drakelead The NCAA’s use of the phony collegiate model and ’student-athlete’ term to defend their tax-exempt programs and modus operandi has served the NCAA well in the past, but at great cost to America’s institutions of higher education. This model and terminology have, to various degrees, spawned a culture of academic corruption in colleges and universities … Read more
According to Walter Byers, who served as NCAA executive director from 1951 to 1987, the term ‘student-athlete’ was coined by the NCAA in the 1950s to counter the threat that its newly implemented play-for-pay, grant-in-aid athletic scholarship policy could result in NCAA athletes being considered paid employees by Workers Compensation Boards and the courts. The … Read more
Scandals and multi million dollar coaching contracts make for attention-getting headlines and stories. However, the core of the issue surrounding the tax-exempt status of the NCAA cartel and so-called ’student-athletes,’ is this: lacking tangible and verifiable evidence, the government must presently take the word of school administrators that athletes are really students on track to … Read more
As reported, an Auburn University panel has found that independent study courses that gave many athletes major boosts in their averages were apparently quite easy for non-athletes as well. While the report found key flaws in the way the courses were run, it didn’t find special treatment for athletes. Athletic Support (Eligibility) Center staff need … Read more
Over the years the NCAA cartel evolved a modus operandi that has proved to be eminently successful at expanding its commercial interests in the big-time college sports entertainment business while maintaining its tax-exempt status as an institution of higher education and thwarting significant reform. The latter has been accomplished by creating illusions of reform as … Read more
Questioning the tax-exempt status of the NCAA — is considered to be a significant milestone on the path to reform in big-time college sports. This reform could lead to a reversal of the priorities seen on many of our big-time college campuses. Simply stated, these priorities are athletics-over-academics and Sports-over-STEMS, where STEMS stands for Science, … Read more
What’s the ruse? It’s the school’s admission, rostering, and – in many, if not most, cases — exploitation of highly talented, but educationally disadvantaged, athletes to build cash-generating, competitive (quasi-professional) teams for their college sports entertainment businesses. Many of these academically unprepared athletes must pretend to be students while having a full-time athletic job, … Read more
The power of big-time commercial college sports is especially evident at a major events such as basketball’s March Madness, the football-season-ending football games, homecoming games and the like. It is difficult to not be taken up in the collective euphoria associated with such events. The customs, traditions, and emotions create an effective cover for what’s … Read more
No doubt, many, if not most, members of Congress consider taking on the best monopoly in America to be political suicide — no matter the long term harm to America resulting from the high-jacking of its education system by the college sports entertainment business. We in America have a serious sports addiction problem. Apparently, we … Read more
It would appear that athletic departments and school administrators have developed a new art form – achieving and maintaining eligibility for college athletes pretending to be students. Faculty members willing to game the academic system are all that is needed to gain eligibility and even graduation for these athletes, thus allowing their school to reap … Read more