Scandals in College Sports

Shaun R. Harper, Jamel K. Donnor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317569411
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Scandals in College Sports includes 21 classic and contemporary case studies and ethical dilemmas showcasing challenges that threatened the integrity and credibility of intercollegiate sports programs at a range of institutional types across the country. Cases cover NCAA policy violations and ethical dilemmas involving student-athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders, including scandals of academic misconduct, illegal recruiting practices, sexual assault, inappropriate sexual relationships, hazing, concussions, and point shaving. Each chapter author explores the details of the specific case, presents the dilemma in a broader sociocultural context, and ultimately offers an alternative ending to help guide future practice. This timely book highlights the impact that sports have on institutions of higher education and guides college leaders and educators in informed discussions of policy and practice.

1

Bad Sportsmanship

Why College Sports Are so Scandalous

Shaun R. Harper and Jamel K. Donnor

What about the wellness, academic performance, personal and professional development, and protection of college student-athletes? What about the sanctity and purity of sport, and love of the game? And what about the American university as sacred grounds for learning, intellectual engagement, high academic ideals, and the preparation of bright, well-educated persons for democratic citizenship? Was this not originally supposed to be about physical fitness, fun, and friendly competition among collegians? If so, how did it evolve into an enterprise that occasionally embarrasses institutions and injures innocent people? The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) exists to reduce these problems, so why does it so routinely contradict itself? Scholars, journalists, and others have posed these critical questions time and time again. Yet, there are quite possibly more scandals than there are championships in intercollegiate sports.

In his classic text, Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics, historian John Thelin masterfully documents longstanding critiques and failed attempts to effectively regulate problematic aspects of college sports over an 80-year period (1910–1990). Accordingly, most reform efforts failed to realize their intended purposes. Thelin (1996) argues that reform groups like the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics have attempted to restore something that intercollegiate athletics never had: integrity. Frederick Rudolph noted the following in his 1962 history of U.S. higher education:

From the White House [U.S. President] Theodore Roosevelt thundered that if the colleges did not clean up football he would abolish it by executive order. And in a bit of moralism which revealed much of the temper of the age, he added: “Brutality and foul play should receive the same summary punishment given to a man who cheats at cards.” (p. 376)

Problems in college sports have escalated since President Roosevelt threatened to end football in 1905.

One of the most enduring concerns is reflected in the subtitle of Murray Sperber’s (2000) book, Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education. Contradictions and controversies, substantiated by data and numerous examples from hundreds of intercollegiate sports programs across the nation, have been documented in several other books (e.g. Benedict & Keteyian, 2013; Bowen & Levin, 2003; Clotfelter, 2011; Duderstadt, 2000; Estler & Nelson, 2005; French, 2004; Jozsa, 2013; Lapchick, 2006; Lapchick & Slaughter, 1989; Nixon, 2014; Oriard, 2009; Shulman & Bowen, 2001; Smith, 2011; Telander, 1996; Toma, 2003; Watterson, 2000a; Yost, 2010; Zimbalist, 1999) and reports (e.g. American Association of University Professors, 1989; Desrochers, 2013; Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, 1991, 2001, 2009, 2010; Sack & Staurowsky, 1998; Savage, Bentley, McGovern, & Smiley, 1929). These authors and hundreds more offer critical insights into why competitive game play between U.S. colleges and universities has been and continues to be so scandalous. Some of these explanations are presented in the next section.

The Sociology of (Un)Sportsmanlike Conduct

Corruption in college sports is traceable back to the very first intercollegiate athletics contest in the U.S., a boat race between Harvard and Yale in 1852 on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. James Elkins, superintendent of the Boston, Concord, Montreal Railroad, invested money into land at Lake Winnipesaukee and aspired to transform the area into an attractive tourist destination (Sperber, 2004). Elkins thought a sporting contest between the two most popular colleges in the country would attract huge crowds to the lake and garner considerable media attention. In exchange for their participation, Elkins offered a financial incentive to the Harvard and Yale boat crews. According to Sperber, it was later discovered that some men who competed in the race were not college students; they are believed to have been professional rowers who were hired for the event. He therefore observes: “even before the starting gun went off or an oar hit the water, two elements were at play: the event was totally commercial, and the participants were cheating. The history of intercollegiate athletics has gone downhill from there” (p. 18). Capitalism, greed, and enormous sums of money have since escalated myriad problems in what has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise, an industry in which per-athlete expenditures presently exceed per-student expenditures at many institutions and coaches earn the highest salaries on campus (Desrochers, 2013).

Understanding the motives of misconduct requires some acknowledgement of human participation in competitive situations. Cheating in the Yale vs. Harvard boat race most assuredly occurred because one school did not want to lose a public contest to its rival. Given the time and effort they invest into conditioning, practices, travel, and so on, student-athletes would rather win than lose. Pressures from teammates, coaches, alumni, and fans exacerbate these feelings. Student-athletes whose performances are not as great as they and others expect often aspire to do better. Furthermore, those accomplished young women and men who amass stardom and praise for their athletic prowess usually feel enormous pressure to remain at the top of their game and satisfy spectators who love them when they win. And then there are those who only view college enrollment and intercollegiate athletics participation as a vehicle to actualize their professional sports aspirations – anything short of excellence poses a serious threat to their being drafted by the NFL, NBA, or some other professional sports organization. These pressures comingle with a host of other factors that compromise integrity in intercollegiate athletics.

In addition to the excitement and personal accomplishment that student-athletes and their teammates feel, sports victories also reap enormous financial and reputational benefits for institutions. Rudolph (1962) tells of how Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusetts Amherst) was not thought to be a “real college” until it defeated Harvard in an athletic contest in 1870; the state legislature significantly increased its appropriations to the college shortly thereafter. An institution receives considerable exposure when ESPN broadcasts College GameDay from its campus and when its sports teams appear in nationally televised contests. There is just so much more enthusiasm when the school wins. Plus, advancing to the conference championship, a post-season bowl game, College World Series, or the next tournament round during March Madness has serious financial implications.

The profit potential in big-time college sports, namely football and men’s basketball at NCAA Division I universities, compels coaches and others to win at all costs, including occasionally breaking the law and violating policies established by their institutions, athletics conferences, and the NCAA. The University of Michigan’s football stadium has 109,901 seats (University of Michigan, 2014) – surely, the goal is to fill as many of those seats as possible at every home game. However, fans are less likely to buy tickets if the Wolverines are on a losing streak; the university consequently receives less revenue when seats are empty. Moreover, alumni and boosters are more energized by a winning team. Their enthusiasm often produces profits. Conversely, losses often compel fans (some of whom are current and prospective donors) to pressure the university to make personnel changes.

Coaches who fail to fill seats, sustain back-to-back winning seasons, take their teams to post-season competitions, occasionally win championships, and stimulate giving among alumni and other enthusiasts are vulnerable for termination. People in most professions, not just college sports, would go to great lengths to save their jobs. However, it is plausible that the higher a person’s salary is, the more desperate and determined she or he is to retain that high-paying job. Desperation often leads to disillusionment and dishonesty, whatever it takes to maintain one’s position and corresponding lifestyle. Compensation in big-time college sports programs explains, at least in part, why corruption is so commonplace. Seventy head and three assistant football coaches, 35 head men’s basketball coaches, and nine athletics directors (all men) received compensation packages that exceeded $1 million in 2013 (USA Today, 2014). The loss of a million-dollar job surely requires significant lifestyle changes – who wouldn’t protect that? And doesn’t it stand to reason that someone who is not yet at that compensation level would do all sorts of things to win, which, in turn, would make him (or in rare cases, her) more competitive for a multimillion-dollar coaching job?

The NCAA, the Indianapolis-based entity that creates policy and governs most intercollegiate sports programs, also has jobs to protect. While it is technically a nonprofit organization, the NCAA employs several people who earn enormously high salaries. Sander (2010) reports the association’s top 14 executives earned nearly $6 million in 2009, while Solomon (2014) notes that 18 NCAA officials received total compensation packages that exceeded $240,000 in 2012. The association paid its president, Mark Emmert, a $1.36 million base salary in 2013, plus more than $200,000 in other reportable compensation and $235,700 in retirement and deferred compensation (Berkowitz, 2015). In light of the amount of money involved, Yost (2010) offers this sharp critique of the NCAA:

The whole operation – the rules and regulations, the investigations, the seminars on balancing academics and athletics, and the ludicrous term student-athlete – are designed to hide the real business that the NCAA and their participating schools are engaged in: extortion . . . . they are extorting money from (the mostly poor and mostly Black) kids who provide the raw material for the sports-entertainment business that generates billions of dollars for the NCAA and participating schools every year. (pp. 159–160)

Yost further points out how profits (which are used to finance executive compensation) undermine the NCAA’s willingness to more seriously regulate college sports. The same is likely true in some major athletics conferences. For instance, Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby earned a $1.8 million base salary in 2013 (Berkowitz, 2015). That same year, Mike Slive, former Commissioner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), had a total compensation package that exceeded $2.1 million.

Scandals are also explained by contradictions and governance problems on college and university campuses. On the one hand, institutions espouse in mission statements commitments to integrity, student learning, and assorted purposes that have absolutely nothing to do with winning athletic contests (Morphew & Hartley, 2006). But on the other hand, institutional leaders are seduced by revenue generated through big-time sports programs; by dollars procured via corporate sponsorships, television contracts, and alumni giving; and by the positive attention ESPN and other major networks give their institutions when competitions and championships are won. Public and private institutions, albeit for slightly different reasons, are similarly seduced by the commercialization of college sports. Over the past decade, especially during the recent economic recession, public and state-supported postsecondary institutions have experienced sharp declines in revenues from their state and local governments (State Higher Education Executive Officers, 2014). Budget cuts demand diversifying revenue streams, quite possibly making corporate sponsorships, television contracts, and championship payouts more enticing than ever before.

Rudolph (1962) and Thelin (2011) describe eras in the history of American higher education when professors were in charge, when faculty owned admissions and the curriculum, and when they often made important decisions about the institution. Watterson (2000b) points to several instances in the early 1900s in which faculty attempted to keep athletics, particularly football, from spiraling out of control. He notes that, at the University of Chicago in 1905, “the faculty openly defied their ailing president, William Harper, as well as domineering coach and Director of Physical Culture Amos Alonzo Stagg. They refused to allow students to play football unless ‘the moral and physical evils’ were remedied” (p. 293). Watterson also quotes an academic dean at Chicago who characterized football as “a social obsession – a boy killing, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport” (p. 293). Football at Chicago was eventually banned from 1939 to 1969 in large part because of concerns faculty repeatedly expressed about its threat to the institution’s soul.

Statements such as the one the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) crafted in 1989, as well as many of the previously cited reports from the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, spotlight longstanding governance tensions between faculty and athletics departments. In sum, as sport became more popularized and profitable in the university, professors were less able to control its unsportsmanlike features, which has allowed scandals to flourish. These governance problems – especially the question of who is in charge of intercollegiate athletics – are worsened by current shifts in the professoriate. Faculties at many institutions have changed from primarily full-time, tenure-track professors to mostly part-time, adjunct, and clinical/contingent faculty; the latter presently comprises the majority in U.S. higher education (Kezar, 2012). This shift signifies an erosion of faculty leadership, including the ability to limit the corporatization of the university and regulate problematic activities within its athletics department (e.g. lowering admission standards for underqualified recruits). With fewer full-time tenured professors on campus, college sports are almost guaranteed to become more scandalous.

At many institutions, athletics departments are seemingly on the outskirts, even when they are physically situated in or near the center of campus. Buildings in which they are located are usually perceived to be only for coaches, athletics personnel, and student-athletes; few others find reasons to visit, many have no idea what occurs therein. Atmospheres of exclusion, even those not deliberately fostered or sustained, can be places susceptible to scandal. With no (or few) outsiders watching, misconduct and secrecy are more easily sustained. These spaces also tend to be structurally and culturally masculine, oftentimes with men possessing considerably more power and being compensated at much higher rates than women. Harper and Harris (2010) argue that masculine norms and gendered ideologies that privilege men were historically woven into the structure, architecture, and character of most colleges and universities; the same is true of athletics departments at many institutions, including those that women presently lead. We are not suggesting that men and masculinities are bad; we both are men who know countless other men, like us, who are good. Our point here, though, is that settings in which wealthy men are overrepresented and power is inequitably distributed are particularly susceptible to scandals.

In addition to its masculine cultural features, many athletics departments with high-profile football and men’s basketball teams preserve a problematic racial paradox year after year: the majority of student-athletes on those teams are Black men, yet the overwhelming majority of staff and well-compensated leaders are White. Coaches and administrators of color are terribly underrepresented, which also contributes to cultural norms in which opportunity, power, and wealth are inequitably distributed. In 2010, Black men comprised just 6.6 percent of head coaches and 7.4 percent of athletics directors in NCAA Division I (Lapchick, Hoff, & Kaiser, 2010), but were 57.1 percent and 64.3 percent of student-athletes on Division I football and men’s basketball teams, respectively (Harper, Williams, & Blackman, 2013). Workplace settings that lack diversity also tend to lack certain forms of transparency and accountability. To be sure, it is not ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter Structure and Section Overviews
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Bad Sportsmanship: Why College Sports Are so Scandalous
• FIRST QUARTER: Recruitment and Compensation Scandals
• SECOND QUARTER: Competition Schemes, Academics, and Unfair Advantages
• THIRD QUARTER: Abuse and Harm to Student-Athletes
• FOURTH QUARTER: Sexual Misconduct and Gender Discrimination
• Editors and Contributors
• Index