Citation:
Sperber, Murray. Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate
Education. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2000. Print. Summary:
Right now colleges barely care what is actually happening to their athletes on an academic level when they attend the school, but rather just if their athletic program is flourishing. Right now the only thing schools care about is keeping admission rates high, and to do this they want to keep interest in their sports programs. The article “Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports is Crippling Undergraduate Education,” by Murray Sperber discusses what is known as the “Flutie Factor.” The Flutie Factor refers to the idea that students want to attend a school with a large, successful sports program that has the potential for parties and a diverse social life. In order to make this a reality, schools are pouring millions of dollars into their sports programs in order to attract more students to come to their schools. Schools are worrying less about the quality of the education that they offer, especially to their athletes and are focusing on keeping their sports teams well funded in order to attract students. The schools are putting less emphasize on their undergraduate education programs that they offer in hopes to attract more students by increasing funding into their sports programs. The schools are only trying to make a profit and this article further illustrates this point.
Author:
Murray Sperber taught at Indiana University from 1971 to 2004 and is a Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at the school. He currently works as a visiting professor in the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Key Terms:
Flutie Factor. In the article, the author discusses a phenomenon that was come to be known as the Flutie Factor. This term refers to the last second touchdown pass thrown by Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie to win a nationally televised bowl game. After this event, admissions to B.C. increased drastically because of the Flutie Factor, in which applications jump in response to victories in nationally televised sporting events. Schools changed the term in the 1990's to "mission-driven athletics" but still had the idea that they had to increase funding into sports in order to increase admission rates.
Beer and Circus. In the article the author refers to another term known as beer-and-circus, which refers to the atmosphere at universities with big-time college sports. Universities put less importance on undergraduate education and more focus on a successful athletic program in hopes to transform the social experience at the school. The universities want to enhance "the quality of student life", by bringing more of a party attitude with big-time sports in order to make up for the lack of educational opportunities.
Quotes:
"A surprising result of Flutie's triumph, never previously seen in American higher education, was that applications for admission to BC spurted upward during 1985-86; hence the term "Flutie Factor" for application jumps sparked by nationally televised college sports victories." (61-62)
"In the 1990's, university administrators began to discard the term "Flutie Factor" in favor of "mission-driven athletics"; in other words, no matter how much money the athletic department loses, no matter how much bad publicity the coaches and jocks generate with misconduct and scandals, a school should promote its big-time college sports program as an essential element of its "mission." (62)
"Within this context- the school's neglect of general undergraduate education-Buffalo's move to big-time college sports makes sense. UB's situation is typical of many universities: because they cannot provide their undergraduates with an adequate education, but they need their tuition dollars, they hope to improve "the quality of student life" on their campus, in other words, bring on the beer-and-circus." (67-68)
Value:
This book has been a great resource that is truly showing how colleges are being motivated in regards to their college athletics programs. By now it is no secret that the NCAA has been exploiting players and it is clear that major Division I schools are continuing to do the same thing. These schools do not care about the educational opportunities that they are offering to their students but only care if they are making profits. The schools are using their sports programs in order to attract other students to come to their school to be part of this great party experience. What they are failing to tell these students is that the only reason their athletic programs are doing so well is because they are better funded than the educational programs at the school. This book I think ties into the article "Paying for the Party," that we discussed earlier in the semester, in that students are essentially paying universities for the social experience that they get rather than for the academic experience. I think the "Flutie Factor" is a great term that further illustrates the point that the NCAA and Division I schools are exploiting their athletes in hopes to turn a profit for themselves.
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