Public Scholars at
Hanover College
Inquiries
Volume One, Number Two - Fall 2000
COLLEGE ATHLETICS IDEAS IN PRACTICE
For this second issue of Inquiries, we focus our interdisciplinary lens on college athletics. There are of course hundreds of thousands of words written and published each year on "the state of college athletics," and most of them focus on "what is wrong with college athletics today." Fewer go on to suggest solutions. As is our custom at the Center for Free Inquiry, we have focused on a set of questions that seem to us to come prior to such analyses. In this case we have paused to ask "What do we wish college athletics to be?" What is the purpose of athletic competition in an institution devoted to higher education?"
On the 19th of March 2000, we brought together four individuals with very different perspectives for a symposium entitled: "Culture, Commerce, and Collegiate Athletics: The Fate of the Student Athlete." The participants were J. Barton Luedeke (President of Rider University, who has served on the President's Commission of the NCAA), Derrick Ramsey (a star football player at both the collegiate and professional levels, and the current Athletic Director at Kentucky State University), Joli Sandoz (a writer with a long history of playing and coaching women's athletics, and editor of a volume entitled: Whatever It Takes: Women on Women's Sport), and Murray Sperber (Professor of English and American Studies at Indiana University and author of numerous books on collegiate athletics, including the forthcoming Beer and Circuses). For two-and-a-half days, they spoke their piece, listened, discussed, and clashed. In the end, each had something interesting and fresh to say.
The main essay printed here is by J. Barton Luedeke. He explores the relationship between the mission of institutions of higher education and that of their athletic programs. Along the way, he examines the accuracy of analyses that lay the blame for current ills at the feet of the NCAA, and suggests that we might more profitably focus on the effects of a mind set of "ranking" and competitive marketing that pervades higher education today. Finally, drawing on his own experience, he suggests some steps that might be taken to bring the imperatives of collegiate athletics in line with the missions of colleges and universities.
Following the main essay are some excerpts from Joli Sansoz's talk entitled: "A Whole Other Ball Game: Women's Experiences of Sport." She explores the relationship between the stories that we tell ourselves, in this case stories of sport, and the way we live our lives.
Jeffrey Brautigam
Jeffrey Brautigam is the Director of the Center for Free Inquiry at Hanover College, where he also teaches modern European history and the history of science.