"Defending Academic Integrity in the Face of Commercialized College Sport"
A Season for Change
In the beginning was the Drake Conference...
Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa - October 21-23, 1999
So many conferences, commissions and committees, consisting mainly of athletic officials and university presidents, have come and
gone. The corruption persists. Surely it is natural to ask, "Why yet another conference?"
No Hand-Wringing
This conference will not rehash whether corruption exists. The conference is for those who agree that colleges must at last address
seriously the hypocrisy and corruption in college athletics, and who believe that faculty and trustees must assume responsibility if the
corruption is to end.
The conference will examine the rationalizations and evasions by faculty, who are mainly indifferent and sometimes complicit; the
exploitation of the black athlete; and the threat to academic integrity posed by "support" programs in which athletic departments hire
tutors to do course work with or for scholarship athletes.
Its aim is to produce a plan that will end the corruption in college athletics.
And the conference began... (click to continue)
"No Tinkering." These reminders greeted participants in the main conference room, at the tables
reserved for observers, even next to the dessert plates at the conference luncheon. The message:
the Drake Conference was not about minor adjustments to the reigning system of hypocrisy and
corruption in Division IA sports. It was about abolishing the corruption.
