Unfortunately, the demand for academically qualified athletes, especially for the superb athletes, far exceeds the supply. Thus, in order to stay competitive in a win-at-any-cost environment, schools are forced recruit and employ superb athletes who are not only academically unqualified, but also unlikely to have a desire to obtain a legitimate education. They simply want … Read more
After a century of ineffective efforts to reform college sports, there is a growing concern over out-of-control commercialization that is driven by the college-sports entertainment industry to further its financial interests – exploiting college sports and its participating athletes while limiting access to higher education by real students. Accounts of the problems and issues surrounding … Read more
In this 2003 brief with a foreword by Theodore Hesburgh, Frank Splitt discusses a blueprint for faculty driven reform of intercollegiate athletics. »Read the full paper
They are quick to appeal to the privacy provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to avoid disclosure of any information that could prove damming or embarrassing, especially in the case of the academic performance of the athletes in their money-making sports programs. »Read more
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