College Sports

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A01=Eric A. Moyen
A01=John R. Thelin
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American history
Athletic Reform
Author_Eric A. Moyen
Author_John R. Thelin
automatic-update
big-time athletics
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JNM
Category=SCX
Category=WSBX
college sports
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
Division I
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
eq_sports-fitness
HBCU
higher education
intercollegiate athletics
Language_English
NCAA
PA=Not yet available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Forthcoming
scandal
softlaunch
student-athlete
Title IX
women’s athletics
youth

Product details

  • ISBN 9781421450094
  • Weight: 839g
  • Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
  • Publication Date: 21 Jan 2025
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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A bold and foundational history of the inception and evolution of intercollegiate athletics in the United States.

In College Sports, historians Eric A. Moyen and John R. Thelin tell the intriguing story of the success—and excess—of American college sports from their inception to today. Arguing that the modern American university's structure spurred the growth of big-time sports, Moyen and Thelin also highlight the treatment of marginalized groups in athletics and the role that commercialization and the media have played in shaping college sports.

Using a wealth of secondary resources, archival records, newspaper articles, and oral histories, Moyen and Thelin offer a chronological account of the popularity, success, and continued challenges of college sports. Most scholarship has portrayed athletics as an anomaly within higher education, but history reveals that college sports enjoy a symbiotic relationship with universities. Reform and a return to a purely amateur model have rarely been a compelling option for those institutions that are successful in commercialized big-time college sports. At the same time, most student-athletes compete in a very different model. And despite their progressive posturing, colleges have been slow to fully adopt civil rights and social justice issues. When full participation was finally extended to women and minorities, it generally meant a move away from the amateur model into a commercial enterprise.

By examining key events at specific universities, athletic conferences, and the NCAA, Moyen and Thelin trace how the media and sports marketing have created an incredibly successful financial model for schools in big-time conferences. Yet this model has also created a precarious fiscal situation for hundreds of other institutions. This provocative and refreshing take on sports in American universities provides the context in which to understand—and improve upon—the current landscape of intercollegiate athletics.

Eric A. Moyen is a professor of higher education leadership and the assistant vice president for student success at Mississippi State University. He is the author of Frank L. McVey and the University of Kentucky and the coauthor of Changing the Game: My Career in Collegiate Sports Marketing. John R. Thelin is the University Research Professor Emeritus of the history of higher education and public policy at the University of Kentucky. His numerous books include A History of American Higher Education and Games Colleges Play.