Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics (review)

Just like the weather, it seems that everyone complains about big-time sport, but no one ever does anything about it. This is, in essence, the primary thesis of John Gerdy's Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics, the most recent addition to the spate of books published on the problems of college athletics during the last five years.

While, arguably, the most influential writing in this area in recent years has been data-based critical analyses of specific problems associated with college sport (e.g., Bowen & Levin, 2003; Shulman & Bowen, 2001), Air Ball is a thoughtful and relatively provocative opinion piece based on the observations of John Gerdy, a man whose life has included sport in just about every way conceivable.

In addition to the introduction and a chronology of college athletics reform initiatives, the book is comprised of nine chapters. Although the author makes occasional references in later chapters to points made earlier in the book, the chapters are not necessarily laid out cumulatively. I found that most of the chapters could stand on their own as independent pieces of writing.

Gerdy begins with a brief overview of why competitive sport were incorporated into higher education at the turn of the 20th century. In addition, he traces how sport have evolved into a significant problem for colleges and universities. He next provides an examination of how American society has embraced what the author describes as "the elite, professional model" (p. 27) of sport and how it has been allowed to grow, relatively unchecked, beyond colleges and universities to take root in communities and their high schools around the nation. Gerdy then identifies and frames the challenges inherent in any type of major changes being made to "fix" interscholastic and intercollegiate athletics. Recognizing these challenges, he presents a solution based on the adoption of the club and community-based team sport system used throughout Europe.

Gerdy discusses why he believes it has been impossible to date to reform college sport. He describes it as being like "a freight train careening down the tracks, accelerating and gathering more power" (p. 87), and he examines the major "players" involved in attempts made over the years to reform college sport. This discussion, structured chronologically, describes the reform efforts and the degree to which their proponents accomplished their goals.

Gerdy next critiques the "professional model" on which college sport is based and explains how, in his opinion, the commercialization of intercollegiate athletics is destroying all that is good about it. He concludes by calling college and university administrators, including trustees, presidents, and faculty, as well as those who administer sport programs directly, to take action and make the changes that he propounds.

I take issue with its title, Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics. In proclaiming that our system of elite athletics was an experiment undertaken by American education, Gerdy implies that some sort of master plan was involved in including organized, competitive sport as part of the American educational experience. This is, of course, not the case.

Institutional involvement in the birth and evolution of school-based sport has been more of an exercise in follow-the-leader, with a handful of institutions taking the lead in emphasizing athletics as part of its mission for the purpose, ultimately, of increasing revenue. Everyone else has followed these athletic powerhouses, driven by the perception that there is an important right to wave that ubiquitous foam finger, proclaiming "We're number one!"

In addition to being historically inaccurate, I also felt that the title did not accurately reflect the focus of the book's contents. I was expecting a historical analysis of the tumultuous relationship between athletics and education, not a plan for reform based on personal experiences and observations.

For me, reading Air Ball was like having a piece of fruit instead of a hot fudge sundae—an...