC’s athletics department, even as university leaders focused on minimizing the damage in order to keep the billion-dollar college sports revenue machine functioning. Smith and Willingham make an impassioned argument that the “student-athletes” in these programs are being cheated out of what, after all, is promised them in the first place: a college education.

Games Colleges Play

Games Colleges Play
Author: John R. Thelin
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 1994-02-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0801847168

Featuring a new introduction by the author, the paperback edition of Games Colleges Play chronicles the history of intercollegiate athletics from 1910 to 1990 -- from the early, glory days of Knute Rockne and the Gipper to the modern era of big budgets, powerful coaches, and pampered players. John Thelin describes how sports programs -- although seldom accorded official mention with teaching and research in the university mission statement -- have become central to university life. As administrators search for a proper balance between athletics and academics, Thelin observes, this peculiar institution grows increasingly powerful and controversial. Thelin examines the 1929 Carnegie Foundation Report, the formation of major athletic conferences, the national college basketball scandals after World War II, the dissolution of the Pacific Coast Conference in the 1950s, and the Knight Foundation Report of 1991. He finds disturbing patterns of abuse and limited reform and explores the implications of these patterns for today's college presidents, faculty, and students. "Games Colleges Play provides historical background that will inform current policy discussions about the proper place of intercollegiate athletics within the American university. "A welcome book on an important Subject. -- "American Historical Review "An important historical analysis of college sport placed in the broader setting of American higher education. Thelin provides a helpful, if dispiriting, perspective for not only thinking about current problems plaguing college sport but also for understanding why college sport has survived and why university leadership and the sports establishment have resisted major reform efforts". -- Academe

Unpaid Professionals

Unpaid Professionals
Author: Andrew S. Zimbalist
Publisher:
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1999
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780691009551

Arguing that college athletics actually represent a large-scale commercial interest that is hostile to the values of higher education, the author explores the tension between big sports revenues and academics across the board in college sports.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Unsportsmanlike Conduct
Author: Walter Byers
Publisher:
Total Pages: 522
Release: 1995-08-18
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Walter Byers, who served as NCAA executive director from 1951 to 1987, was charged with the dual mission of keeping intercollegiate sports clean while generating millions of dollars each year as income for the colleges. Here Byers exposes, as only he can, the history and present-day state of college athletics: monetary gifts, questionable academic standards, advertising endorsements, legal battles, and the political manipulation of college presidents. Byers believes that modern-day college sports are no longer a student activity: they are a high-dollar commercial enter-prise, and college athletes should have the same access to the free market as their coaches and colleges. He favors no one as he cites individual cases of corruption in NCAA history. From Byers' first enforcement case, against the University of Kentucky in 1952, to the NCAA's 1987 "death penalty" levied against Southern Methodist University of Dallas, he shows the change in the athletic environment from simple rules and personally responsible officials to convoluted, cyclopedic regulations with high-priced legal firms defending college violators against a limited NCAA enforcement system. This book is a must for anyone involved in college sports--athletes, coaches, fans, college faculty, and administrators. As NCAA executive director, Byers started the an enforcement program, pioneered a national academic rule for athletes, and signed more than fifty television contracts with ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, and Turner Broadcasting. He oversaw the growth of the NCAA basketball tournament to one that, in 1988, grossed $68.2 million. As the one person who has been inside college athletics for forty years, Walter Byers is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the NCAA and today's exploitation of college athletes. "There has been no other executive in the history of professional, college, or amateur sports who has had such an impact in his area." --Keith Jackson, ABC Sports "Walter Byers has done more to shape intercollegiate athletics that any single person in history. He brought a combination of leadership, insight, and integrity to intercollegiate athletics that we will never again see equaled." --Bob Knight, Head Basketball Coach, Indiana University