BackStory

Turf War: A History of College Sports

Chicago Kent College of Law indoor baseball player, M. Ryan. 1910.

From Taylor Branch’s controversial article about college sports for The Atlantic to the tragic scandal uncovered at Penn State, the relationship between higher education and college athletics has provided some of the most heated controversies of the year. But why do sports even exist at colleges and universities?

As the nation readies itself for another round of football championships, college bowls – and of course March Madness and Final Fours – BackStory seeks historical perspective. The American History Guys unpack the origins of college sports, and the ways universities have justified athletics on campus. Peter, Ed, and Brian take us to Amherst College in the 19th century, where the first collegiate Phys. Ed. program blossomed. They also recount a little-known story about the integration of the University of Alabama’s football team.

Guests Include:

  • John Thelin, Professor of Education at the University of Kentucky
  • Andrew Pernell, former University of Alabama football player and one of the first African-American team members

 

Further Exploration:

Listen to individual show segments.

Resources galore! Peruse a list of outside links compiled by the BackStory team — books, articles, and a video of the 1903 Princeton-Yale football game.

Even Further:

Listen to how, after 40 years, one researcher discovered Andrew Pernell’s story.

Check out the discussion that shaped this episode.

Listen to the music used in this episode.

 

13 Responses

  • I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to the U of C’s English department for my heinous grammatical error. I would not blame them if they disavowed me as an alumna or an ‘alumni’.

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    Ramona Martinez
    8/31/2012 at 4:21 pm

  • From my point of view, one of the biggest drawbacks of college sports (and professional sports, for that matter) can be filed under Unintended Consequences (I still hold that you could do either a show or a recurring feature on U.C.’s).. In the case of college sports, I believe it has a detrimental effect on the teaching of physical education, such that the purpose of P.E. in the lower grades is less about teaching children to use their bodies and more about sorting the athletic wheat from the chaff.

    I personally experienced a brief halcyon period when Mrs. Barnes, my grade school P.E. teacher, gave me tutoring in the subject, until budget cuts required her to make the rounds and teach at three different schools. After that, and especially as I got older, it became clear to me that the main purpose of gym class was to allow the coaches to internally scout the school’s athletic talent (often these people were one and the same). The rest of us were largely left to our own devices at best, or starred in the entertainment of ridicule at worst. While I have little other than anecdotal evidence and pop culture depictions to support the idea that my experience was and is common, given the amounts of such evidence and the poor physical fitness of so many Americans, I think there is something to this notion.

    I suspect that if big time sports weren’t so important in terms of money and prestige, there might be more room for the novel concept of tutoring athletically challenged children in more places. After all, we tutor children in math and English and other academic subjects. So why is tutoring in phys. ed. largely unheard of? (Aside from budget cuts and attacks on the public sector generally and public education particularly, that is.)

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    Brenda
    9/1/2012 at 10:48 am

  • I love your show, and enjoyed the recent episode on college sports. I have to take exception to your wrap up of the show, regarding the benefits of college sports. My view is not that college sports are inherently bad, but that the outsized importance of sports, and the influx of large amounts of money surrounding them are corrupting on universities. In my mind, the problem is that, whereas MLB has established a minor leagues to train young athletes and to identify the exceptional players, the NFL and NBA have simply used the college sports apparatus for that purpose (without having to pay for it, I might add). Imagine if the NFL and NBA set up minor leagues as MLB has. Then a larger pool of young athletes would have the opportunity to be paid for their work, and smaller communities would have the benefit of community sport teams. If, as Ed stated, that most colleges don’t make money from sports, then the outsized importance of sports on college campuses is even less justified. Colleges could potentially make money by renting out their sports facilities to community teams if building new facilities is not possible or economically feasible.

    At the bottom line, college sports should be for students, not a money making opportunity for television networks. Athletes who make money for others should be paid.

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    Craig Stevens
    9/1/2012 at 1:06 pm

  • Your reaction to Branch’s evocation of slavery overlooked gradations of exploitation.. Athletes in big-time programs are much more akin to post-Civil War agricultural workers, from share croppers to undocumented alien field hands, who structurally are intimidated into accepting their lot.

    I wish someone would bring make the case that D-I scholarships are contracts for peonage and therefore unenforceable under the 13th Amendment..

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    Bruce Pencek
    9/2/2012 at 6:38 pm

  • One point of clarification, which only matters because y’all are historians and care about accuracy. The Sam Bam Cunningham game vs. Alabama was not in Tuscaloosa but in Birmingham, where Bama played most of its home games in the 60s and 70s. Otherwise a great episode.

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    Lisa Southerlandlgsouther
    9/2/2012 at 8:07 pm

  • NFL rule requires a player to either be out of high school for three years. This seems to be a rule that would have restricted Mr. James had he been a football player.

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    Stephen Ohs
    9/3/2012 at 12:00 pm

  • NFL rule requires a player to either be out of high school for three years. Mr James would not have been able to play football but is able to play basketball?

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    Stephen Ohs
    9/3/2012 at 12:04 pm

  • Just listened to this one and was jarred by the rapid switch from an excellent story about the integration of southern college football during the civil rights movement to a piece asking if college sports was related to slavery. While a thought provoking argument, I have a hard time believing the story of the integration of the Alabama team with its forgotten heroes and modern day mythology was a march towards less freedom and opportunity for the athletes involved.

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    Brett Abbott
    9/12/2012 at 4:20 pm

  • Listened to this podcast today. I enjoyed the part about the University of Alabama. I am a 4th generation long time fan. The statement about how Bear Bryant could have been a hero if he had stood up and integrated the football team 8 years before when the school integrated hit a nerve. I had to go back in my mind because I thought that wasn’t really fair. From what I have learned about Bear he wanted to integrate the team long before but the school and the state wouldn’t really allow it. Didn’t he try to integrate Kentucky and Texas A&M in the 50s but they wouldn’t have it? I’m not sure if Wikipedia is correct but see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Bryant. I grew up in AL in the 70s and my father thought Bear was a god. Even after integration AL was a hard place to be black. Some would say it still is. Most of the state seems to be in a time warp to me. So, I see Bear as a man who was ahead of his time in trying to do the right thing but maybe he had to bend to peer pressure to get his job done. Does that mean he could have been stronger? Well, I guess but it must have been hard to live in those shoes.

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    K
    1/12/2013 at 12:53 pm

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