Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies

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Sports in Society Issues and Controversies

• Chapter 14
• Sports in High School and College
• Do Competitive Sports
• Contribute to Education?

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The U.S. is the only country in the world where
high schools and colleges fund elite varsity
teams and provide special awards and status for
athletes.
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Arguments for and against interscholastic sports

• Arguments for
• Involve students in activities and increase
  interest in school
• Build self-esteem and other positive traits
• Enhance fitness and lifetime participation
• Generate spirit and unity
• Promote support
• Develop and reward valued skills

• Arguments against
• Distract attention from academics
• Create dependence and conformity
• Increase passivity and injuries
• Create superficial and transitory spirit
• Waste resources
• Create pressure and distort status system

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Experiences of high school athletes

• Research shows differences between students who
  play varsity sports and those who dont.
• Most of the difference is due to selection-in,
  filtering-out, and in-season control processes.
• Those who play varsity sports often have
  characteristics making them different from those
  who dont play.

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Athletes should be studied in context

• . . . because the meanings given to sport
  participation vary according to
• The status given to athletes and sports in
  various contexts
• The identities young people develop as they play
  sports
• The ways that young people integrate sports and
  an athlete identity into their lives

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Student culture in high schools

• Being a student-athlete often is a source of
  status and popularity
• More so for young men than for young women
• Sports are sites for major social occasions in
  the school
• Sports often reproduce dominant ideologies
  related to gender, social class, and race and
  ethnicity

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Prior to the 1980s the high school girls who
played sports were often viewed negatively. This
began to change in the 1980s and 90s.
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Interscholastic sports are most likely to be
positive learning experiences if they

• Enable students to be noticed, rewarded, and
  taken seriously as human beings
• Connect young people with adult advocates and
  mentors
• Are explicitly linked with non-sport situations
  and how to succeed in them

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Experiences of college athletes

• Intercollegiate sports are NOT all the
  samethey vary by
• Division in the NCAA
• Type of program and team
• The cultures that have been created on teams
• Importance and status in the context of the
  campus and the larger community

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Characteristics of big-time (Division I) programs

• Usually emphasize football or mens basketball
  and their revenue-generating potential
• Revenues may be high, but very few teams or
  athletic departments make money
• Athletic scholarships may be awarded within
  limits set by the NCAA
• Teams often travel extensively
• Quality of skills and competition is high

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• The universities with teams that play regularly
  on television constitute only 3 percent of all
  colleges and universities.
• Only 8 percent of all college athletes play at
  such universities (including the teams that
  arent on television).
• Most athletes play in relatively small programs
  in which scholarships are not awarded and on
  teams that generate little or no revenue, attract
  few spectators, and have little media coverage,
  if any.

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Athletes who most successfully balance athletic
and academic commitments

• Those who have
• Past experiences that consistently reaffirm the
  importance of education
• Social networks that support academic identities
• Perceived access to career opportunities
  following graduation
• Social relationships and experiences that expand
  confidence and skills apart from sports

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Grades and graduation rates among college
athletes

• Graduation rates among all varsity athletes are
  slightly higher than rates for all students.
• Graduation rates in some big-time revenue sports
  are shamefully low.
• Female athletes have higher graduation rates than
  male athletes.
• Black athletes have graduation rates higher than
  black students as a whole, but lower than rates
  for white athletes.

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College sports may distort ideas about education.
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Recent reforms in big-time programs

• The purpose of new rules and standards passed
  from 19832008 was to
• Send messages to students (in HS and college)
  that academic achievement does matter in college
  sports
• Set new guidelines for universities that had
  ignored academic issues
• Provide to college athletes the support they need
  to succeed academically
• Establish sanctions for teams and universities
  that do not meet standards

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New NCAA rules for Division I schools

• Academic Progress Rate (APR)
• Calculated each semester
• 1 point awarded for each player eligible and each
  player returning to school
• Point scores are adjusted for team size
• Graduation Success Rate (GSR)
• Proportion of athletes entering a school during a
  4-year window and graduating in 6 years
• Adjusted for transfers and players turning pro

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Academic support programs - Problems

• Recent media coverage suggests that some programs
  focus on eligibility more than learning.
• Too many programs are administered by athletic
  departments rather than tenured faculty.

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Academic integrity in college sports

• Restoring/maintaining academic integrity is
  difficult when athletic success is tied to big
  money and the emotions and identities of boosters
  and alumni.
• Raising academic standards is important, but it
  must be done so it does not unfairly exclude
  certain students.
• Current sanctions include
• Reduction of scholarships
• Ban schools from post-season games
• Suspend entire athletic departmentif graduation
  rates fall below a certain level for multiple
  years

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When boosters are heavily invested in the success
of a team, it is difficult to prevent them from
influencing coaches and players.
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Questions About the Benefits of Interscholastic
Programs

• School spirit often is enhanced, but does this
  improve the overall academic climate?
• Most programs lose money, but are the
  expenditures worth it in academic and
  developmental terms?
• Are the public and community relations functions
  of varsity sports worth their costs?

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Sports and school budgets (I)

• Most high school sport programs are funded with
  public money and cost less than 1 percent of
  school budgets.
• In the face of budget problems, schools use these
  strategies
• Assess sport participation fees
• Depend on support from booster clubs
• Seek corporate sponsorships

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Sports and school budgets (II)

• Sports at small colleges are usually low-budget
  activities funded through student fees and money
  from the general fund.
• Sports at NCAA FBS universities have large
  budgetsfrom 30 to 110 million per year.
• There are over 1,900 college sport programs less
  than 25 of them make more money than they spend!
• At the top level119 FBS universitiesannual
  losses average about 7 million.

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The widely held belief that football pays for
other sports, especially womens sports is true
only in a handful of universities where teams
manage money well and receive annual
multi-million-dollar bowl payouts.
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Research shows that spending money on big-time
college sports

• Increased four times faster than academic budgets
  in recent years
• Has no effect on general academic quality or the
  academic qualifications of incoming students
• Does not increase alumni donations
• Does not improve win-loss records
• Created a massive wealth gap between athletic
  departments
• Will never change the fact that half of all games
  are lost when good teams play each other

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Indirect benefits of intercollegiate programs

• High-profile sport teams can be used in
  connection with fund-raising efforts.
• Sport teams may attract attention among potential
  students.
• Sports provide on-campus social events and
  occasions.

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Hey, Dad! Research shows that academic quality
and athletic success are not related.
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Indirect costs of intercollegiate programs

• Maintaining sport teams and recruiting athletes
  may involve compromising academic standards in
  admissions and classrooms.
• Academic matters are given low priority in the
  culture of sport on many campuses.
• The lives of athletes are increasingly separate
  from the lives of other students.
• Sports may take resources away from other
  extracurricular activities.

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Adapted sports in high school

• Basketball, bowling, floor hockey, soccer,
  softball, and track are approved high school
  sports.
• Fewer than 70 schools out of 18,000 U.S. high
  schools have paravarsity teams.
• There are 7.43 million varsity athletes, but only
  3,700 play on adapted sport teams.
• There is only 1 athlete in adapted sports for
  every 5,000 athletes on able-bodied teams!

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When Bobby Martin was mistakenly disqualified for
a HS game for not wearing shoes, he asked, How
can I wear shoes if I dont have feet?
Similarly, how can students with disabilities
play sports if they have no teams?
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