scholarly journals Amateurism, Professionalism and the Value of College Sports

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Reid
Keyword(s):  
Student Athletes ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
College Sports ◽  
Sport Education ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
College Sport ◽  
Educational Value ◽  
Alumni Engagement ◽  
Philosophy Professor

The value of college sport can be measured in many ways. Most people measure it in dollars, others point to less-tangible benefits such as alumni engagement and campus morale, only a few focus on its educational value. Yet this, as Myles Brand repeatedly recognized, is the value that really counts. Brand’s was something of a voice in the wilderness on this issue—a voice sorely missed in this age of debate about limits on compensation for student-athletes. As a philosophy professor, Brand’s insistence on the educational value of sport follows a tradition begun in ancient Greece by Pythagoras, Socrates, and especially Plato. In this essay, I honor Brand and that ancient tradition by exploring the value of college sport from a philosophical perspective. I interrogate the oppositions of amateurism vs. professionalism, academics vs. athletics, and employment vs. exploitation to arrive at the paradoxical conclusion that ideals of excellence and professionalism are at the heart of “amateurism” in the context of college sport. Education, meanwhile, is the value in college sport that needs to guide all the others—including those that involve dollar signs.

Scandal, Reorganization, and the Devolution of the Student Athlete

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard P. Chudacoff
Keyword(s):  
Student Athletes ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Division I ◽  
College Sports ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Student Athlete ◽  
Level Playing Field ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
One Year

This chapter discusses the NCAA's efforts to restore academic respectability to college sports. For decades, the college sports establishment promoted rules of fair play and a level playing field in public, while coaches and boosters surreptitiously sought ways to evade those rules. However, the alarming spate of cheating and fraud in the 1970s and 1980s stirred up efforts at reform. Those efforts, however, did not lead in the direction that might have been anticipated from the overt events. Though related to the scandals, the major turning points of the era had mixed consequences. Changes in the playbook of college sports between 1973 and 1991 were bounded by two major landmarks. The first, the 1973 NCAA legislation putting Division I athletic grants-in-aid (scholarships) on a one-year renewable basis, highlighted the transformation of the student-athletes into athlete-students, whose commercial value could sometimes prompt others to cheat in order to attract and retain them. The second, the 1991 Knight Foundation report, “Keeping Faith with the Student Athlete,” revealed how pervasive the need for ethics reform had become and, in its weak aftereffects, the power the athletic establishment could exert to contain reform and continue the quest for revenue in what had become a high-stakes business.

Student-Athletes and Campus Bookies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert J. Figone
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
College Student ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Student Athletes ◽  
College Football ◽  
Federal State ◽  
College Sports ◽  
The Public ◽  
State And Local ◽  
New Generation

This chapter reviews further basketball scandals from the 1980s and 1990s. As the professionalization and commercialization of college sports continued, gambling became increasingly accepted among college students. Since wagering on college sports was illegal in all states except Nevada, shady bookmakers reaped immense sums from the public's interest in betting on college football and basketball. By the early 1980s, the NCAA relied on the federal, state, and local governments to enforce and prosecute gambling-related crimes because the association, along with the conferences and colleges' athletic establishments, found it impossible to prevent game fixing. Most coaches had convinced the public that it was impossible to detect the rigging of basketball games, a viewpoint that only encouraged anyone wanting to fix games. A new generation of college student gamblers on sports would contribute to the decades-old scourge of game rigging, leading once again to federal and state investigations and prosecutions.

scholarly journals Public Opinion, Crisis, and Vulnerable Populations: The Case of Title IX and COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1084-1092
Author(s):  
James N. Druckman ◽  
Elizabeth A. Sharrow
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Title Ix ◽  
Student Athletes ◽  
Male Student ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
College Sports ◽  
Central Function ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Sexist Attitudes

AbstractA central function of democratic institutions is to protect vulnerable populations. The stability and success of these institutions depends, in part, on popular support. Times of crisis can introduce novel dynamics that alter popular support for protective institutions, particularly among those who do not benefit from those protections. We explore this possibility in the context of Title IX's gender equality requirements and infrastructure to address sexual harassment in college sports. We conduct a large survey of college student-athletes to study their attitudes on these issues in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and concomitant financial challenges affecting college sports. We find that male student-athletes and those with sexist attitudes exhibit alarmingly low levels of support for ensuring the maintenance of equality and sexual harassment policy under Title IX during the COVID-19 crisis and eventual recovery. The results accentuate the vulnerability of certain populations during crises and the importance of maintaining strong institutional policy support during such times.

scholarly journals Studying the Common Reasons of Student-Athletes’ Injuries at College Sports

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezzeldin R. Aly ◽  
Gari D. Tookes ◽  
Sherin Elmahdy ◽  
Ivory M. Avant
Keyword(s):  
Student Athletes ◽  
College Sports ◽  
The Common

Abolishing the Sanity Code and Launching the Modern College Sports Establishment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard P. Chudacoff
Keyword(s):  
Student Athletes ◽  
College Athletes ◽  
College Sports ◽  
Intercollegiate Sports ◽  
Athletic Scholarships ◽  
Athletic Scholarship ◽  
Time Demands

This chapter details the regularization of athletic scholarships and establishment of the NCAA as the principal arbiter of the college sports establishment. It describes the NCAA's Sanity Code of 1949, which sought to enforce the principle that college athletes were amateurs who played sports as an “avocation” and should not be differentiated from other students. It discusses the evolution of intercollegiate sports between 1950 and 1956, which resulted in athletics and athletes becoming virtually separate from the rest of the institution in which they resided. After 1956, an athletic scholarship and the time demands of competition often forced many “student athletes” to make their academic commitments secondary to their athletic ones.

scholarly journals Philosophy of Sport Education: Main Issues and Methodology

2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Emanuele Isidori
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Human Science ◽  
Physical Education Teachers ◽  
Sport Education ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Philosophy Of Sport

AbstractThe aim of this study is to reflect upon the main issues of the so-called philosophy of sport education, showing its methodologies and possible use in the context of sport studies. This study will begin answering two of the main questions dealing with the issues of the philosophy of sport education, that is: what are sport and its values from an educational philosophical perspective and how can we put these values into practice through a practical methodology?The study will show that the philosophy of sport education is a human science capable of developing both a theoretical and practical knowledge very useful for physical education teachers, sport educators, athletes, and coaches. The aim of this philosophical science is to analyze and understand sport in order to give it an educational and hermeneutical sense: that is, interpreting and not merely describing sport and its complex problems, and trying to find a solution in light of a pedagogical perspective and through a reflexive methodology of intervention.

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