Big-time college football and men’s basketball programs ought to be a target for future FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education) college sports reform proposals. These programs have become a cauldron of profligate spending and corruption driven by the college sports entertainment industry. They not only threaten the integrity and the preeminent global position … Read more
Why hasn’t Congress or college presidents and trustees demanded appropriate measures of transparency, accountability, and oversight into the operations of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and a refocus of attention and resources on academics rather than athletics? Why the difficulty? A major reason is there is simply so much money to be made by so … Read more
In early 2006, the book, College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA’s Amateur Myth, by Allen Sack and Ellen Staurowsky, was recommended to House Committee on Ways & Means staffers. Why? Because it provided a good sense of the magnitude and the ubiquitous nature of the NCAA cartel’s powerful legal and … Read more
Cheating in college athletics not only makes cheating in professional sports pale by comparison, but also has more serious long-term consequences. There needs to be more intense scrutiny re: the efficacy of the NCAA’s drug-testing program as well as a demand for more transparency and accountability in the operation of the NCAA and the athletic … Read more
There are striking parallels between the uncontrolled, greed-driven, anything-goes operations and excesses on Wall Street, with its misrepresentation of material assets in the form of disadvantaged financial instruments, and those in the NCAA’s college sports business, with its misrepresentation of material assets in the form of disadvantaged academic instruments — so-called student-athletes. In articles exploring … Read more
Almost all untenured faculty members are too busy working to get tenure and are not in a position to challenge administrative policy on intercollegiate athletics. In either case, faculty members who defend academic integrity can be considered subversive25—inviting intimidation and career-threatening retaliation by school administrations. Also, the fear of being ostracized looms large. »Read the … Read more
Those tied to the financial fortunes of the elite level sport colluded for years in the fiction that super-sized bodies are the natural result of good habits, healthy living, and hard training. Sadly, the same could be said of the NCAA and its member institutions about academic corruption and the likely widespread use of PEDs … Read more
The context within which college athletics functions is compromised academic integrity that enables out-of-control commercialization with its distracting influence on school officials, on America’s youth, and on the nation’s diminishing prospects as a leader in the 21st century’s global economy. All too often, secrecy, deceit, and deception, are hallmarks of the business of college-sports entertainment … Read more
The core problem of academic corruption in big-time college sports is directly related to institutional misbehavior. By this is meant that institutions of higher education have become masters of deception – scheming and cheating to field competitive, professional-level teams, especially in big-time (NCAA Div 1) football and men’s basketball. “The Gordian-knot-like dilemma in college sports … Read more
Federal tax policy will continue to force parents, students, and other American taxpayers to help foot the bill for multimillion-dollar salaries for coaches, ‘stadium wars,’ tax breaks for wealthy boosters, NFL and NBA minor league teams, and other artifacts of the big-time college sports arms race while the NCAA will work to effectively thwart any … Read more