The Reality Behind the Glamour of College Athletics

The Reality Behind the Glamour of College Athletics PDF Author: Acheil Marko Tac
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781090309693
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Many people have opinions and misconceptions of what college life is like for athletes. They think having a scholarship is the greatest thing in the world and life is a breeze after. While receiving an athletic scholarship is a blessing, the payment for that is not only taxing on an athlete's mind but body as well. They struggle to juggle many things during their transitional period from being just students in high school playing a sport, to emerging adults in college playing at the highest level of competition. The Reality Behind The Glamour of College Athletics highlights the reality of being a student athlete within the system of college athletics and addresses important topics and questions regarding athletic identities and retirement. There is more to what you see, and there is always a reality behind every glamour. Hear powerful experiences, stories and voices from WNBA, NFL, Professional athletes in Europe, and retired college athletes. If you were given the chance to change the current athletic system, what would you change and why?

The Reality Behind the Glamour of College Athletics

The Reality Behind the Glamour of College Athletics PDF Author: Acheil Marko Tac
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781090309693
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book Here

Book Description
Many people have opinions and misconceptions of what college life is like for athletes. They think having a scholarship is the greatest thing in the world and life is a breeze after. While receiving an athletic scholarship is a blessing, the payment for that is not only taxing on an athlete's mind but body as well. They struggle to juggle many things during their transitional period from being just students in high school playing a sport, to emerging adults in college playing at the highest level of competition. The Reality Behind The Glamour of College Athletics highlights the reality of being a student athlete within the system of college athletics and addresses important topics and questions regarding athletic identities and retirement. There is more to what you see, and there is always a reality behind every glamour. Hear powerful experiences, stories and voices from WNBA, NFL, Professional athletes in Europe, and retired college athletes. If you were given the chance to change the current athletic system, what would you change and why?

Unpaid Professionals

Unpaid Professionals PDF Author: Andrew S Zimbalist
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781400818808
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Big-time college sports embodies the ideals of amateurism and provides an important complement to university education. Or so its apologists would have us believe. As Andrew Zimbalist shows in this unprecedented analysis, college sports is really a massively commercialized industry based on activities that are often irrelevant and even harmful to education. Zimbalist combines groundbreaking empirical research and a talent for storytelling to provide a firm, factual basis for the many arguments that currently rage about the goals, history, structure, incentive system, and legal architecture of college sports. He paints a picture of a system in desperate need of reform and presents bold recommendations to chart a more sensible future. Zimbalist begins by showing that today's problems are nothing new--that schools have been consumed for more than a century by debates about cheating, commercialism, and the erosion of academic standards. He then takes us into the world of the modern student athlete, explaining the incentives that, for example, encourage star athletes to abandon college for the pros, that create such useless courses as "The Theory of Basketball," and that lead students to ignore classes despite the astronomical odds against becoming a professional athlete. Zimbalist discusses the economic and legal aspects of gender equity in college sports. He assesses the economic impact of television and radio contracts and the financial rewards that come from winning major championships. He examines the often harmful effects of corporate sponsorship and shows that, despite such sponsorship, most schools run their athletic programs at a loss. Zimbalist also considers the relevance ofantitrust laws to college sports and asks whether student athletes are ultimately exploited by the system. Zimbalist's provocative recommendations include eliminating freshman eligibility for sports, restricting coaches' access to "sneaker money" from corporations, and ending the hypocrisy about professionalism by allowing teams to employ a quota of non-students as well as to receive funding from the pro leagues. A mixture of lively anecdotes, hard economic data, cogent arguments, and clear analysis, "Unpaid Professionals will revitalize debate about a subject close to the hearts and minds of millions of Americans.

College Athletes for Hire

College Athletes for Hire PDF Author: Allen L. Sack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313001480
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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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.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Unsportsmanlike Conduct PDF Author: Walter Byers
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472120875
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
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

The Miseducation of the Student Athlete

The Miseducation of the Student Athlete PDF Author: Kenneth L. Shropshire
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1613630816
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
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.

Unwinding Madness

Unwinding Madness PDF Author: Gerald S. Gurney
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815730039
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
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.

A View from the Bench

A View from the Bench PDF Author: George R. Mills
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252071720
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Recruited for his combination of size and speed, George Mills had the potential to become an outstanding college football player--but it never happened. A View from the Bench reveals the reality behind the glamour of college football and the tough experiences in the life of a benchwarmer. Mills was a solid player who loved the game, but he had only one shot in nearly five years at making Nebraska's starting team. He found little time or energy left for academics after hours of drills, weight lifting, and team meetings. Now, with complete candor, Mills lays bare the true weight of emphasis in the "student-athlete" dichotomy. Free from anger or malice, Mills tells of his struggle to come to terms with a sports career of "mediocrity." A View from the Bench is an honest reflection of the experiences of so many overlooked players. It will be meaningful to anyone who has watched or played competitive sports.

Sports and Freedom

Sports and Freedom PDF Author: Ronald A. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190281723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Perhaps more than any other two colleges, Harvard and Yale gave form to American intercollegiate athletics--a form that was inspired by the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry overseas, and that was imitated by colleges and universities throughout the United States. Focusing on the influence of these prestigious eastern institutions, this fascinating study traces the origins and development of intercollegiate athletics in America from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Smith begins with an historical overview of intercollegiate athletics and details the evolution of individual sports--crew, baseball, track and field, and especially football. Then, skillfully setting various sports events in their broader social and cultural contexts, Smith goes on to discuss many important issues that are still relevant today: student-faculty competition for institutional athletic control; the impact of the professional coach on big-time athletics; the false concept of amateurism in college athletics; and controversies over eligibility rules. He also reveals how the debates over brutality and ethics created the need for a central organizing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which still runs college sports today. Sprinkled throughout with spicy sports anecdotes, from the Thanksgiving Day Princeton-Yale football game that drew record crowds in the 1890s to a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt on football violence, this lively, in-depth investigation will appeal to serious sports buffs as well as to anyone interested in American social and cultural history.

The Myth of the Amateur

The Myth of the Amateur PDF Author: Ronald A. Smith
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477322884
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
In this in-depth look at the heated debates over paying college athletes, Ronald A. Smith starts at the beginning: the first intercollegiate athletics competition—a crew regatta between Harvard and Yale—in 1852, when both teams received an all-expenses-paid vacation from a railroad magnate. This striking opening sets Smith on the path of a story filled with paradoxes and hypocrisies that plays out on the field, in meeting rooms, and in courtrooms—and that ultimately reveals that any insistence on amateurism is invalid, because these athletes have always been paid, one way or another. From that first contest to athletes’ attempts to unionize and California’s 2019 Fair Pay to Play Act, Smith shows that, throughout the decades, undercover payments, hiring professional coaches, and breaking the NCAA’s rules on athletic scholarships have always been part of the game. He explores how the regulation of male and female student-athletes has shifted; how class, race, and gender played a role in these transitions; and how the case for amateurism evolved from a moral argument to one concerned with financially and legally protecting college sports and the NCAA. Timely and thought-provoking, The Myth of the Amateur is essential reading for college sports fans and scholars.

Racism in College Athletics

Racism in College Athletics PDF Author: Dana D. Brooks
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781935412458
Category : African American college athletes
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This substantially revised edition retains the rich history and context that made the first two editions so widely acclaimed. Yet this third edition not only expands on the hurdles and triumphs of African American student-athletes, but it also examines the injustices toward and successes of coaches, administrators, and international student-athletes. Editors Dana Brooks and Ronald Althouse have assembled an elite collection of scholars in order to provide readers with the most authoritative text on the topic of racism in intercollegiate athletics. The 17 chapters are broken down into seven sections: Historical Analysis of Racism in College Sports. Recruitment, Retention, and NCAA Rules and Regulations. Gender and Race Intersections, The African American Student-Athlete and Popular Culture. Race, Gender, and Fan Support. Racism, Media Exposure, and Stereotyping. Diversity Beyond Black and White. Instructors will find the text equally useful in sport management and sport sociology courses focusing on racism and diversity.