Changing the Playbook: How Power, Profit, and Politics Transformed College Sports by Howard P. Chudacoff (review)

Grossing 16 billion dollars a year, collegiate sports are mass entertainment and a massive business. To explain how the influence of money, media, race, and gender shaped the history of modern college sports, Howard P. Chudacoff promises a book that "tells that story by highlighting the [seven] major milestones, the new playbook from which modern college sports have emerged" (2). Each chapter focuses on a broad theme, exemplified by a key event in the development of college sport. This focus on seminal events creates a work that is thematic rather than narrative, although key developments are discussed chronologically, providing a sense of cause and effect.

The first development is the "abandoning [of] the Sanity Code" during the 1950s, which marks the creation of the "student athlete" (15). The second development is racial integration of athletic teams during the 1960s and 1970s, which fundamentally "altered the quality of the games" (44). The growing influence of television, which turned college sport into mass entertainment following the 1960s, is the third key development. The fourth significant event, the 1984 NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma Supreme Court case, allowed universities to negotiate media contracts independently of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This provided incentives to increase athletics spending dramatically. The fifth milestone was the implementation of Title IX through the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which professionalized and monetized women's sport.

The sixth watershed is the 1987 Southern Methodist University scandal and the NCAA's decision to cancel its games for the season. The event exemplified the scandals of the 1970s and 1980s, when the lure of profits tempted universities to break NCAA regulations regarding donors and recruitment. This, in turn, resulted in a push for reform. The final turning point examined is the coalescence of media and money at the start of the twenty-first century. Exemplified by an ESPN contract that brought fame and wealth to a previously "little-known" (125) University of Louisville, Chudacoff argues that the combination of mass media and athletic success offers significant rewards but at an incredible expense. The work concludes by examining recent issues in college sports, including the Sandusky trial, student unionization, fake courses, and an "athletic arms race" (159). Although Chudacoff is not shy in confronting these issues, he ends on a hopeful note: reforms can be made, and sports still remain central to the university's core mission of "stimulating and feeding [students'] intellectual curiosity and developing them into productive members of society" (161).

A strength of this work is its scope. It is not limited to a single sport, nor does it focus solely on Big Ten programs. Recurring themes, like the power struggle between the NCAA and individual universities, provide chronological structure without giving an outright narrative account. Chudacoff's work is neither a triumphant defense nor a damning jeremiad on the state of collegiate sports. Due to the thematic approach, however, readers will need general pre-existing knowledge of the broader historical narrative to appreciate the work fully. Ultimately, the work will be of interest to historians, students, and fans interested in, and familiar with, the history of collegiate sports.