The Athlete, the Amateur, & the Academic
Chicago Kent College of Law indoor baseball player, M. Ryan. 1910.
Quick — what’s the first thing that comes to mind when we say “college sports?” Did you think “scandal?” What about “pay-for-play?”
College sports have provided some of the most heated controversies of the year, and so we can’t help but wonder; why do sports even exist at colleges and universities? After all, it seems like most of the problems associated with amateur athletics would disappear if they weren’t taking place at places of “higher learning.”
In this episode, we’re going to look at the origins of college sports, and the ways universities have justified athletics on their campuses throughout history. And that question about paying student athletes? Turns out… it goes back a lot further than you might think.
Let us know what you want to know! Share your stories, questions, and ideas below.
Further Reading
COMING SOON…
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Podcast: Big News From BackStory (also some sports) | BackStory with the American History Guys :
[...] If you’re interested in reading more about college sports in American history, follow this link. [...]
Quote -- February 4, 2012 @ 5:36 pm
I wonder if you have come across the idea that the “student-athlete” was a category that was invented to deny athletes the rights of any other person who worked at the stadium?
QuoteEven when I attended college in the late 1980s, the ‘controversy’ of so-called student athletes was in the news with the NCAA sanctioning schools for the actions of the students no longer enrolled. Colleges were big and not big names like OSU, NCSU, UNLV, etc.
From my tenure on campus, student athletics seemed to exist in name only. The athletes got the best dorm rooms available, had tutors paid by the university, [allegedly] wore new shoes every game by a leading athletic company, spending money, best tickets to the university games, etc. For all purposes, these athletes were paid – not with money but in kind. Then the allegations of University boosters and supporter giving the athletes new cars, clothes, etc. Basically, the ethos was if it was not a technical violation of the rules, who cares. Hence how we got to the current generation that really doesn’t care about fair play, selective theology, or their fellow person.
The loss of amateur sports took a nose dive when it was found that other countries were using professional paid athletes for their national Olympic teams, a supposed amateur sport. The US response, was something like F*** the rules and we used our own professional athletes in the following years.
Basically, lets face reality of the situation, make all athletics PAID professions.
On another note, in history, was there anything like amateur athletics? I have seen many books calling amateur sports a myth of our imagination.
Quote“Amateur” sport followed “professional” sport with rowing in the USA, where in the 1860s and 1870s pro rowing was America’s most popular and lucrative sport. In 1872 a National Association of Amateur Oarsmen (today US Rowing) was founded to distance itself from the rigged bets, thrown races, poisoned oarsmen, and crooked betting pools of the professionals. Yet colleges still hired these reviled pro rowers as their coaches: John Biglin at Amherst College and Dartmouth, Ellis Ward at Amherst and the University of Pennsylvania, Charles Courtney at Cornell, and James Ten Eyck at Syracuse University.
For background on the rise and ruin of pro rowing see “Olympic rowing — you need both grace and guts” in “Smithsonian” magazine, July 1996, 88-99 by William Lanouette.
QuoteI was born and raised in Carlisle Pennsylvania. As such, Jim Thorpe is someone all school children learn about at an early age. Well, that and the battle of Gettysburg. So my question is, was he the first major (ie well known) athlete to run into problems when it came to amateur and professional status? I will always believe his olympic medals should not have been taken away from him.
Quotegreat show, all the best
Marc Hutzell
Silver Spring MD.
The discussion about the abuses in college sports always centers on the male-dominated “marquee” sports – football and men’s basketball. Don’t forget female student athletes, most of whom are not on scholarship and have no pro leagues for their sports. Without college-level competition, most of these women wouldn’t have any chance to exercise their talents (no pun intended). Title IX gave women the opportunity to play and compete at the college level. The budget issues that have developed as a result of Title IX’s fiscal parity clause, I think, are part of the story here, as boosters have felt the need to raise money to prop up marquee sports outside of the university’s budget.
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