By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Dr. Richard M. Southall Originally published August 9, 2012 Last month, the NCAA announced its latest team Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores, highlighting the institutions whose four-year averages fell below the 900 threshold score. Among the offending teams was notably the University of Connecticut, which will be ineligible for the … Read more
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Jerome C. Weber Originally published April 5, 2010 Basketball fans will focus tonight on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s men’s championship game, but amid the excitement of such competition, attention must be paid to how big-time college sports still operate in ways counter to higher education’s aims. Although the NCAA … Read more
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Jerome C. Weber Originally published October 24, 2008 College athletics, especially men’s basketball and football, enjoy a unique and central role in American higher education. They bring great visibility to their institutions. Yet while college sports excite and electrify millions with performance and spectacle, their positive attributes have become increasingly … Read more
By Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published April 10, 2011 For nearly 50 years, the NCAA has debated its minimum academic requirements for first-year students who hope to compete in big-time college sports. In its various attempts to ensure an acceptable level of precollegiate learning and skill competencies, the NCAA has vacillated between lowering and raising … Read more
By Christian S. Dennie and Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published January 8, 2012 The NCAA has experienced a tumultuous year and an erosion of public confidence in its ability to control intercollegiate athletics on many levels. Against a backdrop of public outcry and allegations of major rules violations and cover-ups, the NCAA’s president, Mark Emmert, … Read more
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Mary Willingham Originally published July 18, 2014 The National Collegiate Athletic Association rarely admits to the need to revisit an infractions case, and particularly one that strikes at the core of academic integrity issues. So when the NCAA announced an unusual and embarrassing return to the University of North Carolina … Read more
By Dr. Andrew Zimbalist Originally published August 16, 2020 The Rutgers athletics department should be required to hang a sign outside its front office: DANGER, KEEP OUT. It has been running growing financial deficits since 2003; piled up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt; been upgraded to the Big Ten, where its football team is … Read more
By Dr. Allen Sack and Dr. Gerald Gurney Originally published May 6, 2019 During the weeks-long buildup to college football’s biggest bowl games last December, it was hard not to notice that many of the teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 were having a lot more success on the gridiron than their players … Read more
By Gerald Gurney and Dr. Richard M. Southall Originally published February 14, 2013 A decade has passed since the National Collegiate Athletic Association rolled out its academic reform package. In that time, there is strong evidence that the reforms designed to open access to higher education to more athletes and punishing coaches and institutions failing … Read more
By Dr. Gerald Gurney and Dr. B. David Ridpath Originally published February 29, 2016 The NCAA slipped an important announcement by the public last month when the Board of Governors, consisting of 20 college chancellors and presidents, approved a contract extension until 2020 for the organization’s president, Mark Emmert. The board said Emmert had been an integral agent of … Read more