In a few short weeks it will all be over. The NBA Finals will be done and we’ll be stuck without basketball for months and months. So, instead of sitting in front of your TV, how about picking up a book (you can read, right?). For college basketball fans, they might want to check out Big-Time Sports In American Universities by Charles T. Clotfelter.
The NCAA and their “student-athlete” policies have been much-maligned, even being lampooned on South Park last week. And while Big-Time Sports delves into the negative aspects of universities being in the sports entertainment business, it also illuminates several positive aspects of this uneasy marriage that aren’t often mentioned. As the book states, why would an institution of higher learning continue to suffer the slings and arrows of the negative aspectsof big-time football and basketball (see Tressel, Jim) if there weren’t any rewards (and not just financial ones, since most athletic departments lose money). On the flipside, as the book illustrates, if big-time sports are such an important part of a university (for proof of that, just look at the athletic palaces erected on campuses across the nation), then why do universities publicly downplay them and act as if they are nothing more than intramural athletics? These issues, and plenty more, are covered in Big-Time Sports which, while perhaps a bit too scholarly for some readers, is an important book in helping us understand, and perhaps change for the better, NCAA athletics.
Get your copy here:
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
