Your search for: commercialism AND sports

Big-time college sports embodies the ideals of amateurism and provides an important complement to university education. Or so its apologists would have us believe. As Andrew Zimbalist shows in this unprecedented analysis, college sports is really a massively commercialized industry based on ...

Big-time college sports embodies the ideals of amateurism and provides an important complement to university education. Or so its apologists would have us believe. As Andrew Zimbalist shows in this unprecedented analysis, college sports is really a massively commercialized industry based on activities that are often irrelevant and even harmful to education. Zimbalist combines groundbreaking empirical research and a talent for storytelling to provide a firm, factual basis for the many arguments that currently rage about the goals, history, structure, incentive system, and legal architecture of college sports. He paints a picture of a system in desperate need of reform and presents bold recommendations to chart a more sensible future.

Zimbalist begins by showing that today's problems are nothing new--that schools have been consumed for more than a century by debates about cheating, commercialism, and the erosion of academic standards. He then takes us into the world of the modern student athlete, explaining the incentives that, for example, encourage star athletes to abandon college for the pros, that create such useless courses as "T

This book challenges readers to consider the consequences of commercialism and business influences on and in schools. Critical essays examine the central theme of commercialism via a unique multiplicity of real-world examples. Topics include: privatization of school food services; oil company ads ...

This book challenges readers to consider the consequences of commercialism and business influences on and in schools. Critical essays examine the central theme of commercialism via a unique multiplicity of real-world examples. Topics include: privatization of school food services; oil company ads that act as educational policy statements; a parent's view of his child's experiences in a school that encourages school-business partnerships; commercialization and school administration; teacher union involvement in the school-business partnership craze currently sweeping the nation; links between education policy and the military-industrial complex; commercialism in higher education, including marketing to high school students, intellectual property rights of professors and students, and the bind in which professional proprietary schools find themselves; and the influence of conservative think tanks on information citizens receive, especially concerning educational issues and policy.Schools or Markets? Commercialism, Privatization, and School-Business Partnerships is compelling reading for all researchers, faculty, students, and education professionals interested in the connections between public schools and private interests. The breadth and variety of topics addressed make it a uniquely relevant text for courses in social and cultural foundations of education, sociology of education, educational politics and policy, economics of education, philosophy of education, introduction to education, and cultural studies in education.

This book demonstrates how colleges might retain threatened varsity programs and expand sports opportunities for women students if they replaced the current commercial model with one that emphasizes student participation. This would benefit the college students who play varsity sports, instead of ...

This book demonstrates how colleges might retain threatened varsity programs and expand sports opportunities for women students if they replaced the current commercial model with one that emphasizes student participation. This would benefit the college students who play varsity sports, instead of benefiting the coaches, athletic directors, or over-generous boosters who dominate many programs.

Perhaps more than any other two colleges, Harvard and Yale gave form to American intercollegiate athletics -- a form that was inspired by the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry overseas, and that was imitated by colleges and universities throughout the United States. Focusing on the influence of these ...

Perhaps more than any other two colleges, Harvard and Yale gave form to American intercollegiate athletics -- a form that was inspired by the Oxford-Cambridge rivalry overseas, and that was imitated by colleges and universities throughout the United States. Focusing on the influence of these prestigious eastern institutions, this fascinating study traces the origins and development of intercollegiate athletics in America from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. Smith begins with an historical overview of intercollegiate athletics and details the evolution of individual sports -- crew, baseball, track and field, and especially football. Then, skillfully setting various sports events in their broader social and cultural contexts, Smith goes on to discuss many important issues that are still relevant today: student-faculty competition for institutional athletic control; the impact of the professional coach on big-time athletics; the false concept of amateurism in college athletics; and controversies over eligibility rules. He also reveals how the debates over brutality and ethics created the need for a central organizing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which still runs college sports today. Sprinkled throughout with spicy sports anecdotes, from the Thanksgiving Day Princeton-Yale football game that drew record crowds in the 1890s to a meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt on football violence, this lively, in-depth investigation will appeal to serious sports buffs as well as to anyone interested in American social and cultural history.

John R. Gerdy knows sports inside-out. He has been an All-American Basketball Player whose college jersey was retired. He was briefly a professional player. Later he served as an associate commissioner in the NCAA's Southeastern Conference, and as a legislative and ethical advisor to the NCAA and ...

John R. Gerdy knows sports inside-out. He has been an All-American Basketball Player whose college jersey was retired. He was briefly a professional player. Later he served as an associate commissioner in the NCAA's Southeastern Conference, and as a legislative and ethical advisor to the NCAA and the Knight Commission. Currently he teaches courses on sports administration.

Now, in Sports: The All-American Addiction, he brings his insights and observations together in a radical, critical evaluation of the impact of sports on American life.

This book argues that our society's huge investment in organized sports is unjustified. Ardent boosters say that sports embody the "American Way, " developing winners by teaching lessons in sportsmanship, teamwork, and discipline. In fact, Gerdy writes, modern sports are eroding American life and undermining traditional American values essential to the well-being of the nation and its people. Like a drug, this obsession allows Americans to escape problems and ignore issues.

Gerdy asks tough questions. Have sports lost their relevance? Is it just mindless entertainment? Is our enormous investment in sports as educational tools appropriate for a nation that needs graduates to compete in the information-based, global economy of the twenty-first century? Do organized sports continue to promote positive ideals? Or, do sports, in the age of television, corporate sky boxes, and sneaker deals, represent something far different?

Boldly making his case, Gerdy detects five causes for alarm. A violent, win-at-all-cost mentality exists. A greater number of spectators are idly watching the few elite athletes. An athletic culture that is anti-intellectualsystematically creates "dumb jocks." While bridges, inner-cities, and schools are crumbling, tremendous sums of tax dollars vanish to wealthy owners, millionaire players, and to college athletic programs. Studies show that spor