Book Description
Intended for the high school athlete wishing to leverage his or her talent to get into the best possible school, this book explains how a student-athlete can package and present him or herself to college recruiters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A must read for student athletes!
A very informative book for student athletes and their parents. Every page has important information for high school athletes considering playing sports in college. You will not regret this purchase. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Book Description
A fact-filled directory of awards available for both male and female athletes at more than 1,500 four-year colleges and universities. Learn what it really takes to earn an athletic scholarship. Whether you're interested in Division I, II, III, or NAIA, this directory provides you with the resources to get the money you deserve while playing the sport you love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Peterson's Sports Scholarships
This book is very comprehensive, except in one area. It provides a lot more information about specific university sports programs than other guides. This is to be expected from a Peterson guide. However, it contains less information than other guides about how talented athletes can get recruited if they don't attend high schools that are already sports powerhouses. Unfortunately, this book must be supplemented with another guide for students who don't already have recruiters looking at them.

Sports Scholarships
I thought it was one of the most comprehensive manuals out there in regards to sports scholarships in the US.

Good Introduction, Outdated Scholarship Information
This guide has great introductory information for athletes who are not NCAA Division I/II scholarship material, but could easily win scholarships at the Division III or NAIA schools. But, don't let the book's publication date fool you... the information in this book is outdated from 1998-99. The listings include had outdated contact information and has sports that have long ago been dropped from intercollegiate competition to "club" status. With the changes in the college sports scene brought on by the gender equity rules, the men's sports programs listed in this book include more sports than are actually at most colleges. Conversely, the women's sports programs listed here show fewer programs than are now available. This book is outdated terribly and misleads readers about what sports programs are at which schools and where the scholarship monies are currently.

A"Howto" book without the "to"!
A very good uptodate book listing schools that give athletic scholarships for major and minor sports.This compilation is upto date and seemingly very complete.It is a invaluable tool for writing schools and inquiringabout sport scholarships.HOWEVER, the schools do not have the addresseslisted, only the name and city with a zipcode.This is highlydisappointing.It tells you how but not to...lame.Would probably try aless complete book with the address of athletic department and justsupplement the schools I could not find.A great resource tool made intomediocre.

Free Information!
This type of scholarship book is Free for everyone at your local library!The 800 or more pages is mostly a listing of colleges addresses and phone numbers.All high school counselors will have a book similar to this in their office. Its good information to have, but you can get it for free! ... Read more

Book Description

The President of Williams College faces a firestorm for not allowing the women's lacrosse team to postpone exams to attend the playoffs. The University of Michigan loses $2.8 million on athletics despite averaging 110,000 fans at each home football game. Schools across the country struggle with the tradeoffs involved with recruiting athletes and updating facilities for dozens of varsity sports. Does increasing intensification of college sports support or detract from higher education's core mission?

James Shulman and William Bowen introduce facts into a terrain overrun by emotions and enduring myths. Using the same database that informed The Shape of the River, the authors analyze data on 90,000 students who attended thirty selective colleges and universities in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s. Drawing also on historical research and new information on giving and spending, the authors demonstrate how athletics influence the class composition and campus ethos of selective schools, as well as the messages that these institutions send to prospective students, their parents, and society at large.

Shulman and Bowen show that athletic programs raise even more difficult questions of educational policy for small private colleges and highly selective universities than they do for big-time scholarship-granting schools. They discover that today's athletes, more so than their predecessors, enter college less academically well-prepared and with different goals and values than their classmates--differences that lead to different lives. They reveal that gender equity efforts have wrought large, sometimes unanticipated changes. And they show that the alumni appetite for winning teams is not--as schools often assume--insatiable. If a culprit emerges, it is the unquestioned spread of a changed athletic culture through the emulation of highly publicized teams by low-profile sports, of men's programs by women's, and of athletic powerhouses by small colleges.

Shulman and Bowen celebrate the benefits of collegiate sports, while identifying the subtle ways in which athletic intensification can pull even prestigious institutions from their missions. By examining how athletes and other graduates view The Game of Life--and how colleges shape society's view of what its rules should be--Bowen and Shulman go far beyond sports. They tell us about higher education today: the ways in which colleges set policies, reinforce or neglect their core mission, and send signals about what matters.

Customer Reviews (7)

Slanted and dull read
This book resembles two men with a vendetta over people with a solution.Using a lot and I mean a lot of statistics they turn the data to favor their arguments.If one school out of many supports their claim, that is the stat they use, ignoring the stronger evidence.The authors do not offer solutions beyond "there should be changes made nation wide." These are the same people who write the mellon report, so getting additional attention is their goal, over informing a reader.

Great data but a slow academic read
I was enlightened and educated by this book.My starting opinion was directly opposed to college athletics as they are at many major universities.However, through this research, I've come to see the differences between "big-time" sports such as basketball and football, and most other college sports.This agreed with my college recollections where I knew many athletes in "smaller" sports who worked hard as schoolwork and their sport.They played their sport for the love of the game and the camaraderie, but most knew that their careers ended at graduation.I continue to admire them and wonder why some many universities continue to hurt those sports to maintain the larger sports.

College football and basketball, in particular, are fully-subsidized minor leagues for the NFL and NBA.If the NCAA drastically changes the way it does business, those leagues will have to find another way to test and screen athletes.This won't hurt the schools at all; in fact, the schools will benefit.Good student/athletes will still get a college education (as many baseball players do today), and pure athletes will still have a chance to compete and become professionals.

This book substantially helped shape my opinions on college sports in a well-researched and documented manner.

I recommend this book for anyone who wants a balanced yet critical look into college athletics.jgalt5@yahoo.com

Ignore the star ratings... for now.
As promised, I am coming back to you with my observations after having read through most of the book.

Sadly, for all the hype and all the praise the book has received, I am beginning to wonder if a) reviewers actually read the book, and b) if they did read it, did they actually question the merits of the authors research and conclusions.After having read most of it, I conclude that they did not.

I could go point for point, but alas, because of space I can not. A number of troubling points however -

First, the authors take liberties with anecdotes and too frequently back up their claims with them.For example the discussion about the Williams College Lacrosse team, or the Ivy League Lacrosse player....I think it is a mark of dishonesty that the authors quickly point out the poor state of collegiate athletics because they read a story in a university newspaper... as was the case in the Princeton players instance.

Second, in graduate school we were always told never to overlook footnotes.After reading through most of them, I am glad I did.In a number of instances, there conclusions are based upon data that was compiled at one school in their universe of thirty.Or that an anecdote used as an illustration, was actually from a instance taken from outside the universe of schools they used.

Third, I think they demonstrate a disdain for athletes when they question at length their value to the diversity of campus.In their mind, because of a whole host of issues, they don't add to the amount of diversity in a university.... what are some of those issues?Political inclination (Not Liberal or Far Left), choice of major (economics or Poli Sci), tend to group with other athletes.Which begs the question, what type of student do the authors believe add to the diversity of university.

Finally, there is a terrible lack of balance.If you knew nothing else before you read this book, you would finish by thinking athletes are a lower caste of intellectuals that for some reason were admitted into these universities, not based on their academic abilities of course.That universities have made some sort of deal with the devil to accept these sort of intellectual anchors to improve their markting and PR machines that are built solely on athletics.... which begs to ask....

Where is the critique of these institutions and their pactices?And why is it only athletics that is responsible for losing money, while all the other departments are deemed as critical elements in the mission of the university?Sadly, these are questions that aren't answered but should... if athletics is going to be put under such scrutiny, shouldn't the rest of the university be submitted to the same rigours?

Anyhow, I will be back.If you are interested in my notes, feel free to email me ...

Partial Review (Star rating to be ignored)
Let me start out by saying, I am only about a third of the way through.I am also a former student athlete and current coach.But it seems as though someone should chime in with their views on the book since no one else has.So with that in mind, take my initial observations as such.

While I am struck by the depth of analysis and the thoroughness of their methodology, I am also struck by the sense that the authors have decidedly taken the view that college athletics, in of itself, is an entity unto itself.And that in the instances cited, are incongruent with the mission of an educational institution.While there certainly is merit in the academic performance analysis, it is unfortunate that they fail to see the merits of athletics in the educational environment.While it is easy to quantify the development of a student in a classroom, it is impossible to quantify the role of collegiate athletics in the development of the individual student.Does devoting 12 hours a week to studying for Western Civ. add something more, something more fundamental to the student that spending 10 hours a week on the practice field does not? Regretably, academicians have spent more time dismissing the value of athletics, rather than creating methodology to judge its worthiness.And while classroom performance remains something tangible and quantifiable, no one has endeavored to quantify the merits of working within a team for a common objective, experiencing leadership within a team environment, and all the ancillary benefits that are brought about from participating in collegiate athletics.Instead, they are quick to point out and highlight everything that is detrimental, but not unique to, collegiate athletics (alcohol, violence, etc.).

My overriding concern is one that may or may not have merit and could potentially be dismissed by the end of the book.Written by and for academics, it is with great concern that this will be adopted by institutions of higher learning to justify the alienation of student-athletes based upon quantified generalizations.This could very well become the classic coffee table book that so many quote and act on, but have never read.

I will be back for another review when I am struck with the additional thoughts that inevitably come from reading a book of this nature.

The Game of Life is intelligent and timely.
Higher education is full of many injustices.Prior to a 1991 antitrust ruling, Penn, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Yale conspired together to ban all merit scholarships and set tuition artificially high.When Princeton awarded $1000 research scholarships to top students, the Overlap met in January 1987.Princeton denied that it had violated the Overlap pact.Dartmouth called the denial "sophistry."Yale's president, Benno Schmidt said, "This looks like a blatant merit scholarship to me."The president of Princeton, defensively replied, "I would really not have thought a person as well trained in the law as Mr. Schmidt would make such a blatantly foolish assertion."Now, William Bowen, no longer president of Princeton, has co-written a much more courageous defense of intelligence and merit, The Game of Life.

It couldn't have come at a more critical time.UC president Richard Atkinson has recommended abolishing the SAT I from college admission considerations.Seattle public schools are considering abolishing the letter-grade system.Defenders of Affirmative Action are calling the notion of merit, itself, into question.It should be obvious that we, as a society, have grown very uncomfortable with the very idea of intelligence.Yes, intellect can be subtle compared to a touchdown, but to read The Game of Life is to bear witness to pure genius.

Don't be fooled by the multitude of facts and figures.This book is a thought-provoking work of art.Bowen and Shulman commit blatant acts of philosophy regarding such subjects as the definition of "leadership."(Can a pushy leadership style compensate for a lack of vision?)They slay myths that fools so glibly declare, such as the myth that athletic success inspires alumni/ae giving.The book is worth every penny alone for offering a window into different professional strategies.

Everyone should read this book, but it is especially essential for anyone in a position to make important decisions in higher education.If one seeks to uphold the mission of a university, then it is important to learn from this book what athletics cannot do.Then, one should put down the book and consider what athletics does do.For instance, it is proven that athletes contribute to a culture of binge drinking on campuses.In recent years, I've watched in disbelief news reports of university students literally rioting in the streets for drinking privileges.How many more alcohol poisonings does it take before we shall change the culture of higher education?

The Game of Life proves that, in our current system of athletic scholarships, the stereotype of the dumb jock is absolutely true.So long as we continue to waste educational resources on these sub-par students, I can't believe that we are a truly civilized nation. ... Read more

Book Description
The same general challenges, in varying forms, have confronted those responsible for intercollegiate sport from 1980 to the present day. Now the time has come to reexamine these problems in the light of new research (such as the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletes) and new analyses; and to review old solutions to see where they should be adapted, where maintained, and where abandoned. Part of the mission of New Game Plans is to serve as a forum for conflicting opinions on how to improve our college sports enterprise. It is not theoretical, but instead relies on the wisdom and experience of those who have had significant roles in sport to discuss how far we have come from the ideals of sport, and what we can do to correct our course. The analyses are prepared from varied perspectives by experts who offer in-depth exploration of such essential topics as the commercialization of sport; race and gender; legal issues; gambling; performance-enhancing drugs; and the academic peril faced by too many student-athletes. In a final chapter, Lapchick presents recommendations for action. New Game Plans is an essential read for governing boards, presidents, coaches, faculty, administrators, and student athletes. After a historical overview, New Game Plans is divided into sections on the issues; the influence of the media; those most involved with and those most invested in the college sports enterprise; and recommendations drawn from the authors of the respective chapters. This book covers all of the critical issues facing governing boards, presidents, coaches, administrators, and student athletes, and explores all of them in depth. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (31)

Thought provoking, but flawed
As a faculty member at a school (the University of South Alabama) that recently decided to field a Division I football team, I read Beer & Circus with some interest.

The best two things that one can say about this book are a) it is an entertaining book that you want to read & b) it is thought provoking. I would recommend Beer & Circus to anyone interested in the role of athletics at the contemporary university.

However, I have two criticisms:

1) Perhaps the most pointed criticism I would make is that Sperber does not provide sufficient evidence to back his basic argument - that college sports ruin undergraduate education. Yes, there clearly is a link between partying & sports. But how do we know that sports are responsible for all of the other problems that Sperber cites in undergraduate education? Where is the link? His argument is unconvincing on this crucial point.

2) Sperber's "solutions" are entirely unrealistic. He urges schools to "imitate Rice" (page 252). This is completely unrealistic. Not every school can be a wealthy, private institution filled with the best undergraduate students. By definition, most schools - and their students - are average.

Sperber urges (page 263) large, state-sponsored schools to cut dramatically their undergraduate enrollments. This will never happen. State-supported schools depend on taxpayer support. Is it feasible for these institutions to tell large segments of their populations, "Your child is simply not intelligent enough for an undergraduate education. Moreover, we are going to take the tax dollars that you pay for higher education and spend them on enhancing undergraduate education for students who are more more deserving and smarter than your kids"?

Finally he urges schools to reward professors for excellent teaching. He never mentions that good teaching is very difficult to assess. If you want to reward great teaching, you have to find a way to measure the quality of teaching first. Most schools simply have not figured out a way to do this.

In summary, Beer & Circus is a thought-provoking, but flawed, book.

imperfect, but important
For all its faults, this book honestly changed the course of my life. I read it shortly before applying to college. I was, and remain, a serious college sports fan, and prior to reading Sperber's book I looked at teams that did well in football and figured, well, I'll go to one of those universities. Then I read Sperber's book.

Sperber argues that sports-and-party-based frat-boy culture is being capitalized on by colleges, who market their party atmosphere and great sports teams to draw in an ever larger pool of applicants. They then take the tuition money and spend it on their prestigious grad programs, not to mention millions for the advertising, er, athletic department, which draws in ever more applicants. Meanwhile, the universities don't spend any significant money on their undergrad programs. They hire great faculty but then treat their undergrads to 750-person lecture halls taught by assistants, not the hot-shot professors that are advertised. They have rampant grade inflation. They accept virtually everyone and let just about anyone through, degrading the quality and relevance of the undergraduate degree. Thousands of students might not learn much or get a good, comprehensive education, but they will have a drunken good time doing it, and the university still gets the tuition money.

This book has some problems. It makes sweeping sociological generalizations of college culture (any school with 30,000 or 50,000 students cannot be fairly divided into three or four categories of student, as Sperber attempts). It has an obsession with the movie Animal House. It sometimes strays from its general thesis into other complaints. It's easy to come away with the general impression that a degree from a large state school is worthless, as is the education. (I think a fairer statement would be that you CAN get a good education from a large state school, but it's very easy to get a degree WITHOUT having gotten one.)

But the important message is this: big-time universities are using big-time college sports to draw in collegiates to an entertainment-based college experience, skimping on their undergrad programs, and using the tuition money to further fund sports teams and their extensive graduate programs to enhance their name and prowess. It's an academic pyramid scheme. The moral: for graduate education, go to Division I State U. For undergrad, try a DIII liberal arts school. Largely because of this book, that's what I did, and I haven't been disappointed.

A tale of two reviews
Sperber does a lot wrong in this book.His title is misleading.He does spend a good amount of time discussing college sports and their effect on the university, but he also takes long extended detours into topics such as honors programs, college rankings, professors' teaching habits, and the shocking lack of homework and studying done by students.Really, he's taking aim at the university as a larger entity.He commits just about every logical fallacy in the book (case studies used to prove large sweeping theories, post hoc logic, ecological fallacy), although really there isn't any way to experimentally study the variables he's considering.Sperber also comes off sounding like the nerdy kid from college who hated the dumb jocks in high school and college and now that he's got a job and they're probably all on skid row (or so the fantasy goes), he will now have his revenge.If this describes you, you will love this book.If the only pleasure you have in life is watching State U play football on Saturdays, then you will find Sperber as nothing but a killjoy.Despite all these problems, Sperber awkwardly brings up a few good points.Why is our culture so obsessed with sports and alcohol?Has the undergraduate diploma become a simple right of passage to which the middle and upper classes are entitled to?His base argument seems that either too many people go to college nowadays or we need to re-think the cultural mythology of what a college degree really means.

Undergraduate Education Comes Up Way Short Next to Sports
There is not much doubt that undergraduate education for the typical student at large universities is most unsatisfactory: one is, with few exceptions, a nonentity with no opportunity to shape the educational experience. The only option is to follow the rules; then it is swim or sink. Furthermore, there is no doubt that forming farm teams for professional leagues with substandard students has no place in a university.

The author shows through his survey data that major sports teams in Division 1-A of the NCAA give a focal point to the incessant partying that occurs at most major, large universities. It is the essential point of the book that college administrators are more than willing to give undergraduates "beer and the circus" of big-time sports in lieu of drastically overhauling undergraduate programs. The need for tuition dollars leads large colleges to pack freshman courses, virtually precluding a chance to learn. Sports and partying is the cynical substitute.

Clearly, the prestige focus of top college officials precludes quality education for most students. It is all about image and reputations. Good sports teams increase recognition. So do adding prestigious faculty, engaging in research for corporate America, and having special, honors education for a select minority of undergraduates. The author makes abundantly clear that well-known faculty and elaborate research do not benefit the typical student. Furthermore, athletic programs are invariably a drain on the finances of the university. Even with Fat TV contracts, athletic programs are net losers.

The author breaks down the main student subcultures into "collegiate, vocational, rebel, and academic." They have different goals and different problems interacting with the substandard educational regime. The fact that the party element, the collegiate group, is content, or resigned to, with the current educational situation hardly justifies the de-emphasis on education.

The author does briefly touch on the purposes of college education. Is college mostly a social experience; is it to obtain job skills; or is it to be liberally educated. And do colleges actually support all of those goals for all students.

There is much wrong with universities and the author makes some effort to shed light on the problems. But much more can be said. Should universities perform a special social role, or are they simply big corporations looking out for the bottom line, cutting costs where they can, while paying lip service to a grand mission? It is clear that universities will not perform that mission with the distorting impact of big time sports.

Excellent!
Finally someone speaks the truth!
Dr. Sperber is a leading proponent for reforming the NCAA and it's about time people start listening...

END THE SHAM OF AMATEUR COLLEGE ATHLETICS! ... Read more

Book Description
For more than a half century, television has played a primary role in securing college football's place as one of America's most popular spectator sports. But it has also been the common denominator in the sport's rise as a big business. Television, which multiplied the number of people who cared about the game, simultaneously increased the stakes.The colleges, who once feared television's ability to create free tickets, gradually became addicted to its charms. Through the years, the medium manufactured money, greed, dependence, and envy; altered the recruiting process, eventually forcing the colleges to compete with the irresistible force of National Football League riches; aided the National Collegiate Athletic Association's explosion from impotent union to massive bureaucracy; manipulated the rise and fall of the College Football Association; fomented the realignment of conferences; and seized control of the post-season bowl games, including the formation of the lucrative and controversial Bowl Championship Series.In The Fifty-Year Seduction, Keith Dunnavant shows how television helped shape the modern sport---on and off the field. In painstaking detail, the author chronicles five decades of tension and conflict, from the 1951 television dispute that empowered the modern NCAA to the inevitable backlash, culminating with the landmark Supreme Court decision that set the stage for the conference-swapping machinations of the 1990s and beyond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An excellent book and a source of information for my own book!
While watching Texas coach Mack Brown gleefully accept the final BCS nomination this past bowl season, I mentioned to my wife that someone should write a book uncovering the history behind the BCS shams we consistently witness from year-to-year.My wife suggested I write it as I have been involved in high school, collegiate and professional sports for the majority of my life.Little did I know, that Keith Dunnavant had already written a book which uncovered the information I was searching for.While I have utilized and referenced a lot of his material for the evolution of the BCS chapters within my book, my book takes serious aim at uncovering the east-coast / west-coast bias issues and the rift that occurs between the BCS and non-BCS conferences.I also offer a lesser restrictive alternative as a solution to the BCS woes.

Nonetheless, his book is outstanding and was a major inspiration and source of history for my own project.I recommend this book to anyone who aspires to understand the BCS controversy and ultimately how the fans can change the system so it is more equitable and fair to all Division I-A programs.Keith's book - The Fifty Year Seduction - will fascinate, inspire and enrich your college football knowledge, perspective and understanding of the many controversies, scandals and methods of corruption.

College Football
In Keith Donavan's The Fifty Year Seduction the author discuses how the introduction of televising college football games has changed the business side of the game forever, and helped it become the money maker that it is today. In this non fiction sports book he shows how the evolution of the media has had a direct influence on the game. This is a must read for any college football fan, who wants to fully understand the inner workings.

So that's why college football is so bizarre
This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone who is interested in the business of college football. Even if you are just a casual college football fan, this book is pretty easy to read and helps explain a lot of things, like how Notre Dame can remain outside of the conference system and why the post season is so chaotic.

If there is any short-coming, it might be that the book focuses a little too much on the internal management of the NCAA, especially the consolidation of power that occurred under Wally Byers. But, in the end, this is such a gigantic subject that it had to have some kind of hook.

Should be read by all True College Football Fans
This is a well written, well researched book on the relationship of TV and college football.While I was aware of the significant ruling in the 80s when Georgia and Oklahoma as a test case for the CFA were allowed to televise away from the standard one game a week on ABC, I was not aware that the outcome was more games but significantly lower TV revenue.This was the most significant development of the past 50 years with the next big move being the bowl tie-ins and increased revenue available from the BCS bowls in the 90s.

But what this author did such a good job of was detailing the personalities involved with the NCAA and how that dictated how TV contracts were negotiated up until the 80s.Some fallout of those relationships is what led to the later mess in TV rights fees.

Having worked on a fundraising board with a 1-A College athletic program, this is a must read that I would recommend for any athletic administrator or diehard fan.I find it interesting that this book has been out three months and it hasn't been reviewed.I suspect that means that not many college football fans also read books.Or maybe it means they don't use Amazon.Irrespective, do yourself a favor and read this book if you enjoy the game of college football.
... Read more

Book Description

In Reclaiming the Game, William Bowen and Sarah Levin disentangle the admissions and academic experiences of recruited athletes, walk-on athletes, and other students. In a field overwhelmed by reliance on anecdotes, the factual findings are striking--and sobering. Anyone seriously concerned about higher education will find it hard to wish away the evidence that athletic recruitment is problematic even at those schools that do not offer athletic scholarships.

Thanks to an expansion of the College and Beyond database that resulted in the highly influential studies The Shape of the River and The Game of Life, the authors are able to analyze in great detail the backgrounds, academic qualifications, and college outcomes of athletes and their classmates at thirty-three academically selective colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships. They show that recruited athletes at these schools are as much as four times more likely to gain admission than are other applicants with similar academic credentials. The data also demonstrate that the typical recruit is substantially more likely to end up in the bottom third of the college class than is either the typical walk-on or the student who does not play college sports. Even more troubling is the dramatic evidence that recruited athletes "underperform:" they do even less well academically than predicted by their test scores and high school grades.

Over the last four decades, the athletic-academic divide on elite campuses has widened substantially. This book examines the forces that have been driving this process and presents concrete proposals for reform. At its core, Reclaiming the Game is an argument for re-establishing athletics as a means of fulfilling--instead of undermining--the educational missions of our colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews (3)

Convincing
A measure of the tortured relationship between higher education and sports is the fact that this is the second substantial book by William Bowen on this topic.The former President of Princeton and the present head of the Mellon Foundation, Bowen deployed the considerable resources of the Mellon Foundation to address this topic.The prior book, The Game of Life, was controversial because of conclusions that athletics have had a distorting effect on admissions and academic life at institutions thought to be free of the gross distortions seen at American Universities with scholarship driven athletic programs.After studying prestigious and very selective schools like the Ivy League universities and smaller schools like Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan, Bowen and his co-author concluded that athletes enjoyed substantial and unmerited advantages in admissions, tended to relatively underperform academically, and actually had a negative effect on campus life.There conclusions were assailed, sometimes with some force, on the basis of limited data samples and reliance on anecdotal information.
In the present book, Bowen returns with a considerably expanded dataset and a number of new analyses.The effect is to overwhelmingly confirm the prior conclusions.While one could probably find defects in some of the individual analyses, Bowen and Levin have done so many evaluations reaching the same conclusions that it is inescapable to conclude that they are correct.For example, they analyze data from 3 groups of schools with differing admissions policies towards recruited athletes and find a strong correlation between the relative advantage enjoyed by recruited athletes and academic underperformance.This kind of dose-effect relationship is very strong data.In addition, the conclusions drawn from their dataset are consonant with qualitative impressions and with the conclusions of independent studies done at individual schools in their dataset.Bowen and Levin have successfully overcome the challenges of their critics.A corollary point is that their critics have never offered any substantial data to back the implied claim that athletics produce unique benefits.
Bowen and Levin conclude with a series of recommendations for reform which are quite sensible. It has to be mentioned that one of the goals of their reform program is actually to broaden participation in college athletics.These suggestions should be pursued.
Bowen and Levin have a nice discussion of how this unfortunate state of affairs developed.The problems with athletics at these schools mirror and to some extent are driven by parallel changes in larger society.As these colleges have come to overvalue athletics, so has youth sports become semi-professionalized.This has created a typical vicious circle; parents, knowing that good colleges highly value athletics, drive their children down the road of early specialization in a sport and year round competition.In turn, the strong interest of these types of students in sports at a relatively high level is a partial driver of the overemphasis of college athletics.Bowen and Levin suggest that restoring balance to college sports would help to break this cycle.This may be correct and is certainly worth trying.
It is worth mentioning in this context that attempting to reverse the overemphasis on college and youth sports has implications beyond education.Bowen and Levin are particularly concerned with the effects of athletics on education, which is entirely proper.But, it is very likely that the semi-professionalization of youth sports is a contributing factor to the general decline in fitness occuring in younger Americans.By the end of elementary school, competitive sports increasingly become the province of a relatively select group of talented children.Coupled with the declining emphasis on physical education in schools and other relevant phenomena, the result is a large pool of increasingly inactive children.The long term consequences are likely to be a significant increase in cardiovascular disease and other significant medical problems.

Telling it like it is
The authors have collected an enormous amount of data and presented it lucidly and tellingly. That alone is worth the price of the book. However one feels about elite institutions using different admission standards for recruited athletes,the authors should be given credit for illuminating the facts.

Most of the criticism I have seen has been of the "Kill the Messenger" variety, from people who clearly have "an axe to grind." To those whose minds are not already made up, I suggest reading the book.

Intellectually Dishonest
When he was president of Princeton, William Bowen was responsible for the "problem" he now criticizes.As president of the Mellon Foundation, he is responsible for millions of dollars of grants to Ivy and similar universities, and thus wields enormous power with them as he picks and chooses recipients of the largess he controls.Coincidentally, the "co-author" of this volume is the daughter of one of those recipients--the president of Yale.Just look at the list of people who "helped" him with drafts of the book.
People are entitled to write biased books; the problem here is that Bowen pretends he is not biased, and he obviously is(although more subtly than in his prior effort, Game of Life).
The data (which may represent a federal privacy violation by the colleges that revealed them) are manipulated into statistics to suit the biases and are fundamentally flawed.Data contrary to the biases is avoided or explained away, sometimes in the most Machiavellian manner.For a good rebuttal check out [website] ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (6)

A must-have reference that trounces ESPN
Fifty Years of College Football is a little-known giant of a book that blows away the competition like the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia.Fifty Years even has a bonus...it actually chronicles 54 football seasons of all the important college teams, and does it in an amazingly detailed style.It supplies information on the top 70 football programs that can be found in very few books of this type.

For example, ESPN'sbook offers scores of games but otherwise all but ignores the exciting action that took place on the field.For its part, Fifty Years chronicles every important moment in more than 7,000 important college games.ESPN spoons up inconsistent "teams of the century" for each school while Fifty Years taps each major school's best 54 players, arranged as a squad ready to take on the world.Very cool!

ESPN provides a chart of each team's season leader in stats while Fifty Years lists each starting player and many reserves on offense and defense and supplies all the important stats in each season during the modern era since the early 1950s.

Boyles and Guido make football history come alive, and their amazing effort is massive, and an incredible bargain.

50 Years of College Football
This is the best college football history book I have found.It covers every week since 1953.It has the starting line up of the top 70 college teams for all those years.
It has a year by year wrap up of awards, bowls and polls.It has the All-American teams.You'll never find a book on college football that has the complete history this book contains.
The book settles a lot of arguments.
I purchased this book for many of my friends
The book is well put together and the information is easy to find.

Great stuff
This book is such a great resource. Year-by-Year it gives team records, awards, NFL drafts. It even gives reports on games! This is a must have for any college football fan

Great resource
This thing is a behemoth. Over 1300 pages and a lot of it is in small type. So, what is 50 Years of College Football? Authors Bob Boyles have compiled something that has to be the most inclusive review of the last 50 years of college football available. It just as easily could have been called "The College Football Dictionary" as that's what it resembles.

It provides a review of 70 teams over the years 1953 to 2006. Each review contains basic school information, andcareer, season, and game statistical leaders - typical of stuff you'd find in a school's media guide. The reviews include won-loss records, coaching records, and bowl records, the scores of all games - stuff that isn't hard to find if you're a powerhouse school, but may be difficult if you're trying to find information on someone lesser known. The season's starting lineups and statistical leaders are also included - that is information that can be very hard to find, especially if you're interested in going back all the way to 1953.

The yearly reviews start with an entertaining and informative overview of each year, highlighting events on and off the field. As an example, the 1961 review relates how the Ohio State faculty voted down a Rose Bowl bid, resulting in the Columbus Dispatch printing each voting faculty member's name, address, and amount of reimbursed out-of-state travel they'd had over the past year. We're told that Woody Hayes was pivotal in quelling potential student riots. (Ah, the good old days!)

The preseason rankings are provided, and a recap of games played between ranked teams and many rivals are reviewed, which comes to more than 7,500 game recaps total. These don't include every game ever played, but obviously a huge number of them, including a "Game of the Year" for each season. .Each year concludes with a listing of conference standings, bowl game reviews, All-America teams, Heisman Trophy voting along with other major award winners. As if that weren't enough (but wait, there's more!), you also get the first eight rounds of each season's NFL draft.

There is a freakish amount of information in 50 Years of College Football, almost too much. At a cost under $20 (see the Amazon price above), it's pretty affordable as a historical reference. It's handy for bloggers like me to go back and find something interesting to write about and it should be in the hands of any college fans that likes to "one-up" their friends. Hmmmm.... wouldn't that be just about all of us?

Second Edition Still Not Perfect, But Remains The Best Resource For College Football
From the first page, 50 Years of College Football bombards you with just about everything you'd want to know about the sport from 1953 through 2006.From thousands of season and game capsules to yearly records, rosters, and the greatest players lists of 70 major football schools, the data is immense, useful, and fun to peruse.

The problems are minor, but glaring.The book suffers from a bit of a consistency problem.For instance, among Georgia Tech players, names are spelled correctly in one part of the book and misspelled in another, like "Eddie Lee Ivory" and "Keith Brookings".Joey Hamilton (once referred to as "Joe" and "Joey" the rest of the time) is even listed as being drafted from "Georgia" in the 1999 NFL draft list.

The other problem is more of a personal caveat: none of the yearly rosters have any kickers or punters listed in any year, even though they're referenced aplenty in the rest of the book.Some may not particularly care about that, but it's a shame that they were excluded.

Despite these flaws, 50 Years is the best college football resource on the market today.No college football fan should be without it. ... Read more

Book Description
A thorough examination of the sport's "Golden Era," a timewhen factors both on and off the field combined to transform the game.

Shaping College Football is the story of the intercollegiate gridiron sportin the years immediately after World War I when the game underwentmonumental changes that transformed it into one of America's fundamentalsporting attractions and a commercial entity that would be recognizable toany twenty-first century fan.

Raymond Schmidt examines the many factors that were a part of collegefootball's reshaping in the 1920s as universities became dependent upon therevenue being generated by football, and the sport increasingly becameidentified as a commercialized, big business activity. Offering the mostdetailed examination ever undertaken of college football's "Golden Era,"Schmidt covers issues ranging from the shift of power away from the game'spioneering schools, through the real evolution of forward passing, tostadium building and the decade-long struggle over the game's growingover-emphasis that culminated in the legendary Carnegie Report of 1929. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Oh What a Game They Played
Looking for a good read? Hooked on college football? Interested in knowing how college football matured into today's national spectacle?
If so, you have to read Raymond Schmidt's history of football in the 1920s (college football because the NFL was still in its infancy). Whether it's the Haskell Indians, traditionally African-American schools, or the rising Catholic powers, Schmidt ranges far and wide. He portrays a gridiron landscape no longer dominated by the traditional eastern schools (think Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Army). The Midwest flanked by the South and West Coast now became the regions that produced big-time coaches,teams,and star players.
Schmidt's research is truly remarkable. No doubt most of us know something of the Golden Age of Sport--the age of prosperity and consumerism that produced sports legends like Knute Rockne and Red Grange. Yet how many are familiar with the bitter controversies that raged after Grange quit college to join the Chicago Bears? Or the national football machine created by Knute Rockne consisting of former players turned coaches who fed him insider information. Or the forward passes (just legalized in 1906) like burgeoning aircraft that filled the gridiron stratosphere.
Not that there weren't controversies and scandals. Schmidt airs the endless disputes and the conniving by teams for whom winning had become obsessive. The University of Iowa, a flagrant example, accumulated a slush fund that brought the wrath of today's Big Ten down on its head--not a conference team, many of them also tainted, would play the Hawkeyes. In 1929, the Carnegie Commission catalogued the numerous sins against the "amateur ideal." Unfortunately for the Commission, the report was released the same week as the stock market crash.
By 1930, the world of football, as Schmidt views it, was far closer to today's game, practices, and strategy than the pre- or immediately post-World War I version. As if to bookmark the end of an era, Knute Rockne died in an airplane crash after the 1930 season. Schmidt shows how Rockne personified the myth and reality of big-time football--and how the outpouring of tributes to Rockne illustrates the enormous power of its transformation.
"Indeed, that period from 1919 to 1930," Schmidt writes," had served to radically reshape the sport and lay the groundwork for most of what has transpired within intercollegiate football since that time, and it was truly the game's age of Transormation." ... Read more

Book Description
Operating behind a veil of amateurism, the NCAA and collegiate athletic departments oversee big business sports programs. These entities generate revenues comparable to professional sports, practice and play in facilities that rival those found in professional sports, and pay their top coaches salaries comparable to the salaries paid to coaches of professional sports teams. Athletes are courted with lavish stadiums, training facilities, and locker rooms. Customers are wooed with branded apparel, videos, logos, and advertisements. Business interests are captured with stadium billboards, electronic ads on scoreboards, sponsorship of bowl games, logos on uniforms, and exclusive apparel and equipment contracts. Where do, or should, these lucrative athletic ventures fit in the mission of higher education? To what extent is the central mission of creating an environment for learning and extending the frontiers of knowledge enhanced or limited by college sports? Are declarations by the NCAA to promote amateurism and competitive balance supportive of the university mission? Does the NCAA even follow its purported objectives? The Economics of College Sports contains both empirical and theoretical research to address these and related issues. Perhaps the most unique contributions focus on the interactions between legal and institutional aspects of the NCAA and their impact on the objectives and goals of university education; all of the contributions provide insights that will generate significant discussion about the policies necessary to sustain the vitality and integrity of the university education-sports coalition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Treasure trove for NCAA fans
Ever wondered why in the world a college calls their athletes their particular nickname?With this book you will never wonder again!In this well-reasearched guide, Lessiter "left no stone unturned" andspoke with the Sports Information folks at every single Division I schoolto find out about the orign of each school's nickname(s).Small school orlarge, perpetual top 25 ranked team or cellar-dweller, they are all herefor your reference and enlightenment.Several enjoyable drawings aresprinkled throughout the text. ... Read more

Book Description
Ethics and College Sports is a careful analysis of the root problems in intercollegiate athletics in American universities. It examines the prevalent myths that are regularly used to justify the inclusion of intercollegiate athletics, and all of the abuses and scandals it has brought to university campuses, from a moral perspective. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent critical work
Peter French casts a critical eye on big time collegiate sports and their effects on higher education. His work is similar to that of Murray Sperber ("Beer and Circus" and "College Sports, Inc."). French focuses on three commonly held beliefs about college sports that he finds to be largely mythical: that college athletes are true amateurs, that college sports inherently provides character education to its participants, and that college sports provides funding to the university in general. He also examines the issue of gender equity and finds that even several decades after Title Nine, all is not well in that regard either. His final chapter describes what he considers to be the reality of big time college sports, that they are primarily an entertainment and not an educational endeavor.

This book, along with those by Sperber and others, raise important questions about the nature of intercollegiate athletics in the United States.

--Vince Prygoski, author of "Worst to First, or, a 'Shock'ing tale of Women's Basketball in Motown" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Readable Expose of Corruption
Murray Sperber shows the scandalous financial side to NCAA college sports in this well-crafted book.It's hardly news that college sports are corrupt - amateurism is and probably always was un-workable.What is news, however, is that most colleges lose money from their athletic programs.Readers see that while football and basketball might attract revenue, they seldom offset the losses from "non-revenue" sports like gymnastics, tennis, swimming, track, etc.Also, winning sports teams fail to increase academic donations to host colleges - alumni don't like their schools having "jock" reputations.The author shows how colleges abuse Pell and minority grants to benefit athletics, and how these institutions force students (or their parents) to pay hefty "activities fees" along with tuition to bail out the athletic department

Like most appeals to reform NCAA sports, this book fell on deaf ears - we simply like the games too much.Still, this book should be of interest to educators and to students forced to pay outrageous activity fees at tuition time.
... Read more

Book Description
This book provides unprecedented access to the intriguing and sometimes Byzantine world of NCAA Division I football recruiting. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Fathers and sons
A prominent coach was once asked why it was that he thought black athletes were so dominant at the higher levels of professional sports.He replied that in his experience, black sportsmen were better because they trained harder and acted in a more professional manner.Furthermore, he suggested, the reason why he preferred to work with black athletes was that typically, they were involved in sports for a reason; to gain money and fame."Most of the white athletes aren't", he added "For the most part, they seem to me to be in sports because they're trying to sort out issues with their fathers".

Food for thought.

Not as good as advertised, very average!!!
The description on the cover reads like this is a big-time football star and is wanted by several very major college football teams.Truth is that he was a very good player in Illinios, but not a Blue Chipper that is sought by all of the major college football teams.

If you consider "Big-Time" college football as Central Michigan, Western Michigan and Northwestern then you won't be disappointed.There are mentions of a few big college football schools, but nothing serious.There are some very good academic schools that are interested instead cause the kid is smart.

You can tell this father cares about his step-son and his step son is a bright person willing to put in the time it takes to be a good athlete.There's also a few mentions of the Olive Garden throughout the book if you're hungry.

If you're looking for a recruiting story that involves under the table cash, cars, girls and all of the other stuff you hear about, this is NOT the book for you!!!If you just want to read about the average college recruiting experience, this is your book. I was disappointed!!!The ending also was not very good, but it's how it happened.

Quick read!
I, too, enjoyed this book.I was less putoff by the author than other reviewers although I can certainly understand some of their points.Still, he's a father looking out for his son and, well, I guess I could understand the lengths he went to help and protect his son during the recruiting process.By the end I was really pulling for the kid to do well and I was anxious to read his decision.You really can't ask for more from a Sunday afternoon read.I had wished for a different ending but, hey, it's not my life!

Dynamite Book
Recruiting confidential is just a great book.It operates at two levels.It is a dynamite sports story, and at a deeper level, a terrific family drama.I really liked the HONESTY and SENSITIVITY with which James' dad writes the story.He explains how he was adopted and how "blood" means nothing to him as far as being a dad is concerned.If you read between the lines you can tell that something horrific happened with James' father and that the bond James has with his dad is now as important to him as it is to the author.

The inside football stuff is just first-rate.Instead of the same old "rip city" treatments of big-time recruiting, you see it from the inside.You ride in the car with James and his dad, you go to the schools, and meet the coaches.You experience the highs and the lows as they happen.Best of all, you can't put it down, because you want to know how it will end.

Get this one, it's a treat.

Good book.
Good story about how a kid gets recruited to play college football.The recapping of his high school games gets tedious though. Either buy it or go to the library because it is worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description
As college costs skyrocket, even student-athletes who are not superstars can help pay their expenses by winning a sports scholarship. This best-selling, newly updated guide teaches student-athletes how to develop a winning game plan, get noticed by college coaches, assess their athletic and academic skills, create a dynamic Sports Resume Kit, choose the best colleges for them and negotiate scholarship offers successfully. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Excellent tool that works!
Super workbook that not only provides step by step guidance, but also expands your knowledge and options!As a college counselor, I always recommend it to my sports-minded clients and I refer to it frequently myself. Every parent with a college bound student can benefit from this insider/outsider perspective of college scholarship opportunities.

If you want to play sports in college, read this book!
This mother and son co-author team offers a comprehensive workbook to help young men and women obtain one of the 150,000 collegiate athletic scholarships in 35 different sports.Armed with the tools, strategies and game plan offered in "How to Win a Sports Scholarship", you don't have to be a super star athlete to obtain a scholarship.The authors have done their homework, as the book is extensively researched, thorough, and well indexed.It should be in every high school guidance department, as it is an outstanding resource for students hoping to obtain a sports scholarship.

How to Win a Sports Scholarship
As an educator, I find this revision to be both thorough and accurate. I recommend it to any student-athlete who is looking for college financial assistance in these days of spiraling costs. It is a valuable tool that works!

A Great Help to Us
This book was of great help to us.It helped us get comfortable with the idea of contacting college coaches without waiting for them to find us.We recommend highly.

Must have for ANYONE interested in sports scholarship
This was an invaluable aid in our recruitment process. It is a very easy to follow guide for letter writing, organization of schools, and user-friendly in it's entire format. While using this book as a starting place, it was necessary to find additional resources of information. But this was great to get us started.

We have recommended this book to other sports parents, many have found it helpful in a very long, confusing process. ... Read more

Book Description
Many books have been written on the "evils" of commercialism in college sport, and the hypocrisy of payments to athletes from alumni and other sources outside the university. Almost no attention, however, has been given to the way that the National Collegiate Athletic Association has embraced professionalism through its athletic scholarship policy. Because of this gap in the historical record, the NCAA is often cast as an embattled defender of amateurism, rather than as the architect of a nationwide "money-laundering" scheme. Sack and Staurowsky show that the NCAA formally abandoned amateurism in the 1950s and passed rules in subsequent years that literally transformed scholarship athletes into university employees. In addition, by purposefully fashioning an amateur mythology to mask the reality of this employer-employee relationship, the NCAA has done a disservice to student-athletes and to higher education. A major subtheme is that women, such as those who created the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), opposed this hypocrisy, but lacked the power to sustain an alternative model. After tracing the evolution of college athletes into professional entertainers, and the harmful effects it has caused, the authors propose an alternative approach that places college sport on a firm educational foundation and defend the rights of both male and female college athletes. This is a provocative analysis for anyone interested in college sports in America and its subversion of traditional educational and amateur principles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

College Athletes: Amateurs or Professionals
The purpose of this book is to show how college athletes started playing sports as amateurs, but quickly through athletic scholorships have turned towards professionalism.An amateur is one who engages in sports in theirfree time.This is leisure time, and athletes joining in this time willcompete solely on thier will to play and not participate in return forroom. board, tuition and fees.An athlete becomes a professional when oneaccepts an athletic scholorship which may include any of these incentives. This book is primarily about professionlism.The start of the Sanity Codeshowed signs that the NCAA was turning professional.The Sanity Codestated that financial aid could be awarded to students on the basis oftheir athletic ability.They called these gifts for play, not pay forplay.Recieving any payment at all according to Sack and Staurowsky, makesthat athlete a professional. This book touches on the relationships betweencoaches and players.Under scholorship, athletes must perform under therules of the coach.I just recently finished my senior year of Division IIfootball.I was under scholorship and my coach did have total control overmy actions.My coach acted as the employer, and I was the employee. Schools that don't offer scholorships such as the Ivy League, and DivisionIII schools, players aren't under such strict control.Athletes don't haveto practice or play if they don't want to.These players are under noobligation to their coaches.The authors give a good argument that underscholorships, athletes are held under contract, similar to an employeecontract. Chapter 5 was a very interesting chapter.The authors explainedhow sholorships turned into employee contracts through the issue ofworker's compensation.In the Van Horn Case the courts awarded Van Horn'sfamily death benefits because Van Horn was under scholorship for hisathletic ability, thus making it an employee contract.I thought thatadding in the Askew factors made this chapter powerful.The Askew factorswere used by the State of Michigan in determining the existence of anemployment relationship.One factors is the employer has the right tocontrol the employee.The second factor is the employer can discipline orfire the employee.The third factor is the employee accepts wages to payfor everyday living expenses.The fouth factor is the task provided is apart of the employers business.As a scholorship player I think thatathletes under scholorship do meet these criteria.Athletes are undercontrol of the coach and are disciplined.Athletes accept room and boardthat are used as their everyday living expenses.I also think that sincesport revenues go into a universities general fund, then that sport is partof the universities business.This book supports my arguements. Sack andStaurowsky end their book with possible reforms of collegiate sport.Iagree with these thoughts.College sport should go to either one extremeor the other.One way is to eliminate scholorships all together.Studentswill then come first at all universities, and higher learning can beachieved.The other extreme would be to admit that college athletes arepaid professionals.This would cause college sports to become steppingstones to professional sports.The revenues generated from that sportwould go right back into that program.University funds should not be putinto sports, as sports would become an unrelated business to theuniversity. Turning professional will force only the fittest big timecolleges to survive in this game.The only unversities that will survivein a professional atmosphere are the schools producing the most revenues. This limits the competition to only a handful, and the rest can only beforced to return to amateur athletics.

In The Light
In "College Athletes for Hire" Authors Sack andStaurowsky need to be commended for having the courage to create sucha document that takes a very depth and candid look at what collegiate sports have become today in terms of professionalism and commercialism.As a former Division II athlete having participated on both "revenue generating" (football) and "non-revenue generating" (wrestling) athletic teams. I can definitely relate to many of the things the authors have discussed in their book.In addition, being a student of the sports industry, I found the contents to be very helpful as the book took the reader on an educational journey of twist and turns while exposing how people's greed for money has corrupted the essence of amateur sports.This text is one that should be read by all who have any involvement in the grooming of student athletes.This book brings to the surface some very important questions about how, when, where, and for what reasons the authors feel that many of our student athletes have become unpaid professionals.While providing us with an abundance of both primary and archival research material to support their viewpoints and conclusions.By doing this I feel they have eliminated the criticism that this is just a book of hot air stemming from two individual's bad experiences and personal feeling, causing anyone in disagreement to have to produce and organize just as much supporting material as well as to present it in just as an effective manner.The authors hit the reader with an eye-opening jolt of reality by presenting the actual fate of one former collegiate athlete and his quiest for justice. This former football player received a game related injury that left him a quadriplegic. He stresses that if his university's athletic director, coach, or any of the groundskeepers had gotten hurt that day, they would have received workers' compensation for their injury but he as an "amateur scholarship athlete" (by NCAA believes) is not entitled to such coverage even though because of his talents they have jobs.The book showcases the authors' experiences in the sports from the big time Division I revenue generating world of football to the minute world of women's Division III sports. Providing the reader with a revealing look at the amount of time the authors dedicated to investigating and substantiating the material they found.The Introduction sets the foundation for the educational journey on which the reader is about to embark by showing some of the disparities between the various football divisions in the NCAA.It declares what sport is, a taste of the legislative effect on sport, a naming of what they feel is the problem in NCAA sports, a statement as to what the purpose of the book is, and chapter by chapter break down of what the authors are trying to convey in each chapter.Unlike other critiques of collegiate sport they address the historical path that "the evolution of "NCAA-sponsored" professionalism in the form of athletically related financial aid" has taken.In the body of the book the authors express that in Great Britain "the amateur ideal of sport was in many ways supportive of the best academic traditions of the liberal arts when viewed in the context of the British University".But here in America because of spectators' alarming interest in competition (1906) which reached beyond their regional lines, revenue driven individuals leaped at the opportunity to exploit what they saw as an emerging national market giving, the NCAA the boosts it so desperately needed to become what it is today.Helping to propel the NCAA into its present state (a cartel as describe by the authors) was a number of legislative changes which the authors cite as major contributors.These legislative moves were in direct contradiction to the original code of ethics/by laws of the (Articles VI & VII) NCAA that were in place in 1906 forbidding the violations of the amateur principle.Transforming individuals who accepted athletic scholarships into paid professionals based on their very own (NCAA's) historical standards and definitions.The NCAA has always tried to present itself as the "do gooders", but this book reveals the flip side of the coin by containing information on actual court rulings concerning the relationship between athletes, scholarships, employment contracts, compensation, and the strategy used by the NCAA to mask their incorporations of professionalism.The discussion of the emergence of women's sports was a great idea because it shows how women have fought for so many years to preserve the true essence of amateurism by being opposed to the act of having collegiate sports serve the public as an entertainment venue.Which took away from the educational purposes of sports along with exposing the wide spread sexist discriminations that was prevalent against women in the world of sports for so many years.Discrimination lasted until the point where it could be seen that revenue could be generated from the fruits of women's labor right along with that of their male counter parts and through their quest for equality (e.g.Title IX) which sent women leaping into the world of professional sports by now being able to receive athletic scholarships.END

ýProfessionalý College Athletes
Stark and Staurowsky have created a book about college athletes that explores the issue of professionalism in college sports like no other.The purpose of this book is to prove that college athletes who receivescholarships based on athletic ability are in fact paid professionals whoare compensated in the form of room, board, tuition, and fees.In spite ofthis fact, the NCAA still labels these athletes amateurs.As a result, theNCAA is protected under rules that allow them to get away with behaviorthat they otherwise could not if these athletes were consideredprofessionals in the true sense of the word.The authors contend that bylabeling athletes amateurs the NCAA is able to avoid taxes, workerscompensation claims of injured athletes, and antitrust scrutiny.Theauthor's focus is on athletes involved in revenue producing sports, mainlymen's Division IA football and basketball.The authors do a good job ofproving that the role these sports are playing in universities more closelyresembles an unrelated business of the university rather than an academicsupplement.

Other books talk about the evils of collegesports in terms of commercialism and illegal payments. These books focusmainly on the outrageous amounts of money that some college sports generateand how it is corrupting the athletes who participate.This is one of thefew books that address the issues of professionalism in college sports. Theprimary focus of this book is on professionalism and the problems it hascaused in college athletics.

According to the authors amateurism beganin Great Britain in the early 19th century and centered around the Britisharistocracy.The traditional definition of amateurism included the beliefthat it involved an activity that was done in one's spare time, separatefrom activities that involved making money or a living.The amateur idealspread to academic universities.It was not long until universities foundthat they could make money off of these athletic events.In the early1900's, as universities were defying amateur ideals by finding ways tosubsidize athletes as incentives to play for their university, the NCAAcame along to play the role of regulator.The authors not only contend,but prove through rulings and behavior of the NCAA that the NCAA never oncetried to prevent professionalism from forming in college sports.As amatter of fact, according to the authors the NCAA has not only beenunsuccessful in stopping professionalism, but has actually accommodated it.

The authors have quite a few chapters of their book devoted thehistory of women's sports.These chapters are very important to theirargument.They illustrate that women's sports in college began quitedifferently than men's sports.The women's sports model, as the authorsrefer to it, strove to separate itself from the money and exploitationsassociated with men's college sports.This model balanced education andathletics and strove to provide all female students with the opportunity tobe involved in athletics. This is what the authors believe that the role ofsports should be in universities.Up until very recently, focus in women'ssports has remained on the athletes, not the spectators or the revenuebeing produced by their sport.

The authors spend a whole chapterproving that athletic scholarships have changed from gifts given tostudents into contracts of employment.This transformation of the athleticscholarship is the very root of the problem that has turned collegeathletes into professionals.It is in this chapter that the authors do agreat job of combining their views and the history of the previous chapterswith actual court cases.Although most of these cases deal with the issueof workers compensation for college athletes, they illustrate thetransformation of the college athlete from amateur to professional with theintroduction of athletic scholarship in the 50's.Awarding financialcompensation in the form of scholarships to talented athletes constitutespayment and violates amateur rules.But it was not until 1967 that theNCAA turned these scholarships into employment contracts by allowingathletic scholarships to be canceled by the university, in affect givingthe university the power to "fire" an athlete.

What makesthis book interesting is that the authors not only talk about the issuesand problems with college athletics, but they also offer solutions to theproblems they discussed.There are two solutions presented.The firstsolution presented is for colleges to do away with athletic scholarshipsand concentrate on educating students. This solution involves bringingcollege athletics back to the amateur level.This model is successful inIvy League schools. The second solution offered is to acknowledge thatathletes receiving scholarships for their ability are in fact paidprofessionals and to support these athletes to their fullest potential.Insome cases this would involve running the revenue producing sports of auniversity as an unrelated business, one that has employees and pays taxes.

This book was thorough and very well researched.The authorsdiscussed cases and archival material from the NCAA that I have never seendiscussed before.By doing this the authors were able to illustrate theiropinions with facts.Although I liked that their opinions were backed upby facts I found this book to be difficult to read at some points.Partsof the book read like a history book, and although the history was veryinteresting and in some regards necessary to their mission, I would haveenjoyed more opinion and less history. Since the authors were involved incollege athletics themselves I would have enjoyed reading about some oftheir experiences.On the other hand, because there was so much historyand facts throughout this book I was really able to understand the issues. Overall I enjoyed this book because it explored a side of college athleticsthat has never been looked at in this kind of detail.I recommend thisbook to anyone who is interested in college athletics.

Amateur Myth of NCAA
"... a nationwide money-laundering scheme." How Walter Byers, executive director of the NCAA from 1951-1987, described the awarding of athletic scholarships in 1957, which essentially lead to the professionalism of college athletes according to Allen Sack and Ellen Staurowski.

"CollegeAthletes for Hire" is a book that should be read by anyone interested inthe NCAA and its place in American sport.The authors of this book, AllenSack and Ellen Staurowski, have compiled an historical look of collegesport from its beginnings as an amateur sport to the highly commercializedspectacle it has become today.Built upon British ideologies ofamateurism, college sport quickly grew as universities discovered collegesport, moreover college football, to become a revenue producing avenue aswell as an avenue for bringing prestige to the universities.As collegesport grew, the price of winning brought illegal inducements to athletesand essentially the end of amateurism established in the early days ofcompetition.With the advent of athletic scholarships, the athletesessentially became employees of a university as the scholarship acted as anemployment contract where the athletes received free room, board, tuition,and fees for his/her service.

With the rise of professionalism incollege sport, especially at the Division I level, the NCAA continued toargue that college sport was still a leisure activity and that collegesport still adhered to its original amateur principles.An argument theNCAA continues to use today.This amateur myth has been used not tobenefit the athletes in anyway, but to keep the NCAA and its memberinstitutions free from antitrust violations, workers compensation claims,and from paying federal taxes.Sack and Staurowski have put together awell written and well research analysis that can finally help to dispel thenotion of the amateur myth and put to light the issues affecting the NCAA,its member institutions, and most importantly, the athletes who help togenerate millions in revenue, but fail to reap the benefits of a truehigher education.

The book takes the reader on a journey of the NCAA fromits inception in 1906, when it was established to restore amateurism,through the rise of women's athletics, the rise in commercialism of collegesport as a revenue producing entity, and finally to the issues affectingthe athletes themselves.Sack and Staurowski show how athletes have beenreceiving some sort of payment for their athletic ability and performanceon the playing field since the beginning of the NCAA.The so calledamateurism of the NCAA created and underground network of illegal payments,which were provided by, boosters, alumni, local residents, and collegeofficials.It was not uncommon for athletes to be given a job and receivepayment for which they performed no work at all.

Sack and Staurowskishow that the NCAA itself has violated its own long established principlesof amateurism with the passage of several amendments.The first of thesewas the "Sanity Code," which entitled universities to award financial aidbased on athletic ability.The second was the granting of full athleticscholarships in 1956, which gave the athletes he aforementioned free room,board, tuition, and fees.Sack and Staurowski argue that these twoamendments alone come to violate amateurism and that they constitutepayment to athletes for athletic ability and not for education which theNCAA has argued is the basis of the amateur model.Sack and Staurowskifurther argue that the athletic scholarship is in essence an employmentcontract.In 1967 the NCAA passed an amendment that reduced thescholarship to a one-year renewable scholarship establishing anemployer-employee relationship between the coach and athlete.This oneyear renewable scholarship now gave the coaches the right to terminate thescholarship if the athlete chose to leave the team to concentrate onacademics, if an athlete was injured, if an athlete's athletic ability wasnot at college level, or for athlete insubordination.Sack and Staurowskiargue that this is similar to any employer-employee relationship.Thisgives the coach total control of the athlete both on and off the field andthat an athlete can lose his/her right to an education if the coach deemsthem unnecessary for athletic competitions.If an athlete loses theirright to an education because of sports, how can the NCAA continue to claimcollege sports are amateur and leisure activities?

Important legal casesare used to show how college sports are similar to professional sports andthat the athletes are paid employees.The most important legal case is theColeman v. Western Michigan University which outlines the difficultiescourts have had in deciding these issues arising in college sports. Although the NCAA has won a majority of these cases, Sack and Staurowskiprovide credible arguments to support the athletes.It is up to the readerto decide whether or not college athletes are in fact paid professionalathletes.

Sack and Staurowski argue that the only true amateurism incollege sports is at the Division III and the Ivy League where no athleticscholarships are given.Financial aid is given at these institutions basedon need rather than the ability to score touchdowns or make baskets.Atthis level the athletes themselves decide whether or not athletics is moreimportant than his/her education, whereas in Division I and II the athletesare paid entertainers where athletics is their primary goal as dictated bythe one-year renewableathletic scholarship.

Although I stronglyrecommend this book, I must say that it is a somewhat difficult book toread that delves deeply into the issues affecting the NCAA and itsathletes.The authors have compiled a scholarly analysis of this subjectusing diverse sources of information that make this book one of the best inthe field of college athletics.

A Deep Look at NCAA's Amateur Myth

An in depth look at the evolution of both amateurism andthe NCAA, Sack & Staurowsky take a historical view to show how theNCAA falsely classifies college athletes as amateurs.The authors look at current labor and contract laws, as well as historical court cases, to draw comparisons to what the NCAA refers to as athletic scholarships.Are athletic scholarships a gift given for ability? Or, are they a payment for services rendered.The authors argue that scholarships are an employment contract for services.The fact that the scholarships must be renewed every year by the coach, and can be taken away from a player for what the coach deems poor performance, or for that matter even an injury, make the arguement a very strong one. If scholarships were merely a gift, then shouldn't an athlete be allowed to walk away from the sport with no prospect of financial harm?

By current NCAA standards, the authors say this is not the case."College Athletes for Hire" shows how and why the NCAA passed legislation allowing for one year renewable scholarships giving total control of the coach over the athlete both on the field, and in some cases off.Furthermore, athletes are awarded these athletic scholarships on athletic ability alone, with no consideration of academics or, in many cases, personal character.The thesis argued by Sack and Staurowsky that athletes are already 'unpaid professionals' is even stronger when the authors use a legal perspective to show how courts have interpreted employment contracts. When discussing amateurism and scholarships, a working definition and background is needed.

The book does a good job in providing a history of what amateurism is defined as.The use of the word scholarship, and how the NCAA defines an athletic scholarship, is also thoroughly discussed to avoid any confusion of the use of these terms. While reading the book, it was alarming to consider the point that Universities, athletic directors, and coaches can financially benefit from ticket sales, sponsorships, and endorsements, while the athletes are not allowed anything more than a full scholarship.

Although the topic is well studied, this is not a book to take with you to read leisurely.It is highly academic and close examination of the issues expressed is needed to fully understand the thesis presented.The authors do not seem to have a separate agenda or act as lobbyists for any organization; rather, they have strong beliefs in what they consider to be wrong in inconsistant by the NCAA's treatment and defining of college athletes.

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