Literature Review #3

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Citation:

Sack, Allen L., and Staurowsky, Ellen J.  College Athletes for Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA’s Amateur Myth.  Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1998.  Print.

Summary:
This book starts to discuss how the NCAA makes itself seem like a protector of amateurism while it is essentially a money laundering scheme.  The NCAA has masked this fact and has continued to exploit athletes since the 1970’s, making people think they really care about the amateur status of players rather than the profits they are actually seeking.  The authors make the argument that the NCAA is more interested in making money from their players than giving them a proper education that they deserve, not only for their participation in the athletics program but for being simply a student of the university.  They go on to talk about how the NCAA has been pretending to keep alive the amateur status of players in order to continue to financially exploit them.  The NCAA has put such an importance on the amateurism of the sport to make people think they really care about their athletes, it is a great scheme that they have had going up to this point.  People are starting to realize that the NCAA is a fraudulent system and that the time is now to change the way that the athletes are being treated.

Authors:
Allen L. Sack played Division I football at Notre Dame where his educational and team expenses were paid by the school.  He was also the Director for the Center of Athletes Rights and Education.
Ellen J. Staurowsky played athletics at Ursinus College where there were no athletic scholarships and the athletes had to contribute to the team's travel costs.  Ellen also was both a coach and athletic director at the division III level.


Key Terms:
Amateur myth.  This article goes into the idea that the NCAA is keeping up the illusion of athletes being considered amateurs in hopes to continue to be able to exploit them.  The NCAA has continued to fight to keep their athletes amateur status so that college sports would not turn into the privatized system that is professional sports.  The NCAA is essentially employing athletes as full-time workers of the universities but since they are claiming that their athletes are still amateurs, they do not have to pay them for their work. 
Financial and Academic Exploitation.  In the article, the authors go into the idea that the NCAA is exploiting their athletes on both an academic and financial level.  By keeping the athletes amateur status, the universities do not have to pay them and in turn are making all of the profits from these large scale sports.  On the other hand, universities are also taking advantage of the athletes on an academic level, by setting such low academic standards for their athletes.  Almost all large universities have a lower GPA requirement for athletes and have a lower standard GPA requirement that they have to fulfill in order to keep their eligibility during the season.  The universities care more about the profits that the athletes are making for the school rather than giving them a good education. 

Quotes:
"An added problem for college athletes is that the myth of amateurism obscures the fact that what they are doing is virtually full-time employment." (91)

"It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a major athletic program in the country that does not lower admissions standards for athletes, especially in the revenue-producing sports of football and basketball." (95-96)

"... When the NCAA went to war against sharing university resources with women's sport, it suddenly found it expedient to treat big-time college sport as an independent revenue-producing business whose profits universities could not live without.  If women wanted to be treated as equals in the athletic arena, they too would have to abandon education and transform sport into an unrelated business." (109)

Value:
I think that this is a very valuable source that helps to paint the picture that college athletes are being exploited on multiple levels.  The NCAA is a corrupt system that does not care about their athletes but more about the potential profits that thy might earn and the myth of amateurism proves this point.  An obvious change is needed in the way that college athletics are being run, and it first starts with dealing with the problem of amateurism.  The idea that a college athlete who is putting in arguably as much time into school and sports as a professional athlete is still considered an amateur does not make sense.  This article helps to further my idea that the NCAA is exploiting their athletes and a shift from amateurism is needed to combat this problem in the near future.