College Sports And Institutional Values In Competition

College Sports and Institutional Values in Competition interrogates the relationship between athletics and higher education, exploring how college athletics departments reflect many characteristics of their institutions and are also susceptible to the same challenges in delivering on their mission. Chapters cover the historical contexts and background of campus athletics, issues and institutional tensions over market pressures, the spectacle of college athletics and how this spectacle influences athlete experiences, and the ways in which leaders are navigating these issues. Through stories of higher education that focus on the ways athletic departments leverage their institutional values, this book encourages readers to examine the purpose, mission, and academic values of their institutions, and to evaluate the role of their athletic programs, to improve outcomes and experiences on campus for students and student-athletes alike.

This volume is a critical and objective study of the contemporary college student athlete. Framed around the process of recruitment, transition, and support of student athletes in higher education, the volume is a response to societal pressures to reform college athletics. Driven by publicity and the potential for revenue gains, colleges and universities have invested heavily in developing athletic programs, coaches, and facilities. Yet few resources are invested strategically in the personal and intellectual development of student athletes. Written by a team of authors with first-hand experience working with student athletes and transitional programs, the volume argues that institutional attention must be directed at caring for the personal and intellectual growth of student athletes. Highlighting some best-practice curricula and exploring the psychological issues surrounding participating in often highly-competitive athletics, the authors consistently conclude that institutional responsibility is of the utmost and immediate importance. Authors also consider the unique settings of student athletes in community and private liberal arts colleges, demonstrating the broad interest in athletics and institutional competition. The result is an important volume that will be of interest to those who counsel and administer intercollegiate athletic programs, faculty and researchers looking for insightful baseline data on the contemporary student athlete, and those concerned with transitional programs and the future of higher education.

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.

As esports is one of the new and rapidly growing sports programs at the collegiate level, today’s campus leaders are increasingly asked to navigate the complexity of esports. This practical volume helps higher education professionals understand the expanding role of collegiate esports, describing the ecosystem of college esports and the experience for college players, as well as the connections between gaming and career preparation. Chapter authors offer an overview and practical look at the main structures and issues facing collegiate esports programs, athletes, and administrators. Chapters address the needs of the campus gaming community, building gender and racial inclusivity, athlete health, amateurism and the esports athlete, the role of the technology industry, governance, career paths, and coaching. This cutting-edge volume offers information to support campus leaders and practitioners in building and expanding collegiate esports programs in the quickly growing and changing aspects of both online and face-to-face campus communities.

A collection of essays in which various authors examine the educational value of sport, challenging the long-held claims that organized sports are a beneficial and relevant aspect of America's educational enterprise.

The commercial model of college sports entangles presidents, boards, and their institutions in a complex web of dysfunctional commitments. The unrivaled amount of cash poured into the college athletic system has made sports programs breeding grounds for corruption while diverting crucial resources from the academic mission of universities. Like money in Washington politics, the influence bought by a complex set of self-interested actors seriously undermines movement toward reform while trapping universities in a cycle of escalating competition. Longtime sport sociologist Howard L. Nixon II approaches the issue from the perspective of college presidents—how they are seduced by prestige or pressured by economics into building programs that move schools toward a commercial model of athletics. Nixon situates his analysis in the context of what he calls “the intercollegiate golden triangle,” a powerful social network of athletic, media, and private corporate commercial interests. This network lures presidents and other university leaders into an athletic arms race with promises of institutional enhancements, increased enrollments, better student morale, improved alumni loyalty, more financial contributions, and higher prestige. These promises can cloud the judgment of college presidents and governing boards, entangling them in an athletic trap that restricts their influence. Unable to control spending, inequalities, and deviance within commercialized athletic programs, universities are ensnared in financial, political, and social obligations that are difficult to sustain—or escape. Nixon clarifies the structure of this trap, describes how higher education institutions fall into it, and explores what it means for institutions and presidents caught in it. This timely analysis also has relevance to the debates about the role of the NCAA and ongoing reform efforts in college sports. The Athletic Trap will be of interest to university presidents, board members, and administrators, sport sociologists concerned with the balance of power between academics and athletics, and anyone else with a serious interest in college sports and its future.

This volume provides unique insight into how American colleges and universities have been significantly impacted and shaped by college football, and considers how U.S. sports culture more generally has intersected with broader institutional and educational issues. By documenting events from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including protests, legal battles, and policy reforms which were centred around college sports, this distinctive volume illustrates how football has catalyzed broader controversies and progress relating to race and diversity, commercialization, corruption, and reform in higher education. Relying foremost on primary archival material, chapters illustrate the continued cultural, social, and economic themes and impacts of college athletics on U.S. higher education and campus life today. This text will benefit researchers, graduate students, and academics in the fields of higher education, as well as the history of education and sport more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education and the politics of sport will also enjoy this volume.