this will prob get some tl,dr's (i'm only part way through it myself) and maybe it is just rehashing something that has been discussed ad nauseum, but i think it brings up some interesting history that i, for one, wasnt aware of.



some excerpts:

Quote :

"For nearly 50 years, the NCAA, with no real authority and no staff to speak of, enshrined amateur ideals that it was helpless to enforce. (Not until 1939 did it gain the power even to mandate helmets.) In 1929, the Carnegie Foundation made headlines with a report, “American College Athletics,” which concluded that the scramble for players had “reached the proportions of nationwide commerce.” Of the 112 schools surveyed, 81 flouted NCAA recommendations with inducements to students ranging from open payrolls and disguised booster funds to no-show jobs at movie studios. Fans ignored the uproar, and two-thirds of the colleges mentioned told The New York Times that they planned no changes. In 1939, freshman players at the University of Pittsburgh went on strike because they were getting paid less than their upperclassman teammates. "

this is the most interesting part to me:

Quote :

"But the origins of the “student-athlete” lie not in a disinterested ideal but in a sophistic formulation designed, as the sports economist Andrew Zimbalist has written, to help the NCAA in its “fight against workmen’s compensation insurance claims for injured football players.” “We crafted the term student-athlete,” Walter Byers himself wrote, “and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations.” The term came into play in the 1950s, when the widow of Ray Dennison, who had died from a head injury received while playing football in Colorado for the Fort Lewis A&M Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensation death benefits. Did his football scholarship make the fatal collision a “work-related” accident? Was he a school employee, like his peers who worked part-time as teaching assistants and bookstore cashiers? Or was he a fluke victim of extracurricular pursuits? Given the hundreds of incapacitating injuries to college athletes each year, the answers to these questions had enormous consequences. The Colorado Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the school’s contention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was “not in the football business.” "

9/19/2011 10:41:55 PM

That's been sitting on my bookmark bar for a couple days now

I was intimidated by its considerable length

[Edited on September 19, 2011 at 10:59 PM. Reason : You should link it dumbass]

9/19/2011 10:57:44 PM

yea i accidentally hit image instead of link, my bad asshole

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/8643/

9/19/2011 11:39:55 PM

shameful tag identification failure

9/19/2011 11:43:35 PM

"my bad asshole"

title of Slave Famous' autobiography

9/19/2011 11:48:17 PM

so anyway, now that this thread got to a great start with ernie mentioning how intimidated he was by reading and then immediately calling me a dumbass....

has anyone read this?

finished it today, it seems extremely well researched with some items i hadnt heard about previously.

Quote :

"In response, the NCAA contended that an athletic scholarship was a “merit award” that should be reviewed annually, presumably because the degree of “merit” could change. Justice Department lawyers reportedly suggested that a free market in scholarships would expand learning opportunities in accord with the stated rationale for the NCAA’s tax-exempt status—that it promotes education through athletics. The one-year rule effectively allows colleges to cut underperforming “student-athletes,” just as pro sports teams cut their players. “Plenty of them don’t stay in school,” said one of Agnew’s lawyers, Stuart Paynter. “They’re just gone. You might as well shoot them in the head.” "

Quote :

"On page 37, T. K. Wetherell, the bewildered Florida State president, lamented that his university had hurt itself by cooperating with the investigation. “We self-reported this case,” he said during the hearing, and he later complained that the most ingenuous athletes—those who asked “What’s the big deal, this happens all the time?”—received the harshest suspensions, while those who clammed up on the advice of lawyers went free. The music-appreciation professor was apparently never questioned. Brenda Monk, the only instructor who consistently cooperated with the investigation, appeared voluntarily to explain her work with learning-disabled athletes, only to be grilled about her credentials by Potuto in a pettifogging inquisition of remarkable stamina. "

9/20/2011 8:49:40 PM

sports talk is a bit preoccupied with conference realignment and the impending blowout loss to cincinnati. check back later...

9/20/2011 9:02:51 PM

More like. The sham of college sports.

9/20/2011 9:57:29 PM

your period should be a colon

9/20/2011 10:02:31 PM